The official motto of the state of Pennsylvania is: “When in doubt, breathe, but not through your mouth.”
VERMONT
Once a year the people of Vermont all go out of their houses and shout “Chimney Witch, Be Gone!” at the top of their lungs. This occurs in early November and is the best time of the year to visit. The tradition originated in the French Acadian culture, which filtered down from the territory that is now Quebec into the state’s remote but beautiful Northeast Kingdom. According to legend, the Chimney Witch squats in the chimneys of unsuspecting householders and prevents St. Nicholas from entering the dwelling unless she is given notice to get out before the first frost. This is the only time that Vermonters shout in public and all of them do it simultaneously at 4:00 p.m. on the first Wednesday of the month. A witty local writer commented, apropos of this practice, that in left-wing Vermont even the evil spirits are given almost two months’ notice before they are evicted from their abodes.
For people from our country this tradition may seem very strange, since as a rule we dislike loud voices and raucous noise, and our public ceremonies tend to be dignified and quiet. But many visitors say they find the Vermonters’ shouting strangely comforting, especially the way that the sound echoes off the faces of the mountains, which makes it sound like the hills are calling back.
In America, Vermont is considered unusually liberal, and this outlook is a point of pride for the state. Although there have been some difficulties between longtime residents, who hold more traditional views, and newcomers, most communities have been able to find common ground. The MJ Dairy incident is a case in point. MJD produces the infamous Mary Jane line of cheeses, all of which contain the resin of the cannabis plant among their ingredients and are said to have a mild narcotic effect. When the dairy’s buildings were burned down last year by arsonists, it united libertarians and liberals who believe in marijuana legalization with law-and-order conservatives who don’t like to see Vermont become the ground for lawless violence. Prayer vigils were held outside the torched buildings, and within a month enough money had been collected to rebuild the facility from public donations alone.
Vermont has been reforested in the last century, and its trees are still skinny and young. They cling to the granite sides of its mountains as best they can, but life is hard in this cold northern clime. Their roots snoop around the tumble of gray rocks and the thin soil, looking for a way in. Sometimes they find one, but not very often, and when they do manage to puncture the hard shell that the land here habitually wears, they sometimes don’t like what they find underneath.
The trees whisper messages among themselves, but they are not old enough yet to have anything more profound to say than human beings do, so it is not advisable to spend much time listening to them. The mountains by contrast are exceedingly old. But they don’t talk very often.
NORTH DAKOTA
North Dakota is not a place that most tourists would think to stop, but we recommend it for several reasons of which we give details below.
When you leave Vermont, drive west. Go around those enormous lakes through Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Eventually, you will come to a place that is as flat and empty as an ocean. Stop at a restaurant by the side of the road and order something to eat. Ask the couple sitting in the booth next to you where you are. If they look first at each other and then back at you and then the man of the couple sighs deeply, like his heart might break from disappointment, you will be sure you are in North Dakota.
People in this state are known for their absent-mindedness. They have a tendency to think of things they ought to have said or done after it is much too late to change them: Oh well, they are often heard to say. Next time. The official state gesture involves clapping the heel of the right hand to the forehead once, as though you are just remembering some task you were supposed to already have finished. The state police do this in unison at their swearing-in ceremonies and accompany it with an extended exhalation of breath in the form of a long “o” (as in “zoo” or “fool”). It is a sight to behold.
No one in North Dakota is completely sure where the land underneath them came from, since it seems to be younger than the rest of the continental United States. There are two competing theories among scientists who study the subject. One holds that the land was an ancient asteroid shaped like a plate. Another proposes that the land in fact remained deep underground for many millennia before a seismic shift thrust it up in a single cataclysmic movement toward the light. The evidence is inconclusive. The fossil record shows animals from vastly different eras crammed together into a single stratum of rock, and this remains unexplained by either theory. Perhaps in North Dakota old forms of life find a final harbor before dying off at last to make room for what is new.
The most beautiful thing in North Dakota is the blue lightning, which, because of the flatness of the terrain, can be seen from hundreds of miles in any direction. It sutures together the clouds and the ground, and in this way it reminds people of the compromises they make between the part of them that wants to stay but flies away, and the part of them that wants to fly away but crouches on the ground, blinking its eyes and licking the air.
After you have seen enough of this marvelous spectacle, continue heading west until you reach Montana.
MONTANA
From space, Montana looks like a supine lion covered in its golden fur. In fact, if you put your hand on the earth in certain places in this state, the ground does omit warmth like the side of a cat flopped down in a square of sunlight. If you see the earth shuddering very gently in and out or hear the deep thrumming noise that might be the hills purring, this is only an illusion — though it is an extremely convincing one.
Montana is known for its vast rangelands that have supported herds of cattle since the state was first settled by Europeans, and its culture centers on cows. People pursue a number of pastimes involving these versatile animals, including cow-racing, cow-vaulting, and the cow-toss. A recent attempt to bring these sports to a wider audience through television has not diminished the specifically local flavor of the contests, and many Montana natives consider these pursuits integral to their way of life.
Montana is one of the few female states in the Union. While there are many states that take the “-a” ending, usually considered feminine, only Georgia and Montana and Maine are actually female. Many people find this information surprising. They are shocked to discover both the scarcity of female states and the fact that Montana — with its pioneer culture valorizing physical strength and emotional reserve — should in fact be one of this small number. This reflects more on our contemporary expectations of male and female than on the state of Montana, which, after all, cannot help how it was made.
HITCHHIKERS
As you continue westward, you will see many people hitchhiking along the roadside and you may wish to pick them up. Usually you can do this without problems: they are mostly young people for whom this is an inexpensive way to see the country. However, there are a few things to be careful of when picking up hitchhikers. Some of them may smell. Some of them may have bad taste in music. Some of them may tell untruths. Several accounts have come back to us about a hitchhiker who is often seen just outside of Billings, a man in a long, midnight-blue coat. According to the rumors, if you pick him up, this man will seem perfectly friendly and benign at first. But eventually he will try to convince you that you must, absolutely, without fail, go and see the state of Louisiana right away. He is persuasive on this subject, extolling the beauties and interests of the place, its history, its unique culture, in an almost mesmerizing tone that makes you feel you cannot miss it, that you must go there immediately.