Typically, when we tell people we are going away for a week or a weekend and they ask us where we are going, we usually say something like, "Myrtle Beach", or "Las Vegas", or "New York City", or "DisneyWorld". Vermont however, the entire state is in essence, a destination, as well as a state of mind. No, Billy Joel will never sing her praises, and Sinatra will never belt out the sentiment that if he could make it there, well, he could most likely make it anywhere. It will never linger on Ray Charles' mind like Georgia, and Elvis will never swivel his hips to "Viva Vermont". (If he did, he would be wearing a checkered red and green thermal shirt and a "Cat Power" hat). Despite its lack of presence in songs, one need only state, "We're going to Vermont", and a dozen images appear in our minds...most of them involving foliage.
Columbus Day is like Christmas, New Years Eve, and Kwanza wrapped up into one red and gold package in Vermont. The holiday simply says "getaway", and Vermont is the ultimate autumn destination. We are fortunate that we live in the capital region, and are less than 40 minutes from Vermont. My wife swears that the mountains are bigger and better as soon as you cross into Vermont. I agree. Vermont makes you do things you wouldn't normally do. If my wife approached me 51 weekends out of the year and said to me, "Do you want to go take a drive and maybe look at antiques". I would answer with all of the enthusiasm of one looking forward to a colonoscopy. But tell me that we're going to do the same thing in Vermont, and all of sudden I'm frolicking through the Vermont countryside looking for Benny Goodman '78s, and 600 varieties of scented candles.
I'm sure a lot of people see Vermont as a winter skiing wonderland. But since I can't ski, I think that people who think that way are stupid. It's all about fall! No weekend celebrates the idea of bright colored leaves, Apples, Apple Cider, Apple Cider Donuts, Hard Cider, Cider House Rules etc...more than Columbus Day. I think Christopher Columbus would be proud that people still remember his historic voyage by embarking on leaf-peeping tours of Vermont, and crazy to hard to resist sales. In a way, you could argue that Vermont has softened the image of Columbus. Not unlike Muhammad Ali and Elvis, Columbus has had his reputation rise and fall and sort of rise again like few in world history. When I was in school, Columbus was one of the three mythical gods of American history along with Washington and Lincoln. When I was a child, we were taught that Columbus was a beacon of light in an otherwise dark and ignorant world who believed despite the cynics and doubters who made up the majority, that in fact. the world was round instead of flat.
By the time I became a teacher in 1989, Columbus was a villain, a bringer of death to the new world who knowingly spread disease and slavery, a 15th century Hitler with a blonde "buster brown" haircut. (It should be noted that despite the many portraits that exist of Columbus, not one of them were painted while he was alive, so for all we know he could look like "Mario" from Nintendo, he was Italian after-all) Revisionist historians love to point out that the western hemisphere was populated with 25 million indigenous people, but in less than 100 years that number had dropped to barely over one million. Columbus' "Q" rating took a nasty dip after this factoid began to circulate around elite halls of our learning institutions. In fairness, many historians dispute this fact and one noted scholar, no less an authority on almost anything, the one and only Rush Limbaugh is on record* claiming that the "Injuns" were asking for it by walking around with compromised immune systems. Limbaugh was also quick to point out that the Indians were so lame, that despite discovering and contributing the cocoa bean and the subsequent chocolate drink that emanates from it, it took the white Europeans to add sugar to the drink and therefore make it "Yummy for my tummy".
* (Editors note - Limbaugh never said this to the best of my knowledge, but in my head, it seems like something he would say.)
Vermont has been indispensable in the resurrection of Columbus' reputation. A trip to Vermont means maple syrup, fudge, (All driving vacations include fudge on some level, visitors to our country must be perplexed that any trip in the car more than 40 minutes seems to require all Americans to stop and "Fudge up"!) cheese, Ben & Jerry's, Micro-Brewed beer, and apples. How can a holiday that includes all of that be all bad?
Technically, Columbus is completely innocent, after-all, he thought he was in the East-Indies. He actually thought he was invading and killing somebody totally different, so you know it wasn't personal.
Let's face it, we may hate Columbus, but none of us is turning down the day off. More importantly, without Columbus, the Western Hemisphere wouldn't have coffee, sugar, tomatoes, cows, sheep, pigs, horses, small pox or STD's. All the Americas had were cocoa, potatoes, and tobacco. I guess you could say that tobacco has done its share of damage to the old world. Emphysema vs. Syphilis! Thanks a lot Columbus!
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