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Ben Clark loved climbing onto the boughs of the large, spreading trees and in the treehouse his father had built for him in one of them. At two, Clark and his sister, Betsey, watched their father clearing ten acres of an overgrown pasture to put in a peach orchard, dangling their legs from the tail of a pickup while eating hot dogs grilled on the brush piles.
These, said the thirty-two-year-old junior partner of Clarkdale Fruit Farms, were among his favorite memories of growing up on the Deerfield farm.
But he didn't think he'd want to come back to the farm after college any more than his father,Tom, had wanted to return to the farm when he left for college. The family tradition had even deeper roots, with Tom's father, Fred, rejecting a farming life as well. Fred, who'd left to become a coal salesman in Shelburne, returned in 1946 to the farm his father, a physician named Webster Clark, had started in 1915 only after Webster announced he was retiring and offered "first refusal" rights to his son before selling it to a stranger.
Shortly before leaving Warsaw for Gdańsk, I shaved my beard down into a moustache. I dislike the way a moustache looks on my face, but my girlfriend Kaja, a native Pole, is inexplicably enchanted by it. She says it makes me look like a man from a more civilized time, the kind of man you meet on a train, who takes you dancing, who sweeps you off your feet as “The War” winds to a close. A time, she never hesitates in adding acerbically, where a talented member of her gender could expect to rise to the highest levels of the secretarial pool. Moustaches are not often seen in Poland today. Most men my age go in for a shaved head and stubbly face to compliment Adidas-emblazoned outerwear or fleece pullovers from Tesco. You will sometimes see, however, a moustache riding the face of a certain type of Polish man, invariably clad in a short leather jacket, strutting with arms out to the sides and a cigarette in one hand, 50-ish and stocky. I don't fit this latter description, and I was already tired of being stared at by the Polish youth for not adhering to their standards of appearance.
For the last two months, you probably haven't walked into a bookstore without seeing a soft lake-at-sunset with a transposed blue jay — the cover of Jonathan Franzen's new book, "Freedom" — lining the walls. While it is no surprise that a new tome by a great author takes Barnes and Nobles' center stage, the Franzen frenzy doesn't stop there. On August 12, Franzen became the first author in the last decade to reach the cover of Time. Oprah selected "Freedom" as the first book in this season of Oprah's Book Club, even after the controversy that arose between Franzen and Oprah over his last book, "The Corrections", a novel he felt uncomfortable having Oprah endorse. President Obama even got an advance copy to read while vacationing in Martha's Vineyard this past summer. Franzen's recent measure of ubiquity is not interesting for mere ubiquity's sake. Even if we don't think we read much anymore, most can still recognize names like J.K. Rowling, John Grisham, or Jodi Picoult. What is interesting about Franzen is his ability to gain popular prominence as a "serious" novelist.
On September 28, 2009, 25-year-old U.K. resident Gee Atherton found himself walking through the cramped, crumpling shacks of Santa Marta, a slum located on one of the steepest habitable hills in Rio de Janeiro. His destination was the blue inflated arch advertising Red Bull at the top of the hill. As he stood under the shadow of the mystic Christ the Redeemer monument, scanning the narrow streets of the slums that stretched for hundreds of meters below his feet, he could only think of the race that lay ahead. He mounted his bike and pointed his front tire down the course — not towards the trees on the leeward side of the mountain like one would usually expect from a professional mountain biker, but towards the city itself. Atherton, along with his brother Dan and eight more of the world's elite professional mountain bikers, had traveled to the Santa Marta favela ("slum") for "Desafio no Morro" ("Challenge the Hill"), a downhill mountain biking challenge sponsored by Red Bull energy drinks. This "bonkers" race through the favela — adjective supplied by Dirt Magazine — would teach its thrill-seeking participants two lessons about their sport: that every inch of the earth is a potential challenge and, consequently, that mountain biking can be used as a gnarly form of diplomacy.
More Stories from the Past
The Plight of Migrant Tobacco Workers in Kazakhstan
In a report released Wednesday, Human Rights Watch indicted the frequent use of child and forced labor on tobacco farms in the Central Asian state of Kazakhstan. Some migrant workers did extra farming and domestic chores for no pay, were cheated of earnings and deprived of regular wages, and had their passports confiscated by their employers, who supplied the harvested tobacco to Philip Morris Kazakhstan, a subsidiary of Philip Morris International Inc. Human Rights Watch determined that children as young as 10 assisted their parents in cultivating tobacco, which made them especially susceptible to Green Tobacco Sickness, caused by the absorption of nicotine.
Labor/Culture :: by Rhoda Feng on 07.18.10 » Full Story
Spring Ring
Today's young lady faces a love-hate relationship with romanticism. As a child, she would swoon over the typical, fairy tale, Disney princess movie – complete with happy endings and carriage rides into the sunset. Then, as soon as she would reach adolescence, teachers and parents would advise her to forget about the opposite sex, pushing her, instead, to study harder than "him" so that a successful, independent career could be established.
Weddings/Culture :: by Chelsea Prince on 04.28.10 » Full Story
Fashion's Own Sense of Season
To a few, fashion is a religion – and Anna Wintour, long-time editor of Vogue, the Pope. So it only makes sense that when Fashion Week rolls around each February, instead of it – sincerely – being considered a showcase event, which it essentially is, it's exalted as a celebration of sorts, a festival of religious importance.
Fashion/Culture :: by Genevieve Tax on 02.24.10 » Full Story
Why Obama's Plans for NY Terror Trials Appear to be Unraveling
Savvy readers of The New York Times may have noticed a letter to the editor in Tuesday's edition, co-signed by three city council members including the speaker, the chairman of the Public Safety Committee and the chairwoman of the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Committee. One month after the Christmas Day terror plot aboard a Detroit-bound flight, all three city officials came out against trials for five alleged Sept. 11 conspirators in Manhattan. The officials' letter was in response to a speculative article, which ran a week earlier, about possibilities for moving the trial 800 yards out of Manhattan, to nearby Governors Island.
War/Politics :: by Dafna Linzer on 01.29.10 » Full Story
Unveiling the Attack on the USS Liberty
n June 8th, 1967, in the midst of the Arab-Israeli Six Day War, the USS Liberty came under attack by Israeli air and naval forces in an event that would come to be known as 'The Liberty Incident.' The USS Liberty was a technical research vessel of the US Navy charged with collecting and processing foreign communications between Soviet and Arab militaries during the Six Day War. Official government reports from both Israel and the U.S. claim that the attack was non-deliberate and completely accidental.
War/Politics :: by Andrew Holliday on 01.08.10 » Full Story
Cover Sail
Boardwalk
• Stories » Sail Away
• Fiction » Eructaphobia
• Poetry » The Ploughman's Dress
• Humor » Super Alfa-ImmunoBoost...
• Fiction » Endorphin Sundae
Ports of Call
• Essays » Returning to the Farm (Pt. 1)
• Politics » An Obscure Hero
• Books/Culture » Franzenmania
Editor's Catch
• Editorial » What is American?
Tones
• Editorial » The Real Problem With American Parents
• P.A. Young » Bringing Voices Back
• Editorial » What is American?
• Genevieve Tax » Constant f(x) of Male Sexiness
• Paul V. Kane » Lest We Forget
Cocktails
[Coming Soon]
In Season
• Album Review » We Are Born (Sia)
The New Islander 