My New Side Gig

2021 marks my nineteenth year living in this little village in Vermont (excluding three years when I lived about six miles south of the village). Eight years ago, my wife and I bought a house here, and for the last eight years, we’ve been raising our daughter here. My wife works for the local public school, while I work for the local private school.

In short, this little village is our home.

For the past few months, I’ve had a pretty big itch about wanting to contribute more to the community, and about a week ago, I found a way to scratch it.

There’s a great little company in Vermont (and parts of New York) called The Front Porch Forum. They try to help neighbors connect with one another through an email-based forum, and last week, one of my friends and neighbors posted a job opening for a part-time Website Content Manager for the Poultney Historical Society.

I emailed my friend, met her to discuss the position over a cup of coffee, and yesterday, I spent about two hours in the historical schoolhouse the Society calls home.

I was all alone with the collection, and I couldn’t have been happier.

While there are a lot of tasks to help the Society get the website where they want it to be, I decided to spend my first day just going through some of the archives, trying to find an interesting story to share.

Here’s what I came up with: “Our Partisan Divide is Nothing New.”

I look forward to spending many more hours combing through the Historical Society’s archives, trying to find ways to bring the history of our little village to life.