Did You Know: Getting Around in Winter, Part II
The Vermont Folklife archive is full of amazing first-person accounts of everyday life in Vermont and New England–past and present. In this feature, we share these stories with you.
Last month we shared some stories about the ingenious and sometimes humorous ways Vermonters manage to get around in winter. This month we share winter travel stories from one Vermonter in particular–Alden Bettis of Waitsfield, Vermont. Alden was born during World War I and grew up in the Depression. He left school as a teenager and went on to develop a wide and varied set of skills that led him into all kinds of interesting lines of work. The accounts shared here come from a 1992 interview with Vermont Folklife founder Jane Beck, conducted as a part of the Mad River Valley Project.
In the 1920s and 1930s, before the advent of snowplows, Vermonters used snowrollers to pack down the snow on roads. Even so, getting around was challenging! Fortunately, Alden had a traverse sled that afforded him and his friends the opportunity to come up with their own way of getting to school–one not for the faint of heart!
Alden Bettis I'd go down with my traverses to school. I went to school in Warren village and leave the traverses there. My uncle had to go down early to meet the milk truck, so he'd bring the traverses back up. So, I had them to at least go one way. I had to walk up the hill.
Jane Beck That must've been pretty good fun.
AB Oh, it was. It was kind of hard to make that bend down there by the bridge at the foot of the hill, you'd have to take this side of the bridge many a times. But the snow, the snow got built up with these rollers and packed. And when they had a big thaw in the spring, the horses would break through it and go in clear to their bellies, they just couldn't travel. So, we used to have to go out through the field and woods and places to get down to the village, because the big drifts down below our house was so deep the horses couldn't wallow through it, so we'd go out in the field and back in, to the road lower down where it hadn't drifted.
JB How many of you would go down on the traverse?
AB Well, used to be 5, 6 of us lived up there. Of course, we didn't have television. We had an old Atwater camp radio. But once in a while, the batteries would get flat on that, and we just didn't have the money. It cost pretty well that time to buy new batteries for it. So, we wouldn't have anything else, so we'd go sledding parties. We'd start up by the old sugar house there by the farm on West Hill, and we've made it clear down to what they used to call Mary Edna's Bridge down at the river there, going on the cut off into Warren village.
JB What's that, about two and a half miles?
AB No, about a mile. It was a mile and a half to the schoolhouse, and we went about a mile and a quarter. But I'm telling you when we went through that bridge–that cement bridge, the first one, right at the bottom of the hill–everybody was leaning just as far as they could lean and still stay on. And once in awhile the tips of the sleds would tickle the side of the bridge, and everybody’d kind of pull away. It's a wonder we didn't kill ourselves. We never happen to get flipped on that bend. We used to take some dirty spills on the traverses, because wind would blow the snow off the road and it be all ice. Somebody tell them to lean and they'd all lean the wrong way and of course you got flipped. It was a lot of fun.
Among Alden’s many jobs, in the late 1930's and 1940's he drove a milk truck along roads that were all dirt roads at the time. Here, he describes a novel method he used to get his truck back on the road after sliding off.
Alden Bettis posing for a photo on his milk truck.
JB For instance, I was going up the road into East Warren one morning—or I was coming down that road—and I met Big Jones, he was the mailman. He had to stop because he couldn't believe what he was seeing. I had slid off the road into the right-hand ditch. And I could go probably 100 feet back and forth, but I couldn't draw my front end back up on to the road. So, at an auction, I'd bought a coil of 3/4 inch rope, which I thought might be handy for something. So, I got the bright idea that if I hitched that on to my bumper and wrapped it around a tree one turn, I could hang on to that rope, and when I drove forward, that would draw my truck up onto the road. And that's what I was doing, is: the further I got up on the road, I'd deal the rope out a little bit. He looked at it and he said, "I've seen a lot of nuts, but that's the funniest one I ever saw, but it's working!" he said. And I did, I used that quite a few times. He couldn't believe it. In fact, I think he bought himself a rope too. But it would work, I mean, as long as you could go back and forth. When you took up the rope, it had to pull it up there. And if you could get your front end up on the road and you had chains on, you could usually get up there. I used that trick quite a few times. You had to always be figuring what the heck do you do, and it was a tussle to get through.
After returning from service in World War II, Alden worked at a local mill, for the Mad River Glen ski area, and as an appliance salesman. In the 1950's, he also had his own business selling bottled gas, where he made deliveries to all kinds of challenging locations. Here, he talks about delivering gas to Mad River Glen–and his special tricks for getting up–and down–the mountain.
Bettis’ home and business in the mid-20th century.
AB Used to have another funny one there back when I was in the gas business. They wheeled the gas cylinders around on a 2-wheel cart. Then when winter came along, the snow was clear up to your waist. So those tanks, dragging them without a sled or anything, they'd bury themselves and pull harder and hang. And of course, everybody had to have their unsightly gas tanks around the back of the building. And so you had to wallow through snow __________ __________ . So I finally got sick of it, I went into the base box and I asked Andy Hinkstile (?), he was running the ski shop, if he didn't have a pair of old skis that I could borrow or buy or steal or something. He said, "Well, this fellow brought in this pair of Head skis the other day and said give them to somebody that can't afford anything better.”So," he said "I guess you're it." So, I took those down, and I mounted them on this gas cart, hitched a rope on it, and I'd strap them on with these, well, we used chain tighteners, they got bungee cords now of course. They'd slide right along on top of the, gosh, you could take a tank of gas and go almost anywhere. When I'd go up to the ski tow, I used to have to take the gas tanks up to these warming huts on the trails. Well, there's one particular T-bar there that was real handy because I'd throw the rope around the T-bar and then jump on the gas tank and ride it up. And this lady said to me one day, "well, how do you get back?" And I said, "the same way I go up, only I don't have to tie on to the T-bar." Well, that she'd like to see. I said, "you stick around, I'll change the gas tank, you watch me." So, when I got all done, I turned the cart around, jumped on it and took off. And she was laughing her head off. But oh, how that old ski sled would go. You couldn't steer it, you had to get it some right tracks that was there and stay in them.
JB You must've gone pretty fast!
AB You couldn't snowplow when you got to the bottom either. You had to use your heels pretty hard.
JB You must've had some hairy rides.
AB There was one French fellow that worked up there. And every night after work, he–of course, you put a cap on the filler on the gas tank. He'd put a rope around that gas cap, and he'd get on to that tank, and he'd ride it down off the mountain. Oh, how he would go! But he was good. It was more fun than watching a bronco because every time he'd hit a raise, he was in the air and down he'd--and how he kept that thing straight up and down, I tried it, I got dumped. But he come clear down, clear from Castle Rock, cleared the mountain.
JB Holy smokes!
AB You'd see him head for a tree and you'd think he was going to break his fool neck, but you know, the snow banked up around the trees. So, he'd get almost to the tree and go right down around it. If he didn't fall off, he fell off a few times and lost the tank, had to chase it for half mile down the mountain, but he loved that, oh, he was good at it.
Alden's sense of fun permeates all his stories and provides a perfect example of some of the ingenious ways to meet wintertime challenges. Next month, we'll hear about another aspect of life in winter in Vermont that used to be a standard part of life, but today is largely relegated to historical demonstration. We'll hear from Albert Morelli about his father's ice business, including some aspects of the ice business that you would never expect!