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Legends of My Adolescence

Prologue

I drafted a story back in the late-1990s while attending The University of Vermont.  The story, as it was originally written, was designed to fulfill an assignment for a senior level education class I took during the spring semester of my senior year.  The story was called The Yellow Rain Suit; a colorfully written 5-pager about my first boss, Peter Mollica, and his crazy public outburst on a dreary November day at the Christmas tree farm where I worked during some of high school and college.  The story, as it turned out, amused my professor and many of my classmates, while earning me a reasonable grade, which is all I was really hoping for at the time.  But for all of the practical success that paper earned me, looking back now, I failed to answer my professor’s one and only question, which I still remember to this day:  What’s the point of the story?  The answer to his question eluded me for years.  At the time that I wrote the story, I was simply too close to when the event happened to even attempt to answer it.  I had lived the story, watched it unfold, frame-by-frame, minute-by-minute only three years prior to writing The Yellow Rain Suit.

Time has a way of sorting things out, cataloging memories in some kind of mysterious yet perfect order, making sense of your world, life’s journey, the big experience.  Time brings meaning to your memories.  And simply put, The Yellow Rain Suit was an arbitrarily chosen memory from a sequence of experiences my brain had yet to properly catalog.  The memories of my life experience at age 21 were simply too turbid, too shaken up, too new to make sense of in 1998.  I hadn’t had the chance to fail, succeed, fail, succeed, lather, rinse and repeat enough times. I didn’t have the luxury of nearly four decades of life experience to answer the question, “What’s the point of the story?”  It is my intent, through this blog, to take a crack at answering my professor’s question, by tapping away on this keyboard.  Of course, my life is now busier than it was in 1998, when I originally wrote The Yellow Rain Suit.  But with any luck, with some perseverance, my story will begin to take shape, one paragraph at a time.  Come along for the ride, if you like.  With patience and time, god willing, maybe I’ll get to answer that elusive question after all.

Legends of My Adolescence

The first boss that I ever had, other than my father, was Peter Mollica, an intelligent, dedicated, hard working, man.  As a boss, he was a complete lunatic; there’s simply no other way to put it.  He may go down as the craziest bastard I’ve ever met.  And I say it fondly, because I think a great deal of the man.  I really do.  Pete was a career attorney turned tree farmer, who spent the majority of his life in northern Virginia as a lawyer for the Federal Government.  After retiring, Pete and his wife, Sandy, purchased 90 acres of prime farmland along the Connecticut River in Springfield, Vermont. Over time, Pete developed a plantation of 100,000 Christmas trees, while preserving, maintaining and living in the historically registered colonial farmhouse that sits on the property. 

To put it bluntly, my early days of working for Pete were full of apprehension and fear, mainly due to his notorious temper.  Pete’s temper manifested in two predictable ways—full on screaming and hollering, gnashing teeth, cursing at the sky, daring God to strike you dead-type behavior, or a more subtle version, an eerie, slowly burning rage.  Often the slow burn transformed into the full on screaming rage, unpredictably, without warning.  I personally found the slow burn to be the most unsettling form of his anger because I knew he was investing tremendous amounts of energy to subdue his full-throttle rage.  The concentration and self-control was its own level of intensity altogether.  And once Pandora's box was open, it was like, here it all comes, there it all goes.  Imagine holding your hand over a flame while trying not to scream, and actually not screaming.  And then SCREAMING.  The slow burn temper sometimes transitioned into hysterical laughter and absurdly frightening statements, or threats of suicide, a staple of these performances.  As the years went by, I came to enjoy his rage, his performances, because frankly, they were master works; art by a true madman.    

I began working for Pete during April vacation my junior year of high school, planting Frasier fir Christmas trees.  That week of work turned into seasons of employment:  Spring vacations spent planting trees, summer vacations spent shearing and straightening leaders and fall weekends spent harvesting and stockpiling thousands of trees which were loaded onto tractor trailer trucks bound for upscale homes in wealthy suburbs of Boston, Hartford and New York City.  Every year on Thanksgiving morning, we loaded the last few trucks for the season, ending the wholesale operation for the year. The day after Thanksgiving was the start of the choose and cut retail operation at the farm, the birthplace of my story, The Yellow Rain Suit.

