photo by Shaun Robinson/VTDigger
Vermont Statehouse cafeteria employee Nate Corson, who is a leap day baby, stands behind the grill on Thursday, a leap day.
by Shaun Robinson, VTDigger
PLAINFIELD – Nate Corson said his leap day birthday celebrations were dampened this year because he is no longer able to afford to stay at his home in Plainfield, and he might leave the state.
I had it on good intelligence this morning — this chilly, windy, Feb. 29 — that there is a leap day baby who works in the Statehouse. My nose soon led me to the cafeteria, where I found supervisor Nate Corson busy prepping for the daily lunch rush.
Corson turns 15 today — or, by another count, 60. He’s worked in the cafe for five years, where his job entails pretty much “everything,” he said, as a colleague stood nodding nearby.
What’s it like to have a birthday only every four years? “The anticipation is overwhelming. You feel like you have to tell everybody about it,” Corson said with a laugh. “You don’t get to celebrate your birthday every year, so when you get to, you like to go big.”
Going big, for Corson, has usually meant a trip to a sandy beach or to a snowy slope. Both seem like fitting escapes for the longtime ski bum, who also spent a decade-plus working at a steakhouse and nightclub in Killington.
But this year, Corson said he pulled the plug on a trip to Florida after getting notice that his lease, on a home in Plainfield, is not being renewed. Corson said he has an option to buy the place, but he doesn’t think he can afford to do so.
Corson said he’s not sure where he and his two roommates — a black Lab named GiGi and a chocolate Lab named Ahi — will go next. He’s considering buying a camper, he said, because he doesn’t think that he can swing much else.
“I think I’m leaving Vermont,” he told me. “It’s too expensive to live here.”
Corson’s words are timely. Affordability has been the throughline of many policy debates in Montpelier this year. Gov. Phil Scott made the issue the focus of his weekly press conference on Wednesday, and lawmakers have grappled with projected steep property tax hikes from 2025 school budgets that, for some districts, will appear on Town Meeting Day ballots in just a few days.
“It’s an unfortunate situation,” Corson said of his own, now firing up the grill. A line was starting to form at the cafeteria entrance, and it was back to work.
