Small change

Tritown likes everything the way it is, and so should you

by Sally Cragin

Illustration by Lennie Peterson

Hollis the Mountain Man feels the change of seasons before anyone else in Tritown. His cabin is on the side of Mount Magoo (short for Magoonamitichusimaug, an amalgam of French, English, and Algonquin that means "my idiot friend who lives by the bog -- he likes it"). The higher elevation means colder nights and sharper winds than the valley dwellers receive. You'd think he'd have a crack heating system, but no. Hollis inherited a coal stove from his great-uncle Wilton (who perished in a Bicentennial re-enactment). And then there is a propane stove in the bathroom that works some of the time. The wood-burning stove in the living area works most of the time, and the old stone fireplace works all of the time. Multiple heating appliances don't quite add up to a consistent heat source, but as long as he doesn't see his breath in the house, he's content.

Delia Ellis Bell the Partial Yankee occasionally worries about him up there on the mountain, especially when she gets offers from her furnace man for early-bird oil deliveries and servicing. Why hasn't Hollis taken advantage of opportunities to prepare for winter instead of being caught short?

"Who needs that kind of reminder?" snorts Hollis on his crackly phone.

"I don't want to hear from my dentist either. As a CSSYB," he asserts, "even the ounce of prevention seems more costly than the pound of cure. Real Townies may complain, but they endure."

"What's a CSSYB?" asks Delia.

"Cheap, string-savin' Yankee bastid," says Hollis, as the line shorts out and disconnects the call.

"That wasn't random," thinks Delia as she goes out to the yard to wash her storm windows (Townie rule: real Townies can actually live in more than a season at a time). She's hosting $erena's shower, which is not to be confused with the Testimonial planned before the wedding, and she wants her bungalow to look nice. Hollis had volunteered the Mountain Lair, a suggestion both $erena and Delia met with stares of incredulity.

"As long as no one had to go to the bathroom indoors," said $erena.

"Why?" Hollis demanded. "I still got an outhouse." And a number of other antiquated conventions, artifacts and tools that Wilton left at the Mountain Lair. Though he has a small refrigerator, he persists in calling it the icebox. And despite the cordless phone ("codliss phun") bought at Delia's behest, he's just as inclined to use the heavy, black Bakelite rotary dial, desk model aunt Winnie installed in 1953. (Newly elected to the vestry of All Faiths, she was put in charge of organizing the first church supper, but that's another tale.)

If lifestyle were geology, the prevailing theme at Hollis the Mountain Man's living quarters would be sedimentary. His radio is a floor-model Atwater Kent, with a modern transistor model perched atop. His television is a round-screen model, now banished to the back hall; and if he could be bothered to fill the kerosene lamps instead of using electricity ("town juice") he would. Even his kitchen table has a thick pad of sequential layers of oilcloth, with worn patches revealing the flower-and-trellis pattern of an earlier era.

The most modern appliance in the Lair is a streamlined church key Delia Ellis Bell gave him to open the chow cans of Trick and Treat, the Mountain Cats. The most ancient is the boot scraper one 19th-century Mountain Man made from a piece of slate jammed into a thick log. Decades of cleaning Mountain Men's soles have worn the stone smooth.

Hollis likes living in a museum of domestic objects, thinks Delia. Even in grade school, he always came to school with the previous year's binder emptied out. At first, Delia thought it was because the Mountain family was poor, but later she realized it was because Hollis had grown very attached to the drawings of solar panels his brother Mason had put on the notebook and to his own sketches of engine parts and trout faces.

To be fair, Hollis's attachment to the past is a common condition in Tritown, where historically minded members of All Faiths rise up at the first whiff of development. Yet there is also a concerned cadre of citizens who welcomes new business, commercial zoning, and other encroachments of the modern age. Generously, they are willing to spend time and money to drag Tritown into the 21st century, where every shop is in a mall, and every business a franchise. During the past several years, Tritown has gained a couple of national hamburger chains, a franchise muffler repair, and a chain hardware store. Yet, somehow, the Dawg Pound, Tarbox Automotive ("Collisions? A specialty"), and Timms's Toolbox survive.

But for how long? This summer, a national doughnut chain, the Whole Donut, announced plans to build an outlet in Tritown. Already, a large neon doughnut has risen above a cinderblock store. Some in town are looking forward to the cake-style doughnuts with infantile but enticing names like Gooey Bluey and Cha-cha Choklit. Others are loyal to Happy's Coffee & Qwik-Stop (30 kinds of doughnuts, 20 kinds of lottery tickets, one kind of coffee), but will they be for long?

Happy pretends the Whole Donut is just a grim mirage, but $erena is bizarrely hopeful. "Look," she says. "Everyone knows my dad's doughnuts are the best, and we've still got the hospital contract. I've heard the Whole Donut underprices until the competition is gone, and then charges nearly a buck a doughnut. No one in Tritown is gonna pay a buck a doughnut."

Hollis and Delia agree that $erena's optimism must come from a combination of pre-wedding nerves, sleep deprivation, and the fumes from administering too many tight permanents at her cousins' hairdressing parlor, the T 'n` T Beauty Salon. She actually messes up their order when she plants a bearclaw in front of Delia and gives the Diet Watcher Doughnut to Hollis. (This is made with skim milk instead of cream, but at Happy's, diet watching is relative.)

Delia is is planning a visit to Timms's Toolbox to buy a new six-jack outlet, and Hollis hopes to go along because, well, he just likes hardware stores. He may like to keep the Mountain Lair unsullied by modern appliances, but he can usually be beguiled by a brass hinge or porcelain drawer knob.

"I can't believe their doughnuts or their coffee is gonna be better than Happy's," says Hollis, chewing thoughtfully.

"You never know," says Delia. "Remember how Happy spaced out when $erena was at cosmetology school? The jimmies were skimpy, and the frosting started to run. I don't like the idea of national businesses horning in on Tritown either, but there is something to be said about standardization."

"Perfect," mutters Hollis. "Cookie-cutter doughnuts and cookie-cutter lives. Why can't they just leave Tritown alone?"

"They mostly did," says Delia. "The state highway missed us by three towns, and our population just gets older, grayer, and sparser. Hey, even you complain about how long it takes to deliver Tri'd 'N` Tru Chips on your driving days."

At this Hollis is silent. Modern versus ancient really is the question of the era, especially with the millennium looming. Hollis and his clan have lived with one boot in the 19th century, the other hesitantly planted in the 20th. Until recently, you could dial anyone in town using just four digits, but in the last few years their area code has changed twice -- and now they wanted Tritown to eat mass-market marshmallow fake doughnuts. Next thing you know, they'd want to fluoridate the water, or worse!

Delia finishes her doughnut before she notices that Hollis has stopped responding to her comments. "Hollis," she says, waving a hand in front of his face. "We better hit the hardware store."

Hollis doesn't hear. "I'm through with the 20th century," he says, rising to his feet. "It's back to the previous ones, where a Mountain Man could be a Mountain Man." He jingles his truck keys, and then stops, chagrined. It would be nice to ride a pony back to the Mountain Lair, but that really would take an hour or more.

And then $erena comes by with a fresh pot of java. "Nobody expects perfection," she tells him. "And Happy's just put a batch in the fryer without taking out the holes. You want some weird looking doughnuts that kinda resemble the planet Saturn, just wait a couple minutes."

Hollis slides back into the booth. Sometimes change is funny.

Sally Cragin's ancestors spent two centuries in New Hampshire because it never occurred to anyone there was anyplace better.

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