Wyvis’ Fence

It all began shortly after Wyvis Bushway bought the McKean place sometime after the War when farms cost less than a used car does today. Those who knew Wyvis had no idea where the money came from, but it was gone within a month or two. Some said it was his G I Bill money gone missing, others opined that it was an inheritance from his Mother’s brother over in New Hampshire.

 

In any case, it was an ornery stretch of land, set right on Route 15 just north of Wolcott and, in the spring, the largest meadow was a boggy swale through which no one in the their right mind would consider driving a team of horses, much less a tractor. The price seemed right to Wyvis and he badly needed to begin an enterprise and generate some income to feed the brood that Peaches began to bear shortly before their wedding in Morrisville at the Puffer Methodist.

 

Not quite sure what the enterprise would be, Wyvis threw himself into several. He bought a pig, two heifers, a somewhat depleted pair of 14-year old Belgians, a ‘43 Ford, and a 1936 John Deere H narrow front-end tractor with a massive iron capstan just to the left of the cast iron driver’s seat that bore the John Deere logo. The owner, standing on the ground, spun the capstan by hand to start the cranky kerosene engine. There were no tires on the back axle, just four-foot high, cast iron wheels with opposing diagonal ridges for traction in a dry meadow or, alternatively, anchors in a meadow that was wet. It ran on kerosene which was cheap, but had to be started on gas so there were two fuel tanks beneath the faded green cowl. It had a power take off in the back with a round belt drive wheel for which Wyvis bought a rusty, but well-filed 42” steel saw blade mounted on a rugged oak saw frame with a large fiber belt to connect it to the PTO. Wyvis then went to Graves Hardware on Portland Street and unceremoniously bought one of every practical tool he could find. This last purchase depleted his reserves leaving only enough for four bottles of a home-made liquor known locally as “screech” and a large fly-specked haunch of ham. For all practical purposes, these were the last of Wyvis’ retail purchases, His credit worthiness, as yet unclear to local merchants as they did not know the extent of his cash reserves, promptly fell of the cliff.

 

Peaches was thrilled with the last two purchases and tucked into them both with delight. Often with child, she had the good sense to never drink more than a couple of glasses of screech, but then again, a couple of glasses of screech usually left her snoring on the sofa with some ham grease on her chin, which, after the birth of Godfrey, had sprouted a definite stubble.

 

Through lucky management, Wyvis’ various enterprises grew. He borrowed a neighbor’s bull, freshened “the girls” and began what was to become a small milking herd. Peaches taste for ham led to an early demise of the new pig, but the sale of one salt-cured haunch led to the purchase of two piglet sows and a bristly young boar that lived happily in a new sty created by the vertical arrangement of hardwood pallets scrounged from the ag dealer in nearby Hardwick.

 

 

From the many careers available to Wyvis, it became clear that “fixin’ and innervatin’” was to become his chosen one and, largely through barter, his enterprise grew. Many hill farmers simply did not have the cash or were behind on their credit at the “ag” dealer so they hauled their broken tractors, tedders, side rakes, disc harrows, hay lifts, plowshares, cutter bars, wagons and flatbed trucks to Wyvis who had recently learned gas welding. Having traded a rebuilt manure spreader for a set of tanks and torches that Alphonse Fournier had bought, but never seemed able to master, Wyvis now could make virtually anything work, at least for a time. Since Peaches had demolished his remaining credit capacity in town through her steady grocery and dry goods charges, acquiring factory parts could be a problem so he either fashioned them on the spot or extracted them from the various abandoned pieces of farm equipment that increasingly sprung up in the adjacent meadow. Farmers would often bring him two broken pieces of equipment and asked him to fashion from them one functional one, leaving the lesser of the two for payment and adding to Wyvis’ cache of used parts.

 

In the Fifties, farmers did not have the array of brands and annually-changing models from which to choose when they were acquiring farm equipment. The dealers in Morrisville and Hardwick carried either Deere, Ford or McCormick. Models did not change from year-to-year. Only after substantive innovation warranted a model change did new ones arrive. Respected models like the Deere H, B and M or the Ford 8N and 9N often replenished sales lots for a decade or two.

 

By the Sixties, Wyvis had a thriving business in which he steadily reinvested what Peaches and the kids didn’t consume. His own personal needs did not extend beyond three meals a day and occasionally a new blue-stripped coverall when the spilled battery acid holes in the old one became too large.

 

He had long ago converted the barn into a workshop and parts storage area. The random collection of livestock which Peaches more or less tended inhabited a lean-to Wyvis had fashioned off the side of the barn with salvaged utility poles and 4’ by 8’ sheets of tin roofing. The enlarged sty now comprised 1/4 acre and contained a noisy collection of “hams and chops” as Peaches fondly referred to her pigs. The bristle on her own chin and upper lip now rivaled that on her boar named “Flanders,” a name she had heard on WDEV out of Waterbury and had taken a shine to. When asked, she said he was a “pol’tician.”

