Profile; Interview with William Storandt; Interview with Julia Alvarez; Interview with Lawrence McCrorey

He had wild adventures as a percussionist in New York City and as a dome dweller in Vermont. But his greatest passion has been sailing the Caribbean Mediterranean and Atlantic Oceans. Join me for some great stories from author builds to rant on. Will. The rat. Pack the house of his recent reading in ethics old friends acquaintances and admirers came out to hear the man each of them knew whether as the guy who built and lived in a dome in Westford for 10 years or who ran the hot jazz program at Johnson State College in the 70s the dreamer who built a 33 foot yacht in Williston or the writer who sailing articles they've been reading for 20 years whatever part of his life they hail from listeners delighted in excerpts from store rants. First book outbound. Finding a man sailing an ocean. A memoir that relates his realization of two suppressed yearnings discovering his sexuality and finding his life's partner then sailing across the Atlantic.

Currently Bill lives with his partner Brian Forsyth in Connecticut and teaches writing at Yale and another book a novel is due out in late spring for the summer reading crowd. Welcome back to Vermont Bill. Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here. Now you've had several passions in your life passions for many things. Early on it was music. You went to Juilliard and then you went to New York City and became a freelance musician I think we hear tambourines on monkeys tune. That's right. Three years of whack and tambourines for the Monkees and playing at Radio City Music Hall Broadway shows. Radio and TV spots and recording studios and playing for the Juilliard contemporary Chamber Ensemble banging on flower pots and play drums and whatever else they needed to have hit. Yeah it was a very interesting life sort of a tenor in life eight hours was a good week. And then somehow. You left all of that this this

wild life in New York as as a freelance musician and came to Vermont what what brought you here. Well it was a time when there were messages out there saying you must drop out. Tune in drop out. You know was everywhere. And there were be ins going on in central park every weekend where people were painting rainbows on their eyelids and and dancing floating through the Sheep's Meadow and it just sort of seemed a sensible thing to throw away a perfectly promising career and move through the woods in Vermont. And I wasn't the only one doing it. Well indeed actually there's a passage on your crowd in from Mont. I just love for you to read to Kyla stablish you were in your crowd here. It was a fringe tuft of Americana. Our colony of highly educated carpenters goat farmers saloon musicians an organic pickle canners are homemade houses showed that a person with a college education could retain enough common

sense to create a rude shelter. We shared a serene disregard for our expensive training. Indeed the more esoteric the training had been or elevated the post we had held the more heroic was our turning away from it. I'm sure that some of those people are still around. Yes I just spent the night with one and. Going to have lunch with another. I seem to be the only one who gave up on the climate and moved to the sunny shores of Connecticut. But they're not living in domes anymore. No no. How do the locals respond to you in this group of basically hippies. That was a great surprise and a great pleasure to me there were Westford was. The most rural by far of all the towns in shit in n county at that time. This was in the early seventies and there were. There are a nice bunch of codgers out there who. Had a I had a sense of the

importance of live and let live. One of them a dear man by the name of Roland pigeon told me stories he used to wet me. He'd clear a corner of his garage for me to work on my car and he'd teach me how to do it but he told me when he was a boy he wasn't allowed on the school bus because he came from a French-Canadian. Lineage. And he was very proud that now he owned the fleet of school buses and that had taught him a lesson. And there are other people like that we never encountered any hostility at all. We just had the sunniest imaginable relations with the locals. That was a great pleasure. Now we're going to we're going to come back to that in a second and all that lifestyle but now you were married for a short time while you were in New York. You actually came up here with your wife and you all divorced and then you had a longtime girlfriend. So you're coming out as a gay man was rather tentative

and very tenderly related and in your book. Tell us a bit about your struggle to discover your sexuality and is it would it have been different. Now 20 years. Well. It was not a discovery that I was gay I had known that since about third grade. It was coming to terms with that and agreeing with myself to go ahead and be that person instead of trying to stop it and keep it hidden. At the time that I got married I had already been to Juilliard where I'd been kind of looking sideways at all the gorgeous dancers passing me in the hallways. In a sense that would have been the easiest possible place and time to come out. New York was in the throes of a tremendous wave of sexual liberation it was before anyone had ever heard of the HIV scourge and.

It just wasn't time. And. When I came to Vermont. I was well into the sort of pressure cooker phase where I was feeling like something's going to blow if I don't deal with this. And yet I met this woman and told her I was gay the day we met but that was just another groovy detail of our hippie existence and she moved in with me anyway and we lived together for six years. She's still a very close friend and. I just needed to inch my way along. So we started to agree you can have an affair but you have to be back home in bed by morning. You know these kind of rules we set up we're trying to give us freedom and yet keep us held with each other. We were we were both negotiating a very tricky passage through them. And then you met Ryan you met you met a man in Montreal. Yes. I met Brian the very first time I ever went to a big city gay bar in my life which is an astounding piece of luck. And we've now been together for 23

years. But I had to get to the point where I was ready to go to that bar. And that took a lot of sort of. Dummy trolling drill in the straight bars of Burlington where I would. Make eye contact with total strangers you know possibly risking my life. Do you think today's climate is different or is it is it a matter of personality. It is different but it is a matter of personality. I teach at Yale and I'm just amazed at how blasé the kids are about this whole issue. To them it's about as interesting as you know what kind of sneakers you wear. They just couldn't care less. It's perfectly fine. Even in your in your book there are many times that you seem surprised that so many people accepted you and Brian without a problem even a reticent family recognized your happiness with Brian. Have there been painful moments. I've had a very easy road and I should knock on wood when I say that I know a

lot of people have had horrific experiences of being shunned by families or or beaten up or killed or whatever. My path has been very lucky and I've I've had the good fortune to have. A total acceptance from my circle of friends from employers. A very long delicate path with my parents. They knew Brian for decades came to our house sauce toodle off to our bedroom and they to the loft of the guest room without us ever saying what was going on and I had the sense they didn't want me to come right out and say that that they admired him their Anglo Files he's Scottish They love that but they didn't want to take that one further step. It was only when this book was going to finally be published that I had to say Are you sure you're comfortable with this. And they've both made

