Maggie's Farm

St. Johnsbury, VT is about 40 miles south of the Canadian border, and with a population around 7000 it is the main town in Vermont's rural Northeast Kingdom. Calvin Coolidge went to school there and Dr. Bob of AA fame grew up there.

You drive through St. Johnsbury on the way to somewhere else, such as grouse hunting in NH or Maine. It's a sad, run-down old town today, with plenty of poverty and few jobs, and it gives you the feeling that those with the inner resources to leave, do so.

Except for the farmers, the logging truck drivers and the Maple sugar bottlers, it's lots of folks on Vermont welfare who would have much better lives if they took a deep American breath and left the squalor behind by taking a bus to Atlanta, Alabama, or Arizona to find a new life and a real job where they could be of use.

This 1900 fixer-upper pictured can be had for $89,000. I wouldn't take it if you gave me $89,000, unless it was wintertime and I was desperate for shelter. No amount of money could make this house charming or homey, but shelter is shelter and, in VT in the winter, ya gotta have some and to hell with charm.