“Duel in the Sun” – Vermont 1973

“Duel in the Sun” – Vermont 1973
      Due to a series of unexpected events I found myself working in a lumber mill in Vermont at the age of 18.  This was not the Vermont of picture postcards involving churches with steeples, cows and maple trees  everywhere.  Vermont Hardwoods was the only business in what was rather grandly called a “town”. There was a post office, tiny grocery store and an inn/bar. I was afraid to go in the inn, as I heard that French Canadians working on the Yankee Atomic Plant often went crazy in there on paydays, burning $20 dollar bills and getting into fights.  Triple decker houses  abounded and I lived in the bottom of one of them. Each floor had a porch and we all hung our hand washed clothes outside, bringing the stiff and frozen bodies in at sunset.
     Vermont Hardwoods was a benevolent company in that they did not seem to care if we showed up at work , it did not matter to them who used our time card, there was no pressure to produce  stacks of freshly sanded wood, indeed it seemed no one cared at all .  I remember wandering freely about the mill, rescuing cats that got stuck behind the elevator shaft, taking breaks out on the warm tin roofs to enjoy the snowy landscape and rejoicing in the fact that I did not have to go to school anymore.
     One woman there warned me that if I maneuvered my arm in a strange position and if I were incredibly stupid,  I could conceivably become enmeshed in my machine and not be able to reach the “OFF” lever. She once told me , in what passed for a back alley , that she had something for me, insinuating that it was not quite legal. Intrigued, I went to her apartment in a different triple decker, and she gave me 3 boxes of U. S. Government Surplus Instant Mashed Potatoes.  Sadly, you had to add expensive stuff to it like butter and milk, but if you did the results were delicious . She also told me I could apply to the State to get welfare and food stamps. This involved a lot of paperwork and I had no interest.
     I usually worked on a sander, whose main hazard was that if you did not put the wood in properly it would fly out and hit you in the neck. Men worked on the big log splitters and there was not much difference in pay unless you worked on the fourth floor where chairs were glued together. The potential for brain damage earned you an extra 5 cents an hour. Once I had to work on a machine that was like a giant pencil sharpener. I did not last long there because if you don’t do that right, your fingers get mangled in the spinning chair leg. .  The usual remedy for that was  to open the window and stick your hand in the snow .
     One day a co-worker informed us that the school would be showing a free movie on Friday. I did not care what was playing, I was so excited as I had not seen a movie in over a year and had no T. V.  We also had no refrigerator, sofa or car. But we did have the most kick-ass stereo in southern Vermont so our priorities were in order.
     On Friday night we knocked the slush and sawdust off our boots and settled in for “ Duel in the Sun” an “ oater” from 1946 with Gregory Peck as  charming ne’er do well Lewt, his lawyer brother Jesse played by Joseph Cotton, and Jennifer Jones as “ Pearl Chavez,  the fiery half breed who could not control her hot Indian blood”. The cast was rounded out with Lionel Barrymore as a Yankee cattle rancher and his saintly wife played by Lillian Gish.
     As Pearl vacillated between good and evil the older couple were mired in pain over a mysterious incident from long ago.  I barely paid any attention to the “elderly” people as Pearl and Lewt began their passionate affair full of lust and violence. There were shoot outs, a train wreck, a hoe down and all the usual Western staples including an especially  timely appearance by the U.S. Cavalry.
      When the story ended tragically over two hours later I remained enthralled with it, and Pearl Chavez became my fashion icon for far too long, sadly, to no great effect. As the years passed, I watched it every time it came on T.V. For a time I scoffed at it thinking that poor Jennifer Jones must have still been spitting out splinters long into the 50’s from all that scenery she chewed.  And what was she reaching for as she clawed her way up that mountain? The food cart? An Oscar? . Later I was more emotional about the older couple, whose regrets and sorrow over their mistakes was so touchingly acted by the two great stars.  Lillian, especially , used all the skills she learned as a silent movie actress in her death scene.
     Now I can set my DVR to record this movie and save it to watch anytime I want on my big color TV and watch it on my very own sofa. But it always carries me back to  the cold winter night in 1973  when half the town  of Readsboro, Vermont  showed up for “ Duel in the Sun”.