EAST MONTPELIER – A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the luxurious digs I called home during one summer of the 1950s, and suggested that there was another story involved. There certainly was.
Old George Lamb, who cooked for our work party up at the Ausable Lakes, heard that I was living in a lean-to about a mile-and-a-half off the road back in the village, and offered his “doghouse” (so-called) as an alternative. Naturally, the next time we were in town, I checked it out.
It was a rough shack, about eight by ten feet, in a thicket of bushes out behind George’s house. It had a black tarpaper roof, and was screened above waist height on two sides. Its main virtue was that I could drive right to it across the high school ball field. It had no running water or plumbing, but it did have a cot and a single light bulb hanging down from the rafters. There was no brook running past the door, so I would have to stop on the way home to bathe and fill my water jug in the river. After the spartan simplicity of lean-to life, it was palatial. I moved in, clothes, typewriter, deer rifle, guitar and all.
I usually got paid in cash, about $45, on Saturday noon after a final five hours’ work. I was often on the road within the hour. I was dating a Bennington coed, the daughter of summer folks (a local tradition). I could get a hot shower in her dorm, and we camped somewhere in the area. Next day it was back to the mountains for the work week. Gas was cheap, my old Plymouth didn’t burn much. It was an idyllic, if temporary situation.
Then one week Heidi announced that she was coming up to visit me, which sounded great to me. Also, she would be with her good friend Jackie and her beau, Phil Everly. Whoa! You may not know how popular the Everly Brothers were. Without going into tedious details, let me assure you that they really were. Their hits included “Bye, Bye, Love” and “Wake Up, Little Susie.”
They recorded for Cadence Records, whose founder, Archie Bleyer, had a step-daughter who went to Bennington, and was a friend of my girlfriend. They arrived one sunny Friday afternoon in a brand-new, bright red, rented Triumph TR-3. There’s no room for three in a TR-3. They pulled spectacularly into town with Phil and Jackie up front and Heidi sticking up from the little space behind the seat with her arms wrapped around a big black guitar case. Good job it wasn’t raining or cold.
Instead of just sitting around George’s doghouse, we decided on an adventure, a cave up in Edmonds Notch. I’d been in there a couple of times. It was a slump cave, formed by the falling away of a huge chunk of cliff on Pitchoff Mountain. It was a tight squeeze, and led down to an end in a slender pool of runoff water. Jackie declined to go in. The rest of us entered and slithered and squirmed our way through the corners and passages.
All of a sudden Phil clamped up. Claustrophobia. He said it was caused by his father’s coal-mining experiences. “I’ve got to get out of here!” he breathed. I let him go first, figuring there was little danger of his getting stuck and trapping the rest of us. I think he broke records getting back out into the sunshine.
We supped at a local restaurant and went back to the doghouse to sing and play. Phil grew up in the back of an old school bus with his brother, Don, and drove around the south as the Everly Family Singers. So he knew ‘em all – “Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine,” “Little Rosewood Casket,” “Wabash Cannonball.” We were as happy as two lovers of country music could be.
Then I began to notice indistinct faces outside the screens, lit dimly by the glow from the overhead bulb. The village kids had found us. They were just listening; but as more arrived, we could hear them out there, rustling and jostling. This wasn’t going to get better. So we decamped in our cars to Heidi’s family cottage, a huge, dark, hulk redolent of disuse and featuring real featherbeds. I think we sang till about two in the morning. Next day I waved a sad good-by to the packed red Triumph. And discovered that I was no longer the lonely hippie who was camping out in George Lamb’s doghouse. The local kids treated me as if they’d seen me walking on water.
Willem Lange is a contractor, writer and storyteller who lives in East Montpelier, Vermont.