very sweet and separate. Efforts to reassure me that they're perfectly aware of everything in the book. They fully support me. They hope it sells a million. Now Bryan as a physician you're an established writer. Does our society make it easier for professionals to be openly gay. Is is does that make a difference. I think that's possibly true of the stereotype is that the blue collar world is is a tougher place in which to come out. Brian is. Is a pediatrician and that's possibly something that's a little trickier but. There hasn't been any problem and I don't foresee any problem. That was interesting when I was at Johnson state and teaching at UVM music department as well. For 10 years I thought well gee maybe this is a little bit of a

tricky issue and I didn't. I never hid it. I never confessed it and proclaimed it but I never made any attempt to hide it and gradually I became aware not only that my. Department heads and colleagues in both music departments knew and that it was not a problem but that president at Elmendorf at Johnson knew and he was a great fan of the jazz ensemble so. It suddenly turned out there was no issue. Yeah I had that. And not only that it turned out that when I had gone beyond just being a student being a friend of. Just being a teacher of a student and had taken a further step of be friending some students I wouldn't trust them with this piece of information and I would do it by saying something like Yeah I'm going up this weekend to see my partner he and if they were paying attention they could say Wait a second he got none of them ever did. But then I realized that this had become this sort of piece of lore about Johnson state

that was passed once a student had been deemed worthy of being able to handle it. It was like a a sheet a secret. Yeah. That was very gratifying. Quickly they will move on to sailing those adventures but your thoughts on the civil unions debate and its passage from oh I've been so interested in where and when it's a civil unions thing went through I wrote an email to all of my friends in Vermont just saying you should be so proud of your state. I mean I just get emotional just thinking about it. But I love Vermont so much. There is something. Intangible about the climate the social climate of Vermont that I value so deeply and that that very visionary move by the Vermont. Electorate and legislature. I just think speaks volumes about

why this is such a great place. OK. Now while in Vermont you started the dream that you've had for many years to build a cruising yacht. And it took a while and actually I just this passage is so wonderful about how you got the money to do this because here you're going to spend a lot of time and money if if you would read this as you're as you're thinking of letting go of the dome and moving into another phase of your life. Well the dome was this. Homemade structure built by someone free of talent for carpentry would be who would be me. I built bookshelves in my New York apartment before I undertook this. So the bath tub drain on the ground under the house which kept the perpetual swap going that heaved up and frost heaves that sent the concrete support posts every which way so that the floor was like sand dunes anyway. I had to get an

appraisal of the dome because when you build a boat the project doesn't have any value at first so you have to have something else for collateral. The day of the appraisal I vacuumed the gaps between the floorboards swung the broom through the worst of the cobwebs overhead cleaned the dried cat food off the end of the kitchen counter with a cabinet scraper more and more certain that my dream of having a boat built was about at its end. Seeing the first Oldsmobile ever to pull into my driveway I selected a Mozart Piano Concerto from the few records not destroyed by snow blowing in the cat door and went out to meet the appraiser. He had stopped about 100 feet from the dome and was admiring the view. I just love the country he said. Was that a New York accent I heard a window of opportunity. By the time I told him about how I had gone to Julliard when it was up by Columbia and we had ascertained that my old apartment was near his sister in law's parents we were both leaning on the front fender.

Still they say you want to build a sailboat he said finally. His tone suggested we were now a couple of bank defrauded years through with the small talk. Yeah I sure hope to I said. I'd love to do that he said. A Mickey Rooney ish little guy with a dream look coming into his eyes. Get me some bimbo head off palm trees down the islands. His hips weighed Well it's been a dream of mine for a long time I said shamelessly and I finally said to myself stop dreaming and go for it. In a trance he raised his clipboard and began filling out his form. You never want a foot closer to the dome. And therefore you had the money and spent a couple of years. Building this remarkable boat you've now had for 20 years. Yes it has served you well she's my darling. She is your darling your clarity is she all that you imagined she would be everything and more.

She she's just been most sailors. Have the attitude that whatever boat they have is provisional and someday the dream of something bigger. I've never had that feeling about clarity. She is my boat for life no question. She is a strong fast cruising boat who's taken many many thousands of miles she's absolutely comfortable to live aboard indefinitely. We've lived aboard for a year at a stretch traveling through the Caribbean. She's she's perfect. Now you're from Ithaca New York where did you get briefly that your love of sailing. How did you get this bug. Well because at the foot of Cuba Lake which is 45 miles long and two miles wide it's a very enthusiastic sailing center and they very often have the national champion star sailor or comet sailor from Ithaca. So I grew up not a keen sailor all my life but in high school sailing with friends on there racing dinghies.

But I've always been very much attracted to water boats you know around docks and boat yards and all that sort of stuff going to the Thousand Islands with my family every summer growing up and that sort of thing. So you had the pieces. Well clarity certainly seen some mighty adventures with Brian and you. A year in the Caribbean as you said many summers in the Mediterranean and Atlantic crossing. Yes. Before we get to the crossing What what what's what's your favorite port of all those places Oh I can't is it couldn't possible at all no I'm not. I'm not one to rank ports there's no need to. There are just so endless and there are variety in and there. The different attractions they offer I just think it would be silly to OK to name one favorite. I'm loving the Mediterranean over the last maybe an hour there really. Yeah yeah and Cassius if you must It is a very

very big favorite in France. We've been sort of just stuck in France now you hear it's not complaining mind you. Now ceiling can be life threatening. Yeah certainly crossing the Atlantic is exceedingly dangerous and you guys hit a gale force ten gale on just how you say it. How do you deal with the fear. Or was it just you just I don't I don't deal well with the fear. One of the threads running through the book is My worrywart tendencies and. In a start the what if what if. Chorus is for arming steadily in the back of my mind or in the front of my mind for that matter I'm seeing death's head in the in the woodgrain of the deck beings and so forth. You try to prepare the boat in every way you can think of. And I watched her being built in Williston for two years and then I saw David Stanton making her strong in ways that I'd never even heard of. She was so skilled and

