The Rural Life Choice: Vermont

It's an early June weekday morning on the Connecticut shoreline. The waters of Long Island Sound are becalmed and virtually mirror smooth. Overhead the sun hangs low in the eastern sky. Looking south across the waters, Long Island is shrouded in a fog that will soon burn off. The surrounding access street and the narrow beach, stretching out in both directions as far as the eye can see, is uninhabited. Out in front of me is a particularly irregular rock expanse, reaching out into the Sea. The tide has come in, submerging large sections on the periphery of the substantial rock formation. Peering out to the further-most reach of this gray-black peninsula I catch sight of a solitary, shirtless and stocky fisherman, in shorts, who is perched upon the highest conical rock face overlooking the water. I decided to climb out there to see how he was doing.

He explained he hadn't been there very long and thus far "not a nibble". His name was Rich and he was down from Vermont with two of his college age children visiting his mother who lives locally (  he has a third also in college ). They arrived a couple of days ago and were supposed to leave today, but because the weather was so nice, they decided to extend their stay. Rich was brought up here on the shoreline, but after becoming a civil engineer twenty years ago, he made a life style decision to live and work in the remote reaches of Vermont. He bought a farm of more than a hundred acres and lives in a community with six hundred residents. He hasn't tapped into the logging possibilities on his property but can always do that.

He explained that civil engineers are different types of engineers than mechanical and electrical in that " civil " refers to working on people related projects, although the distinctions sometimes blur. There's plenty of work for him up there where everybody knows him and likes the services he provides. From his description, there is a great deal of variety in the projects he takes on from water management, road layouts, plant assessment, and so on.

Rich dislikes crowds and traffic and as long as the roads are uncongested he doesn't mind having to drive long distances and frequently has to do just that. He needs to obtain licensing approval from two government offices for many of his projects. One office lies a hundred miles north of his home while the other is a similar distance south.

As for fishing he has an abundance of lakes to choose from. Rich is a quiet contemplative type who appears to have found a world that fits him like a glove. There probably are many others who would opt to do the same, if they had the chance.