Vermont Travel Notes

My Uncle Bill was a very likable person whom I recall as having a bemused smile on his face as though life were a mostly silly affair playing out in front of us. He and my aunt owned a women's clothing store in Worcester MA but in the evenings he sat in his favorite chair drinking a few Carling Black Label beers and listening to his police scanner (rare equipment several decades ago and I'm not sure it was technically legal at the time). We would read and talk but when the radio crackled and a voice came over it, he would cock his head and listen while carrying on whatever he was doing. I would ask him what was going on and he would explain.

Bill (I call him Bill now that I'm the age he was when I knew him) introduced me to the American Society of Dowsers . He belonged to it and told me it certainly did work and that our ancestors believed so too. Like anything, it was a skill that some people were born with and other people had to learn. You got better at it by practicing. I joined. I received an occasional newsletter but, like many teenagers, or at least the lot I hung out with, my interests changed from year to year finally focusing most of the time on such modern wonders as internal combustion powered mobile machinery, and girls.

A few years ago, those memories of Bill came back when I discovered (or re-learned) that the American Society of Dowsers is headquartered in Vermont. Danville to be specific. It's near Cabot, Peacham, and St. Johnsbury in the northeast part of the state, and just an hour's drive from where I live.

Dowsing is the ancient (and I mean ancient - thousands of years) art of finding water by walking over a piece of ground holding a dowsing stick which moves when you cross underground water. It's usually water that is sought but it can be other items too if you are really good at it. In rural parts of the world, like VT, it is how people used to find a place to dig a well. Dowsers are still in use today for such purposes.

Like any self respecting group of five or more people living in two or more places, they have an annual convention . This year will be their 47th. It is being held at Sugarbush Resort in Warren, just 20 minutes down the road from us. I should go. It would make Bill smile. In fact, he would get a kick out of it if a bunch of us went so why don't you plan to show up also.

There will be workshops, schools, speakers, vendors, the usual rigmarole you see anywhere but I think this one will be more entertaining and educational than most I can think of.

Have fun, learn some new things, and keep an eye out for people with pleasantly quiet demeanors, slight grins, and a twinkle in their eye - they may be relatives of mine.

(c) 2007 Jeff Connor Grunberg Haus