had such a clear sense of how he wanted to make this boat bombproof. But when you're in the middle of a storm one of the things that happens is that in the middle of the night without warning a wave topples into the side of the boat. It would sound no different if you were hit by an eight hundred foot freighter. It sounds like the boat has been dropped on to concrete by a crane and you can't help but think no boat can withstand very much of this. I don't care how strong she looked when she was in the building shit. It's just appalling. And that when that happens it's completely without warning it's like you know the knife through the shower curtain it's. It absolutely rattles you. And whatever economically you'd managed to come up with for that moment is gone. You're just shattered so that was my experience of the storm is just thinking but the keels going to fall off the mast is going over the side something but you know what you're in

for and you say you still went for it. Living on a boat for a long period of time seems like it could be very claustrophobic the interior of your boat is beautiful. And yet how do you deal with the claustrophobia. Or maybe there isn't. Well when you're cruising in the Caribbean the the huge sky and the huge sea is your is your home. It's it's claustrophobic is the last word I'd use it's not totally expansive. When you're in a storm at sea one of the things you have to do is drop the drop boards into the companionway which is the passageway from the cockpit to the cabin and pull the companionway hatch slide closed. This is because your worst fear is of having a wave fill the cockpit and go water falling into the cabin and swap the boat and the boat struggles and

the boat has a 5000 pound lead keel hanging from from underneath it. So if the boat becomes filled with water it sinks like a stone. So that's a pretty basic fear. Once you've closed the cabin up that way then that's when my claustrophobia bunnies start coming out and trotting around. So it's just in the storm that you need to do that you know. So during the storm I'm lying in my berth strapped in and just feeling this low hum of claustrophobia Plus of course a nameless dread you know and dread that has names and that I'm not a happy not a happy boy. Right and again you Brian on the other hand is making eggs and bacon and saying up we're having breakfast now. So that. How he deals with it he has no fear he just feels no differently. He deals with it differently.

He's he's Scottish and I don't like to make generalizations about national groups but will have no moping. We got ourselves into this. We're going to get through it. That's that. You have a host of stories about people that you meet along the way. How does the harbor social same kind of work as you're hopping from place to place. Well it's I mean it sounds bizarre to people who are shore bound in life but you row over to a handsome boat nearby and you say love your boat. Who designed it and they said Oh thanks Sparkman Stevens want to come aboard. I mean you wouldn't walk next door in your neighborhood and say nice house kind of a man. I had a look. But what happens is the next thing you know they're offering you a beer and the next thing you know you're saying you want to come over for coffee after breakfast tomorrow and where are you headed next and in the next harbor you come in and there they are and you anchor next to them and have dinner and before you know

it by the end of our winter in the Caribbean we went to Antigua sailing week. We acard in the middle of a neighborhood of boats where we knew everyone on every boat around us and we still were still in touch with those people when we were in Cape Town on a sabbatical a couple of years ago. It was friends from the Caribbean who put us up in their guest room for the first week while we looked for an apartment I mean these connections are so wonderful and you just keep them alive in there. They span the globe. Great. Now when you are on land you're teaching writing at will at Yale. What do you make of great writing. To me great writing is lean and vivid and concrete. I'm a great fan of VB Y even and my favorite kind of writing is writing where the writer doesn't beat the reader over the head with with the point.

It's made lightly cleanly and move on. That's why the book is so slim. Perhaps it's a grave is slim but it's it's dance. Thanks. That's the best compliment you can get. Your next book is a novel. Tell us about it. It's it's called the summer they came and the one sentence promise is what would happen if an old money seaside village in New England were suddenly turned into the next big gay resort in one summer where the locals having no idea. So and by titling at the summer they came. I try to. Make clear that part of the story is told from the perspective of the locals. So it's not one of these gay novels that's very knowing and all that it's it's about the touchpoint between the gay world and the straight world I'm very interested in that whole point worth worth. The gay and straight worlds meet and it's not

a clean line it's. I was in that gray area for very many years so I've had a lot of experience observing it from the perspective of being a gay person who wasn't yet living as a gay person. I'm just I'm very interested in that whole thing. And I guess I just tried to think how would it actually go. So it's funny it's violent it's touching it's. Well even outbound is wonderful in that way you certainly talk about your gay experience but a lot of people just see it as a sailing book and said Well you know I guess it's kind of two books but they really see it as as the sailing boat was really interesting to hear you know different feedback from it. But. We're well done. Oh no I know. I'm sorry but you know check out outbound it's a wonderful walk. Look for Bill's new book coming out this spring. Does it have a title yet. The summer they carry the summer they came of course. Just what you said. Thank you so much Bill for coming in today and I'd like very much great and thank you for joining us on

profile. Way. The frustrations of being an American immigrant led Julia Alvarez to develop a strong voice in her newly adopted language. One of the most respected authors in America today Alvarez has touched many through her prize winning volumes of poems best selling novels and now a film. Stay with me for a conversation with Julia Alvarez. Since moving to Vermont a dozen years ago Julia Alvarez has produced an impressive

repertoire of work two books of poetry for award winning novels a book of essays and most recently children's literature. The author of How the Garcia girls lost their accents and in the time of the butterflies. Julia spent her childhood in the Dominican Republic. But when she was 10 her family moved to New York City to flee a repressive regime forced to adopt to a new culture and language. She found solace in books in writing and listening to and telling stories. She became serious about writing and college received a B.A. from Middlebury College and went on to earn her masters from Syracuse University. Julie has spent years moving from school to school in the south in the Midwest and in California as a writer and poet in residence. But when she took a job back at Middlebury she settled and is now a writer in residence there. Alvarez maintains homes in Vermont and the Dominican Republic where she and her husband own a coffee farm. Welcome. Thank you thank you really have you here. No you really didn't publish much before you moved to Vermont I think one one book of poems. What

about which I wrote in Vermont which you wrote and from. I was teaching at UVA 1981 tonight in 83. And it was a house on Green Street I remember and I wrote the poems there. So Actually everything I have ever published published. During a state of Vermont. And so much of your work of course is about the Caribbean the New York City and other places why is remark such a great place for you to work. It worked well I think. I think it's because of the silence. I think it's because of the silence and the simplicity of the life here there isn't all that buzz. And all that. In the Dominican Republic all that. Money that you never separate yourself from the group that's almost anti-social so it's very hard to get writing there. And in New York or cities there's so much going on there's so much distraction that it's hard to. Pay attention. But how much of your work concerns the immigrant

