At the moment, we are based out of Stowe, Vermont. Many tourists come here to enjoy exhilarating hikes and breathtaking views. There are also locals; the're just harder to find.
We were driving from Lyndonville to Stowe. We had just completed some very nice visits and had some time on our hands. We were passing through a village called S. Johnsbury in an area known as the Northeast Kingdom.
We stopped at a local grocery to get some stuff and see what we would see. In the produce aisle, I heard a friendly "Hi." I turned around and saw an elderly couple smiling at me. We got into a conversation. It turns out that the husband is 89 years old and his wife is 87. They regularly drive over from their hicktown, where they have lived for fifty years, to buy provisions. They now divide their time between Florida and Vermont. They had never encountered Chabad before. We gave them an open invitation to Chabad of Burlington, and they said they hoped to make it over.
The other day, we met with a woman who lives on a farm in the middle of nowhere all by herself. She calls herself a hermit; she is fed up with people and thinks the entire species is cruel. She hadn't spoken to other humans in many years. She told us that she is a direct descendant of the famous Rabbi Akiva Eiger (1761-1838).
Today, we had a nice visit with some old folks who live on a farm, far from society. They both grew up in Alabama. They told us that they remember the roving rabbis who used to come with their hardboiled eggs and speak to their father. In their words, “Father really enjoyed these meetings. They meant a lot to him.”