 

Recently Wyvis had begun repairing cars as well. “The Bushway Estate” as it was known locally, rife with rusting farm equipment mostly stripped of critical parts, now became dotted with pickup trucks and cars. Wyvis’ ability to make things work a bit longer for a modest price was legion and needy customers prevailed on him from all over Lamoille County and adjoining Caledonia and Franklin Counties.

 

Transactions were simple and quite consistent beginning with a story, sometimes humorous and designed to elicit laughter and good will towards the customer or sometimes tragic and designed to elicit sympathy and a lower price. Wyvis always listened respectfully while he inspected the damage and would then announce a price suitably adjusted for the amusement or empathy he felt in hearing the story. The story teller never challenged the price although sometimes, of necessity, offered a barter arrangement to cover a lack of funds. This was almost always accepted.

 

Cars, unlike tractors, did change models annually. As always, Wyvis adapted his business to his customer’s needs and soon became the place where the less well-heeled also brought their ailing cars or trucks if they could not afford repair or replacement at the dealership where negotiation was not an option.

 

In the fields on either side of his farm house and barn cars and trucks now outnumbered tractors and farm equipment reflecting the changing economy of Lamoille County where many farms were being traded in for cash and a new job at “the IBM” in Essex, an hour long commute. Wyvis and Peaches’ eldest son, Godfrey, whom Peaches had named after her favorite radio host and crooner Arthur Godfrey, was assigned the job of salvaging and cataloguing expensive parts like starter motors, generators, carburetors, brake pistons, voltage regulators, radiators, thermostats, water pumps, batteries that would still hold a charge and the like. He was best in the family at “book learnin’” and became “parts manager” so Wyvis would not have to interrupt his repairs and go find and extract a needed part.

 

On the town deed, the Bushway estate was 15 acres “more or less” with boundaries determined by a “cedar post fence” that had long since succumbed to moisture, rotting away to mossy traces here and there along a now indeterminate line. The remains of this man-made boundary Wyvis plowed under as he needed a bit more space than the deed allowed for. The burgeoning array of junk cars, tractors and farm equipment now covered all of the “tillable” land which meant any space not covered by trees or large rocks and extended deep into René Quesnel’s property next door. René seemed to know that his estate was shrinking, but his fondness for Wyvis and the considerable debt he had ran up with him made a quibble over boundaries unlikely. Besides the Belgians, still alive had wandered over one day to René’s and never came home. René harnessed them up to haul pulp and nothing more was said about it. Both neighbors seemed comfortable with the unspoken transaction.

 

Godfrey was enlisted to compress and rationalize the random arrangement of chassis’ to allow room for more spare parts vehicles. He responded by going to Hyde Park and enlisting in the Army, leaving Wolcott for good as he never returned from the Korean Peninsula to which the US Army sent him.

 

Alice, the oldest Bushway girl, was named after Ralph Cramden’s long-suffering wife on the Honeymooners. Peaches first saw her daughter’s namesake on her sister Louise’s used Admiral TV set acquired from Henry Fogg in Morrisville. Henry kept the early TV models running for folks in Morrisville so those who were so inclined could squint and watch the one clear channel coming off Mount Mansfield or try to tune in the two “snowy” ones from Plattsburgh and Mount Washington.

 

The large black box with a greenish screen on one side was coveted and often visited by Peaches. She pointed out to Wyvis that it also had the added advantage of noticeably heating the room in which it sat. Wyvis was unimpressed with the novelty, but soon succumbed to Peaches wishes.

 

Alice followed firmly in her mother’s footsteps, becoming a sturdy and regular consumer of both perishables and dry goods. The twins, as yet too young to function profitably in the family enterprise, enjoyed playing hide and seek and “doctor” with the neighbor girls in among the various vehicle chassis.

 

Times were changing in Vermont in the early sixties. Locals in Stowe were selling out to skiers from down country for what then seemed like a windfall. The proceeds of those early sales would not cover a year’s property tax today. Hippies clutching their Whole Earth Catalogs were discovering in the wilds of Vermont what Thoreau discovered at Walden Pond in Massachusetts, at least until snow fell.

 

Vermont’s “citizen” legislature, convened each winter in Montpelier. It was comprised almost entirely of farmers who had less to do in winter and tradesmen successful enough to leave their businesses for the few months needed to review and pass agreed upon legislation. About this time, more well-heeled folks from down country wanting an influence in their new home state began arriving in the legislature. The tenor and text of legislative debate began to shift from the traditional issues of agriculture, commerce and caring for those in need to new issues in which agricultural trade and commerce would come into conflict with a new vision of Vermont as an idyllic place to live or retire and enjoy the scenery, a vision captured gracefully in Ralph Nading Hill’s Vermont Life magazine.

