Beach? Lake? Mountains?
by Amy Braun
Mountains of course, for it is in the mountains is where all the real characters live and die.
During the height of the Covid19 pandemic, just about at the point when I felt most terrified of death, three people I knew died in one week; it was a challenging seven days.
Tomi, a fellow teacher, fell gravely ill while watching the LA Dodgers on TV; Jeff, a fellow actor, had a heart attack while riding his bike; and Chet Baxter Jr., the inspiration for my nonfiction children’s book, had a stroke in his car at the side of the road. All three deaths, though not Covid related, were unexpected and I suffered to process those losses. Although I am an adult and have experienced death before, it still puzzles me how someone very much alive suddenly isn’t.
Though I could write a blog about all three aforementioned souls or the concept of sudden death, I will focus on Chet and how glad I am that he is now —in a sense— immortal because he lives on in children’s literature. Chet seemed destined to become a character in somebody’s story and I just happened to seize the opportunity to write about him.
Before I met Chet, I had heard of him, a quintessential Mountain Man. I taught his grandchildren. His son (Chet Baxter III) drove the local school bus. It was only a matter of time before we would meet and I would come to know a man with a true sense of humor and zest for life.
One summer day, as I drove down the steep dirt road near the Baxter homestead, Chet Baxter Jr. approached driving his rusty tractor uphill at a snail’s pace. Now’s my chance to meet him, I thought, so I stopped my car, rolled down my window, and waited for him to get closer.
“Hey!” I called. “Are you Chet’s dad Chet II?”
“Yep! Nope!” He shouted over the din of the rumbling machinery.
The way he expressed himself made me belly laugh. “I teach your son’s kids. They’re really great. I know your son Chet because—”
He tipped his straw hat and smiled as his antique kept chugging, spitting smoke, approaching the hood of my car. “I’m not a second. I’m a Junior!”
“It’s nice to meet you! Chet Junior!” I yelled. I expected him to stop so we could talk further. Living in Vermont, I see pickup trucks blocking back roads all the time. Drivers chatting. Debating. Gossiping. New to Vermont at the time, I wanted to be a real Vermonter and thought I may have the chance to block the road to chat with a Green Mountain man. Talk about the weather. Town politics. Anything… but no… Chet Baxter Jr. didn’t stop, didn’t give me the chance to become a real Vermonter.
“Sorry! Gotta go! I’ll never get this thing started again if I stop!”
As quickly as he appeared in my life that afternoon, Chet disappeared. Here and there over the years, we would run into each other. Tip hats. Exchange pleasantries.
Then, on August 6th, 2008, a flash flood made Chet and his steer famous. They made the news sharing their fifteen minutes of fame because Chet’s steer had been sucked into the nearby brook and spit out four miles downstream, alive and well.
When asked about his lucky cow by TV reporters, Chet said, “What is wrong with you people? Can’t tell the difference between a cow and a steer.”
This statement. This is where the idea for my children’s book, I AM NOT A COW was born.
I had to tell the animal’s story from the animal’s perspective. Chet Baxter Jr. needed to be in the book, too. The book can be read cover to cover and flipped and read cover to cover again, upside down, just like “Lucky” after being sucked into the stormy brook.
When I ran into Chet outside the church he tended the grounds for, he held a shovel in his hand. I asked him if I could write a book about him and his famous steer (who had been nameless pre-flood but had become known by locals as “Lucky”).
“Sure,” Chet said. “Do I get a free copy?”
“Oh, absolutely. Of course.”
“How ‘bout my kids?”
“Without question.”
I wore a straw hat quite similar to the one he wore the day we met. I asked him to wear my hat and growl so I could get a picture. Chet would play himself (a mountain man) in the book. He compiled. I used the picture (and several others) in my book which I both wrote and illustrated.
A year to the date of the flood, I held a book signing outside the local library and Chet joined me. But first, the local newspaper (see article here) wanted to take a picture of the three of us (“Lucky”, Chet Baxter Jr., and me) so we met at the field exactly where “Lucky” had been swallowed into flood water. The massive animal thankfully remained on the other side of an electric fence for our “paparazzi.”
After we finished taking pictures and were about to depart, I noticed that “Lucky” had a white duck-shaped spot on his leg; I hadn’t noticed that marking when I had created the book.
“Look at that!”
“What?” Chet asked.
I pointed to the steer’s lower leg. “It looks like a duck!”
When I had created the illustrations for the book in the months leading up to the anniversary of the flood, I had carefully hidden a duck on every page for my kids to find. Serendipitous for sure to see a duck on the leg of one of the main characters I hadn’t noticed before.
“Yep. Sure is.” Nonplussed Chet responded.
It’s funny the things we notice and the things we don’t. Some things take distance and time to see. This ducky coincidence blew me away that afternoon. It still does when I reflect on it.
A vacancy now exists where Chet and his prize steer once had been (yes, “Lucky” is no longer with us either), but they live on in I AM NOT A COW. This is why I’m glad the book exists. If you feel so inclined, you could purchase a copy for $16.95 here.
Chet Baxter Jr’s obituary sums the man up in this way, “Through his travels he did not meet a stranger.” Truth. Absolute truth. And now, you (kind of) have had a chance to get to know him too. Thanks for reading.
Teacher, Writer, Human
Amy Braun (Fiction, Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA recipient in Winter 2017) lives and teaches and acts in rural Vermont serves as vice president of the League of Vermont Writers. She has been featured on VPR a few times and is an outspoken advocate for teachers, her students, and their families during Covid19. Some of Amy’s published nonfiction and fiction include: “The Plastic” for Apple in the Dark, “A Passing Glimpse” in The Heart of New England magazine, “Solstice Saturday” on ESSAYDAILY.org, first prize with “Rare Coins in a Red Bucket” and “Hospice Holiday” for two of The Herald of Randolph newspaper’s holiday contests, and “Vanilla” on Brilliant Flash Fiction’s website. Several of her original plays have also been performed both virtually and in person. Amy treasures her #5amwritersclub time before the rest of the world creeps in. Amy recommends reading anything by Anne Tyler or John Irving.
You can find her web-site here or reach out on Facebook to Amy C. Braun, Twitter @mykinderquotes, or Instagram at myblagz.