22 August

“Rigoletto” On Main Street

by Jon Katz
"Rigoletto"
“Rigoletto”

I confess I was a bit wary of seeing “RIgoletto” at the Hubbard Hall Opera House in town this afternoon. It is a two-and-a-half hour opera, and I first saw it at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. I didn’t relish sitting through more than two hours of this dramatic, maudlin and intense of the great old operas.

I planned to slip out during intermission and herd the sheep. I stayed the whole time, I couldn’t think of leaving. The Hubbard Hall Opera Company was great, the lead singers were amazing and I loved seeing the opera in the very intimate setting of this funky old vaudeville house on Main Street in the middle of town.

I am wary of embellishing or romanticizing life  in small town America. My town has plenty of problems – few jobs, snarky people, declining population, the economists have abandoned rural America for the global economy, nobody running for President has even mentioned the struggles of rural America.

Writers romanticize life around them because that’s how they sell their stories, I try not to do that. There is no perfect life, no perfect down. I met a woman from Long Island who said she disliked the country, back home she could get everything she wanted in just a few minutes, she never had to drive very far.

How narrow a definition of the good life, I thought. I have to drive farm for almost everything but a good meal (the Round House) but I love every bit of life here. My town is quite special in so many ways. The people are warm and friendly, we take care of one another.  It is a funky mix of writers, artists, painters, mechanics, handymen, farmers and nurses who work at nearby hospitals (not that nearby.) While almost all the towns around demolished their old theaters and opera houses, Cambridge preserved ours,  it is now the Hubbard Hall Arts And Education Center.

It is, in so many ways, the soul of the town.

The singers were just a few inches from us, we could see their sweat and spit in the lights. “Rigoletto” is a very maudlin, winding opera but the music is beautiful, the singing soaring and intense. It was just a beautiful performance, and I only got drowsy two times in the first five minutes – I get drowsy in the mid afternoon sometimes on warm days. I did not drowse after that, nor did I even think of sneaking out early.

The house was packed, they had to bring in extra chairs for the overflow. It is hard enough for the Metropolitan Opera in New York City to fill their performances, there was no problem selling out in my town of less than 2,000 people. Good for us.

I love living in a town that prizes it’s diners and cafes and yard sales and has a big Opera House right on Main Street, three minute from our farm. I love hearing singers that good in such an intimate setting.  Take that, Long Island lady. I love never listening to myself and most often saying yes instead of no when it comes to going out. Maria loved it as much as I did, and she wasn’t sure she would either.

It was a high, it was so good and beautiful, even though I had forgotten it  takes one of the leads a very long time to die.

22 August

At The Gulleys: Coming Soon, “My Farmer And Me”

by Jon Katz
My Farmer And Me
My Farmer And Me

Friday night, we went to see our friends Carol and Ed Gulley, they have become good and valued friends. In a sense, it was a timeless sort of evening, the kind of dinner that has happened on farms for centuries, and happens still. When we arrived, family was all over the house – kids, grandkids, in-laws. All nice, all welcoming, all loving to Carol and Ed and helpful to them. There are always kids and grandkids around the Gulleys, too many to count, and they are always nice and welcoming and interesting. They love their parents and are much loved in return.

After everybody left, we opened the pizza we brought. Carol had made a fresh and delicious salad from her gardens, both were exhausted from hours of milking and some troubles with their milking machine. Ed explained this me a dozen times, but I could not explain it to you. I do not know how either of these two people are still standing at the end of the day, the farmer’s life is anything but romantic or sylan, it is brutal and relentless and dirty and varied. There are all kinds of emergencies and disruptions and breakdowns every day, animals are always getting sick or behaving strangely.

The Gulleys go to bed at 10 and are up at 4 and they work every second of every day, and the work is hard and dirty. Ed is always covered in bandages. Carol was in cardiac rehab with me after our heart surgeries – that’s how we met – but she handles a workload of a half-dozen ordinary people, standing beside her husband all day long.  The things they deal with every day – machine breakdowns, coyotes, rabid raccoons, cows giving birth – are jaw-dropping.

They are good friends. Ed is a born story-teller, and he has great stories to tell and an inexhaustible supply. His kind of life is fading in America, he is the last of a breed for sure, the dairy farmer who does it all and handles everything by himself. If he can’t help you, he knows someone who can, and he is a good enough barterer and negotiator to handle any stall in any foreign bazaar.

They they are sensitive and compelling people. They always ask about us, want to know about us and their lives. Family is the center of their lives, animals a close second. What a shame so few Americans know any longer what great animal lovers farmers are. Ed told me of his old farm dog who had one eye – he ran into a tractor – battled coyotes coming after calves, got run over twice by a nervous tourist,  and got chewed up a dozen times by one animal after another while defending the farm and it’s animals, and who ran for help when Ed got stuck on a tractor out on a field at night.

There are dogs and their are dogs. Ed and Carol had a blast caring for baby raccoons they adopted when their mother was hit by a car, they slept in the house every night for months. A grumpy neighbor shot one of them out of a tree.

Carol is writing a powerful short essay called “My Farmer And Me,” about people who complain about farmers, about her life with her farm. I am going to help her edit it in exchanged for some of her chocolate chip cookies.  I’ll post it on the blog. It was a sweet night, by the kitchen table, where farm conversations are always held and  have always been held. We are grateful for this friendship, these good warm  and very real people lighting up our lives. Maria realized Ed is an artist, she is pulling some pieces out of him for the Open House in October.  Ed is coming over with his son after the county fair to chop up our fallen tree. He won’t hear of getting paid, it’s what friends do he says. We sat talking for hours, it will be a great place to hang out in the winter.

You don’t need to make plans, Carol says, just drop  by after 7 p.m., when we’re done with the chores.

22 August

Good Morning: Joshua, Opera, New Class At Pompanuck

by Jon Katz
Good Morning
Good Morning

Good morning, a very full day at Bedlam Farm. My new writing class, a short story class really, debuts in its new home today at the Pompanuck Farm Institute outside of town. Got a full house, the same group as last time with a few new additions. Pompanuck is a beautiful space for teaching writing, this is a wonderful group of students. I love teaching, I love this class, Pompanuck will be exciting.

We are into Day Three of Joshua Rockwood’s gofundme crowdsourcing project to get his farm ready for winter and to move forward with  his plans for improving his farm by adding four tire water tanks and some Greenhouse Shelter for his pigs, cows and cattle. Eco-sensitive stuff, smart stuff. Joshua does his homework.

The progress on his farm – he grows and sells meat and produce locally – was interrupted by the bond-headed authorities in his town, who might support a young and idealistic businessman rather than conspiring to destroy his work and livelihood. He was charged with 13 counts of animal cruelty and abuse, mostly for having a farm in a bitterly cold winter.

Great progress on the project, Joshua is seeking $16,000 for his projects, he has raised about $9,000 already. About $7,000 to go. I am very optimistic, he deserves and needs all the support he can get. He was arrested in March, his case has not yet come to trial and he is burning through many thousands of dollars in legal fees. It costs a lot of money to be falsely accused of a crime in America.

And it is happening to a lot of people, the lunatic fringe of the animal rights movement has been running amok, this is the beginning of the new awakening about the real rights of animals and the real rights of people. The New York Carriage Horses won a great victory this week when the  arrogant mayor who has been trying to ban them ducked and ran. Hopefully, Joshua will be the next great victory.

If you can help out and spread the word, that would be great.

Maria is taking her mother to the opera at Hubbard Hall in our town today, it is a two-and-a-half hour performance of Rigoletto. I’ll go and see as much of it as I can, I don’t think I can sit still for that long. I’m excited about today. More later.

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