experience you were 10 when your family moved to New York City from the Dominican Republic. Talk about the influence of that shift of cultures had on your writing. Well I often say that unless I come to the United States unless I had had that disruption I probably would never have become a writer. As I mentioned you know I came from a very oral culture a very community culture media culture. I wasn't at all interested in books or reading or separating myself and doing something solitary in this world of people and family. So I probably would have always love stories because it was a storytelling culture but not been a writer. And coming to this country losing everything my family my home my language. It's you know it was sort of a realization that I needed a portable place that I could set foot on and stay on and root in and I found that in the world of books. And the United States when we landed here in 1960 was not a very friendly

place for. People from other cultures foreigners. And so we had first found you know the things that kids find in playgrounds when they're having when they're little different from everyone else and the world of books of literature. There was a sense that this is this is the table set for this is the place where everybody can come to and you belong and you connect. With these characters and the story line. And I thought this is this is magical you know. Well you even said in something to declare your wonderful book of essays that you're being teased on the playground by some bullies that that was part of what got you to start writing that that you saw it as revenge. But then that that would turn into redemption. Right right. What what is that all about. Well one of the most important stories for me as a human being is the story of Shahar Assad. Of 1001 Nights The Arabian Nights the young

woman who lives in the kingdom where the sultan is murdering all the women in the kingdom. And she volunteers to be the next victim. And that night she starts telling the Sultan the story and the Sultana so intrigued that he says you're not. You know you're not dying to morrow morning until I hear the rest of the story as she keeps this up for a Thousand and One Nights at the end of which time not only does she save her life but the Sultan listening to these stories they've moved him moved his heart and he's able to shed his hatred of women and to be able to love again and falls in love with her. So I use that that that story and thinking about what happened to me that it started out as revenge to save myself that if I could tell stories that if I could and chant with the skill of transporting those who were attacking me to someone who I could somehow you know protect myself and also learn their language even better than they you know if I could do that.

But then. That's not a place to stop as a writer or as a human being. It was to go further than that to you know people come to the stories and they too were transformed. Robert Desnos the the French poet has this wonderful quote where he says the task of being a human being is not only to be called oneself but to become each one. And literature stories. Teach us that skill. On paper and learning that skill if we're able to translate it into life because we become the character I become Madame Bovary I become you know. A slave woman in a Toni Morrison novel. The other that the books are stories that are not about the immigrant experience you know most of them are about the Dominican Republic especially about the time during the 20 low era which is when you were growing up and why you had to leave. What is important for Americans to know about the Dominican Republic about that experience

that you had there. Well you know all there's so many answers to all these questions. First all of the important stories are all our stories as human beings like I said. I think literature is a table set for all and there's stories we should know. They come from China or stories from India or stories from the Dominican Republic it's the human story and many times in the past there was a cabin where it said only certain stories are the elite. The classic human stories and that has blown apart and now you know we think of all this variety and diversity of stories so I wanted to put the little Dominican in the stories as wedged in there make them part of the story. That's all our story. But also when you think about it America is north and south. You know America I consider myself a true American writer when my roots are south of the border. And expressing it and in the language north

of the border. And with a mishmash of cultures and characters. So I think those stories are our stories in the Americas and as human beings. Absolutely. You you also you have this wonderful respect for history for that time but also of course a great fondness for story. And I'm I'm wondering so you use a creative interpretation of history. How do you drug juggle truth and fact and fiction. Well those words I know they're they're big but do you. Is there a bigger truth that is different from fact when when you're trying to to reveal what it is. I don't think so I think. I think history. When you say the creative interpretation of history. What are what other kind is there. I mean maybe now we can say well now we can really document things and we can really you know take photographs and time things but even the what what was that the surprise. Phil you know it was on film and yet there were so many. So many stories so many

versions. And one of the things I love is this Native American trope about that the truth is the truth is in the center. But you never are. There you're different points around the circle you know. And the truth is all of these stories put together. All of these stories put together get. At the complexity and multiplicity of the truth. Is that a flattening it out to the truth which is what's dangerous. Once you have the truth you have it the official story. You have only one possibility. And so I think history is. History creatively. Understood is the way to understand it. The German poet said that. The. Novels arise out of the shortcomings of history. And of historians and historians know this too. They know that it's I'm reading a book now utopia unarmed about the Latin American left and you read through these chapters

about different interpretations of what school what went on in the Cuban revolution in Cuba. I mean other revolutionary attempts in other countries and there's so many different. Stories. Now you're you're writing books for young people. And you're currently working on one that does take place in that era released less than a year ago as this wonderful book How to Lola came to visit. It's really terrific and actually I'd like you to just read a little bit low is this wonderful charming flamboyant aunt who comes to Vermont from the Dominican Republic and we have a Latino family who's moving up from New York City. A lot of adjustments a lot of change. And I thought maybe you would read this passage where Mikhail at age 11 is about to have a birthday and his father is calling to find out what he wants of actually the family is also adjusting to a recent divorce.

Right the mother has come to to Vermont with a job. And so she's asked her her to come to provide daycare for the kids when they get home from school. So the father's in New York mothers working and the kids are adjusting in the game is different from other Vermonters brown skinned and Latino in doesn't. But I was born and raised in New York City so you know how does he define is this that he really. But these are big questions and this is just just a fun story. And the father's on the phone he says have you thought about what you want. Of course he has. More than anything he wants his parents to be together but he can't say that he has already mentioned a few things to his mom. A new bat a baseball signed by Sammy Sosa who also came from the Dominican Republic like Migues parents rollerblades a visit from his best friend who'll say once the weather gets nice. One other thing he tells his dad lowering his voice. I wish I mean she was supposed to come for a visit

and she's still here. If you want to try to learn English. Is that so. Maybe it's good to have your aunt around so you have to practice your Spanish. But the kids at school already think I'm different enough Miguel explains. He is surprised that he is telling his father this much. They can't even pronounce my last name. His father has gone very quiet on the other in. Me hole he finally says you should be proud of who you are proud of you're proud of yourself. It is my guest turn to be quiet. He knows his father is right but he can't help feeling what he feels. I know sometimes it's hard his father is saying softly you'll grow into that pride. The older you get they get a chill he adds. Don't forget. So what is important about cultural identity and pride in this predominately white state. Well I think it's you know I think diversity and the richness the

