Rob Ripley, the genial Yankee maple farmer who had shown up in several stories I’d written earlier – on sugaring, on the Montague Farm commune where he was a helpful neighbor and on his role as the “patron saint” of Montague Center’s annual sugar-on-snow supper, was one those elders who has made Franklin County special. When I learned that he was a mentor to young teens from inner-city Holyoke, it leant itself to an About Town column. The 16-year-old I quoted in the story says it all: “It’s like you don’t get to meet people real old.” he said of the 92-year-old farmer… Nobody really lives that long, so it’s kind of an honor to meet Rob Ripley.”
(Dec. 28, 1992)
MONTAGUE – This is the story of a 92-year-old rural man, who is white, and a 16-year-old boy from the city, who is black.
It’s about two men who helped bring them together, and about why their meeting is important for us all.
Rob Ripley, who’s approaching his 93rd birthday in a few weeks, is one of those living legends who inhabit the landscape in a way that’s as grand as the hills themselves.
With an engaging smile and a glowing presence, Ripley naturally displays an appreciation for his long, rich life. Better than any sci-fi contraption, he can take you back when he’s with you to a simpler era, when people worked really hard and knew just where they stood.
At his farmhouse near the Leverett town line, I was so moved that I hung his photo up beside my desk as an inspiration.
That’s also how 16-year-old “John” (not his real name) felt after getting to know Rob this summer. As one of the several teens from the Springfield-Holyoke area who interviewed him to videotape a documentary, John came away with his life seemingly changed.
“I was born in the middle of town, and it’s like you don’t get to meet people real old,” John says about this powerful experience.
“Mostly everybody either dies at an early age or gets in drug-related fights, gets shot or something. Nobody really lives that long, so it’s kind of an honor to meet Rob Ripley.”
What brought these two men together, across barriers that confound most of us, was a vision that we’re all truly one people.
Like Rob Ripley, Michael Kline has a warmth and a soft-edged charisma that easily cuts through obstacles like prejudice and disarms people instantly. In his two years as Pioneer Valley Folklore Society folklorist, he’s connected with more of these human resources than most of us do in a lifetime. That’s because he sees each of us as a resource and is a natural at bringing us together.
When I first heard that a folklorist was being hired with a three-year federal grant, I mistakenly assumed that his job would be to document indigenous Yankees like Rob Ripley.
But the Pioneer Valley is more than white churches and Grange halls, and Michael Kline has interviewed Ukrainian-Americans, Tibetan refugees, Puerto Ricans, Afro-Americans and more – and has brought us together.
It was Al Maiolatesi, who’s been a neighbor of Rob’s for 15 years, who first suggested the project as a way of bridging “two Very distinct cultures in the same country.
“Rob’s always been this wonderful local treasure,” said Maiolatesi, who works at Our House with the teens, all of whom have been convicted of crimes and are court involved.
“There couldn’t be anything more different than Rob Ripley’s way of life for 90-some years in one place and these kids living for 15 years in a battle zone,” Maiolatesi said. “It’s hard to believe their lives could be so far apart, even though Springfield is only 45 miles from Montague.”
What the eight hours of video footage shows, he said, is kids who were “enthralled” by hearing someone older than anyone they know talking about a completely alien lifestyle in an entirely different era.
In an interview published in the most recent PVFS newsletter, John says, “I thought it was going to be boring just sitting there listening to a 92-year-old guy talk.
After like the first time, I went back and it was good aim I sat down and talked to him and just figured out, you know, he has a lot of good thoughts, and he knows a lot, an awful lot, actually. … You know he gets around, drives the tractor, gets the sugar from the sugar bushes and the maple trees, makes the syrup, does everything! He’s a real strong man for his age. Oh yeah!”
Here’s a sample of their interaction:
John: Even living, like in a rural area for your whole life, do you think you could make it in say New York or something?
Rob: I don’t think I could ever stand it. I would miss the good old country … I’m satisfied right on Chestnut Hill. Get to Greenfield or Springfield or Holyoke, that’s far enough for me.
Maiolatesi reflected, “Rob was a complete mystery to the kids.”
Most don’t know any rural people at home, some don’t know many white people at all. … They just sat there listening to Rob. It was like seeing history, a piece of history.”
Kline, whose third year of National Endowment for the Arts funding was recently eliminated, leaving his program in jeopardy, has been working on a variety of projects, including a radio series that helps us learn from each other in just these ways.
When he arrived in the county about two years ago, Kline told me, “This is a time when we need our own s’orjes to become aware of the potential we have in our own farms and communities. When hard times are upon us, we have to turn to those resources. Not only can they sustain the people … spiritually and psychologically … through difficult times, but it can bring people together in the coalitions they need to form.”
Here was a meeting that truly made a difference.
“It’s the difference between rural and urban,” said Maiolatesi. “It’s the difference between black and white. It’s the difference between a 16-year-old and a 90-year-old … and more.”
And it’s more than that, too, it seems to me.
Hollywood has offered us plenty of false heroes and false notions of what heroes ought to be. We’ve been robbed of appreciating real people who can inspire us through our personal struggles.
As we set out on another year of adventures, pitfalls and attempts at living meaningfully, it’s good to know there are heroes among us: people who offer us examples in the way they live, and those who have the vision and ability to teach us what we have to offer each other.
– RICHIE DAVIS