Welcome to Chelsea - Don't Blink

Dad's stories have been told and retold many times over the years.  I never tire of hearing them and somehow writing them down feels like uncovering newly found tales from long ago.  Recently, Dad and I sat together on a bright, unseasonably warm Saturday afternoon.  Mom bustled around the kitchen shooting eye rolls at us from time to time at the familiar recounting of details being told yet again.  Dad and I simply carried on with our chatter down memory lane and let the stories unfold.  In the end, we were grateful for Mom's fact confirming precision as all three of us embarked upon the shared telling of long ago anecdotes from the early days in Chelsea, Vermont.

Tucked in a small valley, off the beaten path of central Vermont, entering Chelsea feels like stepping back in time, as if the pendulum of the town's steeple clock simply stopped swinging one day and never resumed its timekeeping rhythm.

The year was 1964.  Dad was a newly trained teacher fresh out of college.  He'd never before stepped foot in what later became our cherished Green Mountain state, but he was offered a teaching position and as any job seeking young man would do, he accepted.  Until the opportunity in Chelsea surfaced, his time in the classroom had been limited to student teaching in Manchester, NH, and as a substitute teacher at King Philip High School in Wrentham, MA.  He had much to learn, but naivete and a spirit of adventure were on his side.

With an annual salary of $4,500, no teacher's union, no pension and certainly no paid coaching positions, still Dad steered himself north to teach grades 9 - 12 at Chelsea's High School.  In a school that housed 150 students in grades 7 - 12, Dad slowly but surely chipped away at his rookie status and found his way amongst the kids and families in this small farming community.

Anyone who knows Dad also remembers that he grew up in Walpole, MA.... On Harding Road.  Eating tuna fish sandwiches.  Playing ball with friends and cousins (and prisoners at Walpole prison).  But those are story bits for another day.  The rural Vermont landscape was a whole new adventure and he embraced it.  His one-dog, suburban family growing up stood in stark contrast to a community filled with farmers and their countless chickens, cows, horses, hogs, goats and sheep.  Traffic was at a minimum and nightlife was scarce.

Dad taught five classes a day.  US history and government were his focus.  And with about fifteen students per class, he felt like it was all quite manageable.  Dad was pretty certain that these "farm kids" were far easier to deal with than those he may have encountered back home, and he was grateful for the relative ease of it all.

There's more and more to tell, that is for certain.  A young bride joins him in the Chelsea hills a year later.  A high school basketball team is born.  And without fail a family is started, health insurance and all (phew).

Stay tuned for more Vermont tales  -  some true, some a bit tall, but all fantastically cherished.