diversity infuses into any place is wonderful. And. These are it's partly is it's we see through this family that ethnicity is. Is. Complicated because the little boy and the sister were born in New York City. They hardly speak Spanish. They're as American as those taco bell let's say. And the mother came when she was a teenager so she's a mixed breed. She handles both cultures and both languages Dell'Olio who comes from the Dominican Republic. She's totally Dominican. She doesn't speak English. She says she doesn't know why that people say that Americans are so smart. If they were so smart why did they pick a language like English to speak instead of Spanish. And she just you know she's just a very lucky you know woman and. And so you know you see all these people are lucky. But it's. Each one it's a different. Balance and a different kind and so. To be to give each other the permission to

be that for nothing else to say all you have to be a real Latino you have to be this or that is just as narrow as people who say you have to be a mainstream person or you can't live in this state or in this country or in this neighborhood or come to our school or whatever it is you know it's a complicated balance. And I think the best gift we can give each other is to allow each person to find out what that balance is for them so that they can be. All that's in them to be is that of narrowing it down to an either or choice. And I think we have a wonderful stay we have a richness already here we have the tradition of the French-Canadians. We have the tradition of people coming from outside we have the Vermont the real Vermonters the farmers and the people from the Northeast Kingdom of the year. We also have some hate crime things which you you know there were there was. Latino family and saying all bands and you were writing letters to the editor and checked in with him when there was a hate crime incident.

It surprised me you know I was writing I was writing total fiction. This book I came to visit slash day and I and my husband cuts out a clipping from the paper and there's we read about this family go to Salissa and say No bins who are subjected to a hate crime you know as suspects and I said Oh Mike I guess you know I guess this is fiction and it's not fiction. This is a book for young readers. And you're the book that you're working on now that will be coming out this summer is also for young readers another wonderful book and you've written a children's book. What is Why are you writing for children and young readers right now. Well I call them books for young readers of all ages. So go to hold your butt at all. You mention the coffee farm. It's also a literacy center because we got involved in this project this cooperative of farmers growing organic shade grown coffee in the Dominican Republic small farmers who were trying to go against the

agribusiness model of you know coffee under full sun lots of pesticides and they had organized themselves in a cooperative and asked Bill during a trip down there they asked us if we would help them we said sure how can we help you. Would you buy. You know a piece of land enjoying the cooperative. Sure. Well we've got more and more little pieces and suddenly we were the. We were the the person organizing this whole thing. And my idea was that when we got profits from the coffee I would set up an artist's center there where people could come from the United States from the Dominican Republic and artists and have a place to go and write and create. Well what happened. As I became more and more involved in the community we realized 95 percent of the people there could not read or write. And here we're going to bring artists to create what I call the legacy of the tribe. The books that belong to all of us. But if you can't read or write you can't access. You can access that treasure chest so we scrapped that. And we built a school and we have a student Laura Marlow from the from Middlebury College that just

graduated she's there for a year. She's opened a literacy school. So in doing this literacy with old older people young people I got involved in children's books and I started reading a lot of children's books and I. Of course the more you read you get intrigued and I thought wow I want to tell some stories for instance the secret footprints was a legend. That's very Dominican. And the kids many of the kids told me the story. And so I had you know I need to write the story down. And so. That you know it it's it's an organic process how you people say where do you get your ideas from. You just. Live. Well even though it's only a cup of soup the story is indeed the story. It is a tale that's very much based on what you and your husband have done down and the Dominican Republic using shade trees and I love the idea that the thrush that summer's here

is you are creating you know shelter and a habitat for the thrush that was threatened by the other way of growing coffee. Is it everything that you expected this. Taking this on and clearly you have a literacy school things have shifted a little bit. Well I think. I think one of the things that that has happened. This is very much a fable a green fable I call it because it's it's what I would like to see happen. But it's. More complicated than that I mean I think that the bottom has fallen out of the coffee market these farmers. We can. Get 30 40 cents a pound for our coffee. That's what it's selling for on the market. Lot of the biggest coffee producer in the country I'm Bill and I are just doing this you know small potatoes the biggest coffee producer has 2500 workers laid out all but 300. They can't afford to even grow the coffee harvest the coffee. So it's a very hard post-September 11th world the coffee market was already

going down but this is really been difficult and of course she's a little model though it's it's a model but the other difficulty is the billin are having to do it at a distance so we're not there to constantly model it. That's why we're so grateful to Laura Marlow who really I mean what a blessing to totally donate a year. To the literacy center and she's helping us with a lot of other aspects of it. Well we already get lots of people writing could I be the next teacher can I write them down so that that part is good because again like the big bills through the summers in Vermont and winters on them on the same mountain we're out in the Dominican Republic. Like that. This cross now. This circulation is really what sustainability. And. You know. Recycling is about human talent as well. Your coffee is just for those curious cafe.

I'll work on my accent. You can get that in Middlebury and anywhere else. Middlebury at the co-op. Greg Agnew nice. Where's the other place. They say green fields downtown Middlebury. And Bill has just gone together with Paul Ralston who is in Bristol and he used to own the Bristol bakery and started the Vermont coffee company and he is one of the coffees he's going to feature he's doing all organic shade grown coffee. One of the copies is going to feature is is that asset and that's the umbrella name for all the coffees from the little farmers in the area. Our art form is called Douglas here but it's also become the umbrella place where the farmers can all put their coffee together. So amazing the things that you do. Another interesting project. It isn't the time of the butterfly was recently made into a movie that was shown on Showtime. Were you happy with that experience. Well I didn't that I would be exhausted if I

tried to do that. As a matter of fact they tried to get me involved in the in the filming and in the script and I said. Look. I already wrote the movie it's only for you know reminds me of some story you know. I think it was Rambo who was asked by a musician of a good set of his poems to music and he thought and he said I thought I had already done so. So I thought I had already made the movie on paper and I decided I didn't want to get involved in it because I just. Don't know enough about it and I would be a past every moment saying well why not why were you changing. Well you saw enough with the results. I have I have a qualified enthusiasm for it I think they're respectful of the history. I loved the performance of Salma hijack and some of the other actors. It was almost all Latino actors and very very good talented young people. But. For me film. Doesn't have. The density and complexity of story as I practice it so. I'm always

too harsh a critic. So. Speaking of as you practice it you are impressively prolific. What is the structure of your writing day. It's I have to laugh when you say that because I think that my first novel did not come out till I was 41. And as you mentioned I was a great writer I mean I went from job to job year after year I was moving so I was very rooted and it's happened since I've been in Vermont. Part of the reason I'm so grateful to the state and I mean I. Would people say I'm prolific I just think. You know it's part of my practice every day to be connected to the word. It's how I think it's how. I put things together. So I you know. I don't even know how to. How to say why or how I'm prolific. I'm very I believe very much that a writer writes.

