Marshfield
The circus-barking title of the book, 'Let Me Show You Vermont', was born in a moment of bombast...The one encouragement to effort is the possibility that I may reflect Vermont, in some of its phases, differently and more fully than has been done before.
Charles Edward Crane, “Let Me Show You Vermont”
Merv Spooner's barbershop is on the left side of Creamery Street just before the long roll down into Marshfield Village. If you stop in on a Saturday morning you can still get a haircut for five dollars from this "flat top specialist," as well as some good conversation. Ask Merv about the mysterious theft of his barber pole a few years back, and how it was replaced with the help of funds raised by a local radio station's community phone-a-thon.
I live on a hill not too far from Merv in Marshfield, and because this is my home ground, I can narrate more stories about this place than any of the other 250 towns in Vermont. I know, for instance, that most activity in Marshfield takes place not in the tiny town center, but in the very old, old and somewhat newer houses that dot the dirt roads of surrounding hills and valleys.
But I like town centers, including Marshfield’s, even if they are not much more than a steepled church and a cluster of homes that have seen better days. Here, in addition to multiple churches with and without steeples and a collection of vintage housing, we also have a post office, Derek's Quick Stop, and a hunting store, all merged together in a 19th century clapboard mini-strip mall.
Also to be enjoyed is Rainbow Sweets, a bakery that, as an online review says, “is a tiny bakery in a tiny town, but the flavors are huge.” The Marshfield General Store, as another reviewer notes, has “yummy sammiches, pizza, beer and pretty much everything else you need in Marshfield,” including locally sourced gin.
Marshfield spreads up to Hollister Hill, the long and varied road where I live, and then makes it’s slow, steep way down to Plainfield and the Winooski River. Its Main Street is Route 2, the fabled east-west highway that runs from Washington State to Maine. You’ve gotta love a road, and a town, with that kind of possibility.