I started working for Pete at age 16 and worked for him until I was 20 years old.  Those five summers seared into my brain a lifetime of memories; a tattoo of male adolescence, crudeness of the finest sort—chewing tobacco and fist fights, wrestling matches and bologna sandwiches, testosterone, sweat, tree pitch and sunburns, accented by a cast of characters I’ll never forget.  Those five years, the extreme characters (several of whom are dead now from risks of excess and hard living), that time in my life—the memories which sustain me now—are the legends of my adolescence.

The Tree Farm Writing Project is an attempt capture my experiences with Peter Mollica’s tree farm, to describe those legends from that short period time starting in the spring of 1992 and ending around Christmas of 1996.  Enjoy.

A Eulogy For Barbara Peterson (Spoken at her funeral, March 20th, 2013)

I stand before you today, to offer a testament to not only a life lived, but a
life shared—a relationship of the most meaningful sort—between my father
and Barb, also fondly known as Nana and Papa. Their relationship lasted
nearly 35 years, far too short of a time. And my brother, Scott, and I were
a part of that relationship, part of what are now memories, building blocks
of a life shared, a life worth fighting for, for better, for worse, for richer,
for poorer. My dad is a fighter. He’s seen his share of loss, of tough times.
But what I love about him most is his spirit, his ability to find happiness, his
remarkable sense of humor; and I know that is what Barb saw in him, why
she built a life with him and became a big part of my early life.

I could stand here today and offer all kinds of sentimental thoughts,
reflections about loss, about how we should live meaningful lives, how we
should hug our loved ones and be nicer to one another; I have no intention
of offering you a Hallmark card moment, but I’ll say this: Days like today
are meant for reflection, for processing where we stand on the vast and,
simultaneously, short spectrum of life. In response, I ask of you: Where do
you stand on this spectrum? Do you have anything left undone? Is there
anything you need to say to a loved one? Is there anyone who deserves your
forgiveness?

Looking around the room today, I see many familiar faces from my
childhood, though familiar faces might not be a completely accurate
description. Maybe "cast of characters" is a more accurate description. The
past week has given me the special opportunity to reflect, to look at old
pictures of days long gone. Thinking back on highlights of my childhood,
I remember The clambake up on LaCross Road, various birthday parties,
the member guest tournaments, Echo Lake, multiple alumni day parades
and the barbecues after, Christmas Eve at Uncle Elly and Aunt Sue's house.
And after all these years, it would seem, now, based on the memories that
dominate my recollection of childhood, that we were always celebrating,
always laughing, always having a good time. The daily grind of life, filling
and emptying the dishwasher, cleaning my bedroom, raking leaves, stacking
wood; I don’t have very clear memories of. But the celebrations, the big
events, the people and the places are alive and well in my head. And Barb
was a huge part of those events, those celebrations.

Barb often played a supporting role at these events; weaving things together,
making sure whatever needed attention got the attention that was needed
(and it’s safe to assume that my brother and I were often the ones who

needed her attention and gentle reminders about having good manners or
advising us that we shouldn’t punch each other in the shoulder).

It saddens me to say goodbye to Barb because it forces me to reconcile with
part of my past, my childhood in particular, a childhood that is far behind
me now. But I credit Barb, and will be forever grateful to her for making
those memories possible. My childhood memories are a big part of who
I am today and because of that and because she always made Christmas
special, and because she had the courage to teach me how to drive a stick
shift on the incredibly steep hills of Springfield, for always picking me up
after track practice, for shuttling me to the town pool or taking me shopping
for school clothes, for encouraging me to attend college where I wanted to
go, regardless of cost, and for many other contributions and selfless actions,
I owe Barb more than I can imagine.

Today, we say goodbye to Barb. It pains us to soldier on, to write new
chapters, to find new reasons to celebrate. But we must. My family thanks
you for being here with us today, for remembering the good times, for
knowing that, without a doubt, there are more good times to come. If you
can, please join us after the conclusion of this service over in Chester at the
American Legion, so we can celebrate Barb's good life.