 

The impact was not felt as immediately in towns like Morrisville, Wolcott and Hardwick as it was in the towns to which the down country folk flocked like Stowe, Woodstock, Dorset and Craftsbury. To locals, Wyvis’ sprawling meadow of parts cars was a practical and comforting sight, ensuring their ability to keep cars running well beyond their engineered lifetimes. To Eric von Stroheim and Greta Garbo who would have had occasion to drive past the Bushway Estate in their grand James Young Rolls Royce touring car on their way to Garbo’s hideaway on nearby Caspian Lake, the distraction of munching a caviar sandwich or soothing the two large Russian Wolfhounds traveling with them in the back seat probably would cause them to miss altogether the Bushway Estate, others, however, did not.

 

As more time passed, the values of the indigenous folks and the newcomers came into increasing conflict, a conflict managed ably by then Governor Dean Davis whose mordant sense of humor and considerable diplomatic skills gave birth to Act 250 which durably enshrined values more or less acceptable to both camps. It was, however, an uneasy truce.

 

There were two pieces of legislation inching their way through the now hybrid legislature that directly affected the life and livelihood of Wyvis Bushway. One was a new law that essentially made the driving of unsightly vehicles illegal. The “New Vehicle Inspection Standards” law addressed, among other things like brake wear and windshield cracks, the degree of visible body rot a car could have and still be legally roadworthy. The new unit of measure was “a hole the size of a dime.” This created considerable hardship for folks financially unable to trade in their car every other model year. They would have much preferred a dinner plate to a dime as the new standard of measurement.

 

Car bodies in those days were not galvanized before the finish coat of paint was sprayed on and salt was applied as liberally to Vermont roads in winter as it was to a corned beef hash supper on a Saturday night. One legendary model year of Rambler American began rusting entirely through its paltry metal body work within 20 months of leaving its warm show room on the Morrisville-Stowe Road. So sheet metal body work and the troweling on of “bondo” became a burgeoning business as legal application of the “dime standard” came under enforcement.

 

The other law was considerably more ominous and, unbeknownst to Wyvis, was making remarkable progress through the increasingly down-country legislature. In effect, the law applied the Vermont Life standard to certain views, specifically views in which junk cars played a foreground role. Debate raged on both sides of the issue, but the bill that emerged was indeed a compromise, but one thought to favor considerably the arrivistes.

 

As it emerged in the law books, it required either merchants or homeowners with more than five junk cars in their yard to erect a six-foot opaque fence around them. To many Vermonters a yard full of “parts cars” was a practical indicator, not an eyesore. The sight, however, was inconsistent with the rural farm views portrayed in Vermont Life. Vehicles portrayed therein were either one or two tractors working in a field, a well kept pick up or traditional horse-drawn implements that looked suspiciously as if they were borrowed from the Shelburne Museum.

 

Apart from the conflict in scenic values, the new law, for many, breached the tradition of being left alone on one’s own property. Local law enforcement officers puzzled as to how they would impose the restriction on their neighbors or friends who relied on “multiple parts cars” to keep one running. Wyvis chose to remain ignorant of the new law. Although the radio was always on in the shop, he never listened to the words, only to the music. His favorites were by Don Fields and the Pony Boys.

 

Peaches, however, was alert to the law. She had a habit of accompanying her substantial meals, libations and snacks with media, either the bakelite Zenith radio blaring WDEV in the kitchen, a recent edition of Morrisville’s News and Citizen or the green glowing Emerson TV that stayed on throughout the day and some of the night in the living room across from the sagging, grease-stained couch, and, more often, all three.

 

She tried to warn Wyvis of the law and what it would mean to their enterprise.

 

“How ya gonna fence up a medder of junkers that covers close ta 18 echers?” she said, the question made more plaintive by a gulp of wine to which Peaches had recently taken a liking. “Even the spruce stockade fencin’ ‘s spensive and acquires a reglar splashin’ a creesote or it’ll rot away faster ‘n Reba Batty’s teeth or Madge Kimbell’s new Rambler.”
 she added earnestly.

 

 Wyvis ignored the comment and the issue in general, focusing instead on the work at hand, in this case a rusty pale blue ‘54 Ford station wagon that needed a fan belt, new gas tank and water pump.        

 

The day of reckoning came rather leisurely. The Bushway Estate was a comfortable fixture to those who either lived in or passed regularly through Wolcott and locals were hard-pressed to imagine it disappearing behind a six-foot fence. The legislation became law despite appeals and the sporadic, disorganized protests of many locals. Those directly affected by its passage did little in response other than to wait, curious to see what form enforcement might take.  Even now, almost a half-century later, there are rustic dwellings with more than five parts cars in the front yard and no six-foot opaque fence to hide them from the sensitive eyes of visitors.

