Vermonters walking, dancing through snow

I marched with Sambatucada Dec. 6 in the River of Light Parade. Here’s what I wrote after the first parade in 2010. The gig is still beautiful, and fabulous fun:

Three winter episodes anchor my ruminations as I look out on the serene white-traceried woods behind our house. The silence has descended, the snow has come, and we wait for it to stop so we can look for fox tracks, woodpecker chippings, mouse tunnels.

We also hope it won’t stop so we can catch snow crystals on the back of our gloves.

The first episode is from Miss Velnette Sickels’ English class when I was a junior in high school in Freeport, N.Y., about 1956. We had to read a short story, “Sixteen,” by Maureen Daly. Thirty-five years later I returned to that story and found vividness, poignancy, and even truth in it, but at the time I dismissed it. Teenage girl goes ice skating, is picked up by the high school heartthrob. They skate as one, he walks her home, says he’ll call, and then never does. Yawn. Miss Sickels of course pointed out all the artistic delicacy of the piece, especially the detailed imagery of bright cold and frosty breath. (Daly was born in Ireland and grew up in Fond du Lac, Wis.) Another yawn. But there was a photo that accompanied the story, a stark B&W almost-stencil of ice-covered branches under a streetlight that I have never forgotten. Piercing, crystalline, sharp-edged winter.

The second episode is from Stockholm, Sweden, just before Christmas in 1988. Winter had kicked in nicely when I walked on a Sunday afternoon down to Skansen, the big folk-park. Snow was all around, and you could buy a sausage on a stick that had been cooked over a fire in a barrel.

Through falling snow, I saw families hand-in-hand dancing in a big circle around a large decorated natural Christmas tree while (I think) a recording of “Nu er det Jul igjen” played. It was spontaneous; these were not performers: they were just families out for a Sunday stroll. To be sure, not a lot of Stockholmers were doing this, but I was moved to tears. Especially so, as back in Illinois my family scene was failing. Families dancing around the julgran. So perfect.

The third episode is from Dec. 16, 2010, in Waterbury, the River of Light Lantern Parade. My samba band led 200 kids plus parents from Thatcher Brook Primary School through the snowy streets to the train station and the gazebo on the green. It snowed the entire time: snow filtering straight down past the kids’ paper lanterns (each lit from within by an LED light), snow swirling around the police escort’s red taillights, snow darkening Christmas lights on lawns, snow doing a psychedelic stop-motion dance as flash cameras popped, snow building on our shoulders and on my silly green samba hat.

All these Vermonters walking, even dancing, through the snow (remember Skansen?). And snow floating through islands of streetlight light, like in that picture.

Robert A. Herendeen

Burlington