I believe very much in the Hemingway saying that it's you know one percent talent 99 percent just apply in the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. It's not just waiting for inspiration when when it comes. And maybe these are my all my. Writing Barry in my book bearing years. OK. Well you've lived your life in two cultures in two languages. Your books actually been translated into nine other languages including Spanish but not translated by you. More and more Spanish is creeping into your current work I think it's very interesting and you very cleverly translate it for non Spanish speaking people. Why I wanted to write only in English. And why are you incorporating more Spanish into your work. Well I write in English because that's the language that I learnt that I would that. Is a language that I learned to craft because you can use language for different things obviously. But the one that I learned to craft the one that I read and studied

was English because I came to this country pre bilingual education where we were not allowed to speak Spanish in the schools or. Anything of a sword so I was all my training in those years was in English in the literature of of the United States Britain. Luger written in English so. So I mean that was my training it was by accident. So. Spanish is the language of my childhood the childhood. Things the the visceral things but I don't it's like a horse that could throw me any time I don't know how to work it I don't know how to write it. But you are incorporating it all your way when it is interesting because. As with everything else I think language becomes richer. The more it's in few. With all the English shows that we speak and we we have so many Spanish words in English and we have other words we have Chinese words Yiddish words. What's your shtick I mean there's all kinds of examples and the language gets richer because of it.

So I tried to bring in the flavor. Of Spanish. And that fell into my English very well as you do. And we have we have got to go. Thank you so much for coming. There are. Please check out Julia Alvarez as novels if you have not something to declare if you want to know more about writing and her heart and mind and all of these many books Thank you for all that you have offered us as readers and thank you for being here today THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. Dr. Larry McCrory is an extraordinary teacher who has given back to the state of Vermont in countless

ways as a professor and dean at the University of Vermont College of Medicine as a founding member of the Human Rights Commission. And as a passionate musician join me for a conversation with the delightful and most accomplished Larry McCrory. Next on profile. I'm not likely 66 to teach at the University of Vermont. During his tenure as a professor of physiology and Biophysics at the Medical College he received seven Teaching Awards and served in many administrative roles including associate acting vice president for academic affairs and the dean of the school of allied health. Following his retirement in 1993 the university honored him with a Doctor of Laws degree and the establishment of the multicultural art collection and gallery in his name. He continues to teach through numerous visiting professorships throughout the United States and in the Caribbean and Australia. Dr McCrory has been recognised repeatedly for his

community service particularly for his work on cultural diversity and racism awareness. As an African-American in a predominantly white state he helped increase awareness of the Human Rights Commission he helped form the ELaNa group at the University of Vermont and has given numerous talks and presentations to schools and organizations across the state. But some of you may simply know him as that hot sax player in the band just jazz. I'm delighted to have learned about Corey as my guest today. Thank you for coming. You know I'd like to know a little bit about your upbringing in Philadelphia. Well I was born in Philadelphia and only lived there for two years. Oh my family. My mother moved from Philadelphia across the river to Camden New Jersey. Those those people who know New Jersey let me say that that was a very nice town to grow up in. It isn't now right but it was there. So I actually grew up in Camden New Jersey radicals who are from Philly.

And in those days of course all the schools in New Jersey were segregated and all the grade schools. The primary schools were segregated so I went to an all black. School and through the eighth grade. And then in Camden we came together that is the race is in quotation marks it came together in junior high school and in high school. So I graduated from Camden High School in 1944. Went to the University of Michigan from there and then. Did among other things you're a jazz scholar and professional musician. Were you playing jazz as a kid. Yes and as a matter of fact I got a great break. I was playing saxophone in the high school band and I guess I was 15 years old and the war the Second World War of course broke out. And in the course of that many of the musicians in Camden New Jersey who were old enough were drafted that left big open

spaces in the bands that people like me very inexperienced did. I couldn't take a solo I didn't know how in the world anybody could could blow a solo without notes in front of them. And any rate the big the biggest band in Camden New Jersey the bass player came in asked my mother if I could possibly join the band I was 15. She wouldn't he didn't like it at all. But she knew the bass player the bass player is that he would take care of me and indeed he did. He taught me so many things that if she could have only known what he was teaching me at any rate. So I learned a lot of music but I also learned a lot about the thing about lie about life how to care. So you went on to get your bachelor's and master's at the University of Michigan and then actually actually it didn't work that way. I went to the University of Michigan for one semester and it was obvious that I was going to be drafted into the army so I enlisted at 17 and I went into the army specialized training program which was a program at that time that

sent. Us people back to college. So I got sent to the University of Wisconsin in pre-med. And then they close a pre-med program and I got sent to Penn State University in electrical engineering. And then I went to active duty from there into the engineers into the army. I spent two and a half years in New York and finally was discharged then went back to the University of Michigan where I then finished my baccalaureate degree stayed there for a master's degree and then went back to Philadelphia to try to get a job and that is an experience that I'd like to talk about. We get time to go for well. Here I was with two degrees and and no job nobody wanted to hire me. What would happen is I would call. I would answer an ad in the paper for scientists. I had a baccalaureate. I mean a master's degree in biology and I would answer an ad and they'd be very excited about my credentials and of

course the name McCrory. Got me an invitation. As soon as I got down to a particular place a secretary would look at me and jump up and run back and in the back and then come back out and say the job has been filled or we have looked over your credentials you're much too qualified for this job or whatever. So I ended up parking cars in the Benjamin Franklin hotel garage and for a year and a very interesting thing happened and I will always be indebted to these people but I got a call one day after parking cars for about a year from a member of the Friends Service Committee a Quaker woman ization. And they said that that the pharmaceutical house sharpened Dome had never hired a black person a negro in the in those days except in janitorial positions. And they wanted me to help them integrate sharp and don't so would I do it. Would

I be the first one. Of course I said yes. And and I applied for a job a charm and eventually got hired there. That was an experience in itself very very racist experience. But but let's just skip over that. But now I was hired by Sharpton don't radiate blood plasma. I did that for year and then transferred into the research arm. And had a great experience at Europe and don't know I was there for four and a half years and one day the director of research called me in and said that sharp and dome had decided to do something for higher education and and and I decided to send one person back for a Ph.D. and they had chosen me. And that was you. Very so very lucky to be at the right time and so point they sent me to the University of Illinois College of Medicine where I got another master's degree and of community and physiology. I did not have to go back although that's what I wanted to do what I want to do is get my degree and get back to shore.