 

After little more than fourteen months with the new law on the books, word came from Montpelier that any imagined grace period was over and that town road budgets might be held hostage to proper local enforcement of the new statute.

 

“Easy for Montpelier to say…” huffed René Dumas — pronounced “Rainy Doomus” by his friends — one of the Wolcott Town selectmen, “They don’t live here. Let them come over and wrangle with Wyvis. He might knock some sense into their pointy heads.”

 

“Take it easy.” soothed Jerry Kitonis. “Wyvis is one of us. Most likely he’ll understand. We could help him build the fence.”

 

“Je me’n doute,” responded René, lapsing into his native tongue.

 

Fred Westphal, a State Senator from neighboring Elmore, happened to be visiting the Town Select Board meeting that night in Wolcott. He lived on the road between Wolcott and Elmore and often attended meetings in both towns.

 

“I fought this bullshit law tooth and nail,” allowed Fred, but my horse’s ass colleagues rammed it through any way.” Fred was noted for his direct language, both among friends, behind the counter in the basement of Gillen’s Department Store in Morrisville where he sold shoes and classical LP’s, and in the halls of the capital building with his legislative colleagues.

 

“Yes, but what do we do about it now?” reasoned Lyle Demars, Chair of the Select Board.

 

“I’ll talk with Wyvis. He’ll cooperate,” volunteered Jerry Kitonis. “Wyvis and I go back to grammar school together.”

 

“You do that,” muttered Fred Westphal as he jammed his hat on his head and headed home to Elmore.

 

The discussion between Jerry and Wyvis meandered all over until Wyvis signaled his need to get back under Grace Tyndall’s Dodge. The topic of the fencing in the lot never managed to came up.

 

The Select Board decided as a whole to pay a visit to Wyvis and broach the dicey issue of Wyvis’ and Peaches’ place in the scenic panorama of Wolcott. The discussion was friendly. Heads all round nodded in earnest assent, but nothing happened in the ensuing weeks to indicate construction of any kind other than Peaches expansion of the sty with more pallets.

 

Summer was advancing. Gravel road regrading, roadside mowing, culvert replacement, tree limb removal, all the locally financed routine road maintenance was progressing apace. The single lane bridge, however, to West Craftsbury, scheduled for replacement in spring and the repaving of a long sectionss of Rte. 15 had not yet begun.

 

The State intervened. Wyvis was served with a “notice to comply” or face prosecution. Nothing happened. Wyvis was served again with a summons. Nothing happened.

 

Fred Westphal paid Wyvis a visit, but still nothing happened until several days later when a back hoe pulled up to the Bushway’s and began to dig a massive trench around the front facing perimeter of the property. Folks in Wolcott, relieved that any standoff had been avoided and that apparent construction of the fence had indeed begun, went about their business. Two weeks later a truck-mounted crusher showed up to crush the parts-depleted hulks and haul them off for sale to a steel yard in Barre. This would reduce the perimeter of fencing required and the consequent cost, so assumed the curious locals following the drama closely.

 

Folks in Wolcott awoke to their great surprise on Thursday morning to a fully completed six to eight foot high opaque fence around the Bushway Estate. The work had clearly been done during the night. Wednesday evening the portable crusher had still been doing its noisy work and the backhoe was sitting idle having finished the trench for the vertical posts.

 

Word spread quickly of Wyvis’ new fence and people drove from surrounding towns to see the new fence that all agreed conformed precisely to the letter of the law.

 

During the night, Wyvis, the backhoe operator and another unknown helper had used the backhoe and a large tractor with a bucket to arrange and level the crushed vehicles vertically in the trench, neatly placing them side by side with their flattened chrome radiator grills aimed skyward and their flattened trunks buried in the backfilled trench. Their rumpled roofs faced outwards toward the street and their undercarriages and drive trains faced inward towards the house and barn. The fence did not fully surround the now smaller meadow of car bodies, but fully blocked their view from the road as was required by law. Morning found Wyvis in his shop tearing apart a Massey-Ferguson the hydraulics of which had failed.

 

A burgeoning number of cars were now parked and double-parked outside the new fence snaking several hundred feet to the north and south along Rte. 15 on which two lanes of traffic slowed to a crawl as passengers and drivers alike rubber-necked the glistening oddity. The bottleneck would eventually require traffic control, of which there was none in Wolcott.

 

Word spread of Wyvis’ fence well beyond Lamoille County. City folks, news gatherers, picture snappers and the curious came from miles around to see for themselves how Wyvis had managed to conform to the letter of the newcomer’s law while maintaining the Vermont tradition of practical utility and function.

 

Bill Schubart