I lived in Vermont for a little while after graduating from TESC. I was surprised to discover that Evergreen was a well known school back there. And even more amazing, it was highly respected. All the bad press in Puget Sound didn't have any effect on the good reputation of the College in Yankee Land. But when I learned Olympia Beer also enjoyed a certain mystique in Vermont, that sort took the pleasure out of the New England view of Evergreen.

While I was back there I visited the ghost-town campus of Franconia College in New Hampshire. Franconia was another alternative school, but it folded up in the second half of the 1970s and Evergreen had a small wave of refugees come from the Granite State. A former Franconia student gave me a guided tour of the place. We had to dodge security people and it sort of reminded me of the days when we would sneak into the TESC steam tunnels at night. The grounds were overgrown and the buildings were starting to show some wear. It really brought home the high-risk nature of experimental colleges in those days. There were other schools that folded up as well during that era.

The best paying job I had in Vermont, armed with my TESC BA in Liberal Arts, was driving a taxicab in Burlington. I never let the company know I was a college grad. There was one other guy in the fleet who had a BA, and the others called him "Doc." If people asked me what I did for a living, I enjoyed answering, "I'm in transportation."