A tale of two auto body shops.

Birge Street in Brattleboro, Vermont. Flowers and solar panels?

15th Street in New Albany, Indiana. Heavy metal?

Eastern USA Road Trip 2016, Day 4: Lunch in New Hampshire, and a last look at Vermont.

For musical accompaniment to driving hours and hours eastward in 2016, there was no rock and roll in the car. Instead, I brought along a couple dozen swing era compilation discs, many of which I'd recorded on cassettes way back in the day, even before my parents had a car with a cassette deck in it. In 1972, I'd air them on my battery-operated player. They kept my father calm during those long treks out west, and I liked the songs, too. Listening to them again dislodged memories, some good and some bad. Billie Holiday's singing is never bad, and her only recording with Artie Shaw was one of several ear worms as we neared Massachusetts. 

Like any red-blooded American, it once occurred to me that setting foot in all 50 states would be something fun to say I'd done.

But what constitutes "being there"? Do airports count? Must one spend the night? Can exceptions be declared for extenuating circumstances?

I'd answer no, no and yes. At a bare minimum, one must drink a beer and/or eat some food AND take a leak. After all, dogs mark territory by urinating, so why not humans? Most dogs don't drink beer, but all of them eat.

Why not humans?

To quote Groucho Marx, these are my principles, and if you don't like them ... well, I have others.

In any event, the state count had climbed to 41 coming into our Eastern USA Road Trip 2016, and Vermont was #42. New Hampshire was just across the Connecticut River, and we elected to make the scenic drive on Friday morning, past Pisgah State Park, to claim state #43 with lunch in Keene at the Elm City Brewing Company.

Keene is a city in Cheshire County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 23,409 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Cheshire County. Keene is home to Keene State College and Antioch University New England, and formerly hosted the state's annual Pumpkin Festival.

Too bad about the pumpkin festival. Had there been one in session, it would have counted in lieu of food, drink or pit stops.

There is an excellent coffee shop in downtown Keene (Prime Roast), and a Soldiers' Monument, which was built in 1871.

Elm City Brewing Company (founded 1994) is part of a shopping mall in a renovated former factory called Colony Mill Marketplace. Read more about it in my accompanying beer narrative:

Very different and both enjoyable: Elm City Brewing Company (NH) and Hermit Thrush Brewery (VT).

Back in Brattleboro by mid-afternoon, it was time to walk and graze among the regional delicacies. Have I mentioned the alarming weight gain amassed during this road trip?

A quick stop at Whetstone Station's outdoor riverside seating for a round of beers and crab cakes quickly led to Brattleburger to indulge in a Vermont Maple Creamee, and then Elliot Street Fish, Chips and More's deep-fried haddock and potatoes.

The car had been strategically placed in the public lot off High Street, mere yards from the Hermit Thrush brewery, this outpost having been saved until last because I strongly suspected there'd be a buying spree.

I was right, and you can read all about it here:

Very different and both enjoyable: Elm City Brewing Company (NH) and Hermit Thrush Brewery (VT).

As a final look at Brattleboro, kindly note the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Confidential agree with the color scheme on this house, and we believe this combination would look wonderful on Spring Street in New Albany.

Next: Meeting the baby in South Hadley.

Eastern USA Road Trip 2016, Day 3: A varied melange of Brattleboro.

Bob Dylan's classic song from 1975 has absolutely nothing to do with Brattleboro, Vermont on September 1, 2016, except when I heard it in the morning that day while browsing the goods at Sam's Outdoor Outfitters, it bored deeply into my cranium, perhaps because it is one of two songs (with "Hurricane") bringing me belatedly in the mid-seventies to Dylan's oeuvre. Now, by sheer coincidence, "Tangled Up in Blue" always will remind me of Brattleboro, and this is why I love music's serendipitous meandering.

We had rented a spacious Airbnb apartment in a house on the ridge above town, just behind a row of strange lookalike old factory buildings. Further down the hill is Whetstone Brook, which empties into the Connecticut River.

Our morning walk began by crossing this creek to Elliot Street for breakfast at the Restless Rooster. The omelettes were substantial and the coffee suitably black. As we ate, an itinerary for the day was devised. Next stop was Sam's Outdoor Outfitters.

Sam's dates to 1932 and began as an Army and Navy surplus stores.

SAM'S was and is, today still, a family owned business in its third generation. The business has thrived and expanded to a total of 3 Department Stores in operation today. The other 2 stores are in Keene, NH and Hadley, MA.

It was unfolding as a normal shopping experience in an oddly configured old-school warren of urban retail spaces, several components of which have been connected to each other, when suddenly came a double whammy.

First Dylan's narrative, then the sight of an unobtrusive yet compelling "memorial" to the store's founder, Sam Borofsky. This article from 2011 provides background.