No mistakes is possible in the course of that degree of being a graduate student I fell in love with teaching and I never went back. So you did that for a couple of years and then you applied for and got a job at the University of Vermont. This is well no what no I did not. Well what happened was when I finished my degree at Illinois they hired me as an assistant professor so I stayed there for two years. And Norm Alpert who was a professor in that same department got the job as department chairman here and he asked me. I was a graduate student when I got my degree under normal Alpert and he asked me if I would go to Vermont with him and help him set up dynamite teaching program here. Two things yes I wanted to go to Vermont I always had wanted to Vermont even when I was in New Jersey. And two I wanted to get my kids I had young kids I want to get to Chicago so when I came here for five years and that was 36 years ago.

Right. So this was this is 1966 That's right the heart of the civil rights movement you know one of the whitest states in the country to a university that's still holding pretty silly and offensive cakewalk. What were those years like for you as a young African-American man who's building a career. Will they want they. They were just about what they would have been like any place quite frankly. Vermont was no different really than the rest of the United States. Whiter Yes in that sense. But but really you know different I mean racism pervades this whole society and Vermont is is not unlike any place else in that sense. There were some differences which we can talk about later but. But the interesting thing about it was that that one I recognize what was happening up here. I said to my boss Norman Alpert I said look I don't want to embarrass you or me you brought me here but I said that I'm going to

fight this down. I can't I can't just be a scientist or just be a professor. I'm going to have to get involved politically. He said you know if you didn't get involved politically I'd be very upset with you. So so there you became a politicized percept where I don't loot. So you were just a part of a conference on race in Vermont where racism is certainly a serious problem here and of great concern as our population becomes more diverse. Education seems key but it is falling short. It's sort of just a focus on that for a minute. How does racism exhibit ourselves in itself and in our schools and what can we do about exhibit. Excuse me it exhibits itself in a number of ways. First of all and I think this is the most serious Proc. the most serious social problem that Berman has right now because because not only are students of color affected but I think white students are

affected very negatively. OK. But but here's how it exhibits itself. First of all there's harassment of students of color. I mean my kids were called every name you can think of and I had to go down there and fight like crazy for them 30 years ago trying to protect them from not so much from the other kids because kids will be kids but protect them from the lack of movement by the faculty and by the teachers and by the administration I mean the administration would throw their hands up and say we don't know what to do. These are professional educators. They don't know what to do. So so all of us were involved in those days in trying to protect our children from this horrific and horrendous system. So that's one way. Incidentally before I finish that now or at least over the last few years I had been fighting that same fight trying to

protect my granddaughter. They're going to say did they address race early that the years later not that much has changed there is now an anti Rassmann policy which is a document that hangs on the wall in every school and so forth. But there has been so little change in terms of teacher education in terms of trying to modify the way teachers and administrators administer. And so so it hasn't changed that much. Last year my daughter who is also an activist and who is fought like crazy with the school system trying to protect her daughter my granddaughter last year she gave up and she moved my granddaughter down to to Connecticut to New Haven where she goes to school now in Connecticut. And it's so much better. I mean I've seen the curriculum it is so different than any curriculum I've I've seen in Vermont. It's very sad.

At any rate that's one aspect of it. The harassment. Secondly teacher expectation. I mean so many times I had to go to the schools and the teachers would tell me what wonderful kids I had how well behaved they were. I mean but there. But the teacher expectation of my children in terms of their intellectual development just was was very low. I mean as long as they had the former Besser you I think that doesn't matter you know unless ALL BLACK OK. And that's what shows through it. So in point of fact the teacher expectation was just horrendous. And and. And thirdly they never see themselves in these schools. The curricula are so you are so white and white and this is just it just permeates the whole business. They don't understand multiculturalism. They don't stand diversity not only that not only do they not understand. They don't stand the value of it in terms of educating all of our children. And so and so I think

it's not only do students of color suffer in the school systems in Vermont but so do the white kids. So it's not in our textbooks it's not in the things that we is that it is you know a celebrant wore on when they do it. It's it's done as an add on as opposed to something that is built into the whole fabric of the I mean these are. Every moment should be a teachable moment in this area and they are Bilby. Martin Luther King and not one year goes by that I don't get the call or maybe 5 or 6 or 10 calls will you come and give a talk to our school kids about Martin Luther King. You know that's one week or one day or one hour or one ever or whatever. It's not built into the fabric of the teaching of the curriculum but it has been done in some places like in Connecticut you brought up four children in Vermont how many of them have stayed.

And and you know they move you know what's sad about that is first of all I I missed my granddaughter like crazy OK. But that's just a personal inconvenience and it's a personal problem but. But I. I applaud my daughter's courage in sending her down there because my daughter misses it too and and my daughter spends so much time running up and down driving from here to New Haven so she can be with with her daughter and yet her daughter really is having a marvelous experience and it's worth it. But but I only wish that I had had the courage that my daughter had so I and I had gotten my kids out of the school system and sent them to a decent place. So do you think they were harmed or are stereo I know they were. Yeah and they know they were. Talk to me a little bit about recruitment and retention of good you know of people of color and to professional jobs here at the university here and in businesses.

Recruitment is one issue. Retention is another. Yes you know that's very perceptive of Sirius because because the university not the university many individuals in the university really have. Worked hard to recruit people of color in two faculty positions administrative positions and so forth. They really have. The problem the problem with the university is that these things don't get institutionalized so the moment that person is Don behaves who is a dean of book of natural resources has. You have no idea how hard that man has worked he's gone down he's gone down to high schools in Connecticut and New York State and so forth and talk to students about coming up here and so forth when the pennies your eyes. He's done so much personal recruiting it's not even funny both at the faculty and student level. But if Donna Haynes ever leaves that falls apart. You see it as Leslie King has left the university that effort falls apart it never gets

institutionalized. Now that's one thing. However there has been or have been a number of efforts to increase the faculty at the University of Vermont that is faculty of color. And right now there are the there is a fairly decent number of new positions that have been kind of been filled by by people of color. Problem is they won't stay. They haven't stayed in the past and they won't stay and they won't stay because the system really doesn't support them. First of all they owe they. I I personally was on more search committees than anybody I think in the history of the University of Vermont because every search committee has to have a person of color and how many of us are there. So these people get work today and they will they'll be on everything. Secondly every time a black student let's say gets in trouble. And this is phenomenal to me I used to get calls from professors white professors at the University of Vermont

saying oh I have I have a kid in my class and he's not doing very well and he's black. When you talk to him. Well you know I mean I don't send my white students over to see him. I mean if he's a professor he's a professor OK. OK. So the point is that the that the the faculty of color then feel almost obligated to take on all these extra chores and then all of a sudden six years have passed. They they're all for 10 year and they haven't published they haven't done what they want to do. So it's not a good environment for them. And in any case. And so until they leave they leave because it's a racist society and they don't and they don't see themselves anyplace else in the institution and they leave because it is over one thing. I mean I I don't see how those of us who have stayed around so long. And I'm curious about. I'm not kidding.

We're grateful. Another thing it seems that Vermonters are in denial about race absolutely. Now they it isn't it isn't present even enough for them so they think it doesn't exist to somehow know how kind of when people face up to this. When you asked me earlier about coming here one of the big differences. I mean I my answer was it's about the same as the rest of the United States but but there are some differences and that's one. One is the one that you're that you're identifying and that is that there is an incredible sense of denial here. I mean people say well at least there's no racism here my God this place is steeped in racism or I treat everybody the same all I mean and if you and you can look at all the indicators for example you can look at how well the kids are doing in school and as soon as they leave here and go someplace else all of a sudden they blossom. Carol Hogan who was the who is the director of admissions here her son got so we didn't want to go to school anymore it was so bad he'd call all these names of teachers were horrible as far as he was concerned.

He just didn't want to go anymore. She left here and took a job in Florida in Daytona Beach. Her son within one year was on the honor roll. He graduated a few years ago he's now at Yale. I mean my god that just blossomed getting out of here. That's very sad. So you can look at that and again you can look at the criminal justice system. I mean black people there are so few black people in this state. It's it's earns three point six or something now. They are that they are so disproportionately represented in the in the jail is not even funny. Now now do we commit that much crime or are we being targeted. There was some big debate about whether or not there is racial profiling. My God there's been racial profiling ever since this country was started by Gods right. I mean how can anybody argue about that. And let me tell you something it's horrendous because if in fact that is cable talk we can store

go about this. White kids are taught that if they ever get in trouble if anything happens. Run to the nearest policeman a police person whatever. OK. Black kids are taught. If that's ever any problem. Run away from the police as fast as you can that's the way I was brought up. I brought my kids up that way because I don't want them to be a statistic. And it's very very dangerous to be black and for example get stopped by a policeman. Here in Vermont or any place else in this country. And the last thing you want to do is be out on some country road stop by a policeman and that's no place at all to start arguing your civil rights. I mean you have to be subservient you have to because if your behavior is in any way not what that policeman wants it's all over. You are a statistic. And that's that's been proven or has been shown over and I'm not making this up so as of yet there are statistics on this stuff OK.

Education within the police department and in the courts. I think education is part of it. But education alone is not going to do it. I think there has to be a system whereby these people are judged where by their fitness to to continue to be a police person or whatever is is assessed. I mean instead of all the cover up I mean my God these people blow away. And New York City whose only standing in his in in the is whatever that's called hallway outside. No gun no enough and they blow him away and then they're acquitted. I mean acquitted they found not guilty. I mean my God they can do anything they want to do. And so it's more than just education anyway. You know the case in New York where the police I don't want to get vile but where the police

showed that lamppost up the rear end. OK. OK. OK. Point is that right after that happened the police chief announced that there would be sensitivity training from now on. Now if if you need sensitivity training to understand why it's inappropriate to do what these police did then maybe you too messed up to be a police person in the first place. So education's not going to do anything. You've got the wrong people. Why. I advocate a system which I would call fitness I feel the same way about it about medical doctors and incidentally I don't care how well their they do in their academic studies. Are they fit to be a physician do they have the right mental attitude to be a position. Well I feel the same way about the police. Do they have the right mental makeup of the right in most on makeup to be a policeman. Week week we could spend another round I know my answer no no no no not at all it's important stuff but I just want to get to you know what is much music done in your life.

You know this is what his music was my stuff to music has saved my life. I'm serious I mean I'd be in and this may be true of every black person in the world to me and that the problem is how do you grow up in the system in this society and not lose it and not lose it. And quite frankly I owe I owe a lot to my music. I did I think I'd be in a state hospital for my music if I could you know I couldn't play my horn. It would be all over me. You even take your music into educational things you went to Russia with Jenny Johnson. Yes it was very it was very nice to take us to Russia with her I mean she was the one who was in and it was a wonderful I mean the thing about the Russian thing was you know we're taught all this propaganda about different people. Russia the Russians that we met the people in the street were the warmest people on the scene. It was just wonderful the whole business and the all the bane. But I just I can't tell you with its roots it was just beautiful.

So we're actually out of time I know coming up is that you're going to be writing some books. I've been trying to write three books that have they're in my computer right now and I can't get to them so I have promised my daughter a few other people that I'm stopping all this talking all over the place and sit out a duce of writing would you. Yes I'm trying. Well we'll look forward to the books. We thank you for coming here because you're going to wish he had his entire time and I thought I would talk so much. I'm not. Thank you so much for that me Friday. Thanks and thank you for joining us on profile.