From Russia with love: The Borofsky legacy, from the old country to Brattleboro, by Fran Lynggaard Hansen (Commons News/Vermont Independent Media)

... Like so many families in Brattleboro, the Borofsky story is one of hardscrabble immigrants and their children, the first generation Americans who made good.

Stanley “Pal” Borofsky recounted his family’s history with the satisfaction of a son proud of his father’s success.

The mini-shrine was nothing more than old photos and a plaque of sorts, explaining Mr. and Mrs. Borofsky's lives, but it touched me deeply, perhaps because of my own small business tenure.

84 years later, the business climate has changed, and while Sam's remains ensconced in downtown Brattleboro, the founder's grandson isn't sure how much longer this will continue.

Brattleboro's Barber Building up for sale ... Sam's: Staying in business ... for at least another 10 years, by Robert Audette (Brattleboro Reformer)

A landmark building in downtown Brattleboro is up for sale. The Barber Building, which has been in the Borofsky family for more than seven decades, houses Sam's Outdoor Outfitters and about 50 apartments. On Friday, Brad Borofsky told the Reformer that the family was getting out of the landlord business and had listed the property with Ranger Curran of RE/MAX Town & Country.

Much luck to the family as they chart their future course. After coffee, there was a walk to the Prospect Hill Cemetery on a hill to the south of the center ...

 ... then an examination of the buildings of the former Estey Organ Company, but not before one of the oddest sights of the trip.

It's an auto body shop with solar panels and flower beds. Just to the east on Birge Street is what remains of the Estey Organ Company.

By the late 1800s, more than 500 workers occupied these buildings, tasked with the construction of reed (and later pipe) organs.

Estey Organ Building: National Registration Nomination Information

The former Estey Organ Company factory comprises a nineteenth century industrial complex of eleven principal buildings together with several outbuildings and related structures The complex occupies a narrow terrace on a hillside above Whetstone Brook, bounded on the east by Birge Street and on the north by Estey Street.

These remaining buildings appear to be in the process of gradual restoration and adaptive reuse. There are several businesses therein, and a day care center. There's also a museum.

Estey Organ Museum

 ... After a devastating flood in 1869, the company purchased a large tract of land in Brattleboro to re-build the factory. The new factory buildings were designed with fire prevention and fire fighting in mind. On the land behind the factory, workers were offered lots on which to build homes. This area, known as Esteyville, became a village in which Estey employees and their families lived, worked, attended school, recreated, and worshiped.

The Estey complex being a literal stone's throw from our room, there was a brief period of rest and recuperation, followed by an early dinner.

The view (with beers) at Whetstone Station Restaurant and Brewery in Brattleboro, Vermont.

The day's final stop was at the Brattleboro Food Co-op. I found it incredible, and the beer section alone sufficed to blow my mind, but not everyone likes what the co-op has become:

"What we have now is indistinguishable from a Whole Foods Market or a Trader Joes, except our prices are a little higher."

And, through little fault of its own, the co-op made the headlines in 2011, when a longtime employee murdered his immediate supervisor on the co-op's premises. 2011 sounds like it was a bad year in Brattleboro.

Now, about that beer.

A Whole Foods clone? Perhaps. Can there be affordable food co-ops in the present age? I'd like to think so.

In the end, being owned collectively by more than 6,000 persons strikes me as preferable to chain-think.

Eastern USA Road Trip 2016, Day 2: Across Ohio and New York to Brattleboro, Vermont.

There were times during the drive across the Green Mountains to Brattleboro from the New York state line when I wasn't sure if our 4-cylinder Ford Fusion would make it up another steep grade.

My father famously avoided New England because he viewed the region as having too many people and not enough mountains, but in southern Vermont -- and in neighboring New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and even in western Connecticut -- there are hills aplenty.

What it comes down to is my dad's fervent embrace of the Old West's mythology, all that rugged individualism, snow-capped peaks and men being men. I respect him for this, though he missed out on some first-rate scenery in the eastern states.

On our first evening in Brattleboro (population 12,000), we took possession of our Airbnb apartment and made a brief orientation drive through downtown.

The city has parking meters and public parking lots (short and long term). Prices are reasonable; the long-term lot we entered costs 30 cents an hour, and is free after 6:00 p.m. and on weekends. Metered spaces seemed to constantly open, which of course is the whole point.

Every town in New England situated by a watercourse is a former mill town. Sawmills and gristmills were first in Brattleboro, which lies on the Connecticut River. Later came industries of all stripes, including an church organ factory.

I kept looking for these pills in the pharmacies. They sound useful in a small city with three breweries.

Over at the Potable Curmudgeon blog there is an overview of drinking and eating on our first night in Brattleboro.

A hand-pulled pint at McNeill's Brewery in Brattleboro, Vermont.