 This is the lady. I would like to welcome those who are watching on live streaming from our friends at work on. I have an email this morning from an old Liberty Street neighbor in Norma, and Norma I should be watching from Colorado, and we hope many others watch the country. I'd also like to introduce some other ladies that are here, Jane Leighy, the senator's sister mom, Mary Leighy, the senator's sister and Marcel Leighy, soul mate, spouse, and co-conspirator for 61 years. One other person I want to introduce is Maxine Leighy, who was a senator's teacher. Maxine, stand up and wave to the crowd. She is sociology. Is that right? There you go. Wonderful. Wonderful. I think his moderator today is Diane Derby. Diane served for six years as press secretary to Senator Jeffords. Can you turn the microphone? Sure. I guess. I can talk louder. Yeah, talk louder. We have 10 years, Diane served for 10 years for Senator Leighy as his local representative out of the Montpelier office. And we all know her now as senior editor at Vermont Digger. So we want to welcome Diane as our moderator. And with that, I will turn the meeting over to Diane. Everyone at the Historical Society for pulling this together. It's really great to see such a crowd and it's really important that the Historical Society just does great work to keep us all reminded of what came before us and inform us on what's to come in the future. So thank you, George. I don't think Senator Leighy needs much introduction. 48 years in the Senate. I think everybody's familiar with his Senate career, undoubtedly, but we've really come here today to talk about what his life was like growing up in Montpelier. And I know he doesn't need many prompts, but I've got a few prompts of my own here for him. Keep the conversation lively. And, you know, again, I'm not here as a journalist today asking tough questions. I've been here just in my cell role as having been fortunate enough to be his staff member for 10 years and just to have a nice fun conversation. I've promised him it would be fun. So I have to follow through on that. So for those who have read the book, you might be familiar with The Road Taken. His opening chapter starts with a scene out of the State House when he's four years old. Being a little hell-y and riding his tricycle all over. And I don't want to steal his thunder, so I'll have him tell that story. But I've asked him to start there and walk us through what the early memories are in growing up on State Street in Montpelier. Well, thank you, Diane. George, thank you. George Hudson's parents were dear friends of my parents. And it brings back memories just seeing him and hearing his voice. Mary and I and our late brother John grew up 136th Street and almost diagonally across from the State House. So back in the days, you didn't even lock your doors. You walked around everywhere. Everybody knew everybody else. And one of my buddies and I decided let's go explore the State House. We'd been there with my parents, but we had our tricycles. And we went up and went inside door and nobody's around. So we dragged the tricycles up to the second floor. And we're in a nice room, found out later as the Senate Chambers. And we said let's race down the halls. So we've reached down the halls. Here's an open door. We go barreling through it. Wham up against this desk, which was 27 feet high, at least to look to us. And a man leans over. He goes, yes. And we said, hi. Are you the governor? I am. Now get out. But he did give us some candy on the way out. And Mary, you can imagine the reaction of our parents. I got home and I was all excited. And I told my parents about this. They did not see the humor in it. And we weren't allowed to go in the State House. Our current governor is in there to meet with him. Not long after I became a long after he became governor. I was a U.S. Senator. And he says, it's a different desk. And don't bring your tricycle in here. So beyond that, what other memories do you have on State Street itself as a kid? And what was it like growing up in the family? You had the family business, the Leahy Press, and the back of the building growing up. Maybe a few stories about those memories. It was interesting. We rented out rooms to legislators. My mother did, helped with the bills, but they did not hear all these stories when they were in the house, which is wonderful. We rented out another apartment upstairs. But you could walk through the kitchen door into the Leahy Press. And the beauty of that, I learned to read at a very early age. One of the most formative things in my life. Can you hear this okay back there? I can never tell from here. It was formative things. I had my first library card at the College of Harvard before I was five. And that's because I learned to read so quickly in the Leahy Press. We always had a constant stream. My parents had a constant stream of friends. We learned from them and hear all these stories. And the history, my dad told the stories of the 27th Flood and how he was there with his mother and his sister. She lied before my parents had met. And it moved up to the second floor of 136th Stage 3 because the 27th Flood was coming down Stage 3. And then I came in, came up in a rowboat with a huge camera to the second floor. And Dad opened the window, let the guy into the place, tied the rowboat to the cast iron radiator, thank you. And helped him up onto the roof, passed up. The irony is I have a book with me and I was glancing through it on the way over here. My son was driving. And there is a picture he took from that window. And you can see the house next door. And what was the National Life Billion, the state office book, picture taken from up there. You know, you'd hear these stories. And then, of course, later on we had Irene. And that brought us to our home in Middlesex. The next day was a beautiful day. It flew around the state, saw everything that was going on, and saw on the phone from the helicopter to Washington seeking aid for the... And I want to go too long, but I'll just close one thing. When this last flood came, and I'm watching on the news, and in buildings of different companies at the time, but buildings where I used to deliver newspapers, the Montpey or Argus afternoon paper. I didn't want a morning paper. But buildings where I delivered it, I'd hear the businesses in them destroyed. And I was literally in tears. I have never lost, even in the Senate and everywhere else we've lived, I've never really lost that feeling of growing up in Montpey. And I went to high school with this building, and it did my sister, she's much smarter. And our brother was really smart. So we want to talk a little about how your early experiences shaped your career in the Senate. And your father was a real historian, knew everything, told these stories of the state house, you met the governor when you were four years old. How did these early experiences kind of shape you to get you involved in politics? Well, I learned a couple of things from my parents. My father had to leave school about 12 or 13 years old. When my grandfather was a stone carver and Barry, Patrick J. Lay, he died. And dad had to go out and support his mother and sister. And it was a different time. I've never forgotten the stories. The signs would say, no Irish need to apply. Or if you weren't smart enough to figure that out, no Catholic need to apply. But dad became a printer and eventually won the best in the area. He started his own printing business, Lay Press, which is still there. But he regretted not being able to finish school, but he became a self-taught historian. He read everything. He had almost photographic memory of history. He'd get the newspapers and just devour them and talk about it. And so much so that kids, when they were in college, and they had a history exam coming, they'd call, let's call Grandpa Lay, he'd double check these answers. And that influenced me so much. Now my Italian mother, my grand-grandparents, emigrated to Vermont from Italy. She was born here, grew up speaking Italian. And that certainly influenced the feeling of diversity and why you need it. But the history, and probably the thing that I'm going too far off here, cherished the most and my parents lived for a number of years after I got elected to the Senate. And I could bring them to all these places that they'd read about. And I remember my dad holding handwritten notes, not copies, but the real ones Abraham Lincoln had written down. And the archives in Washington. That was a joy. But all the way through I always felt I was kind of paying back what I had because one player you could walk everywhere, you could go anywhere. I had the time to leave our bicycles on the porch. It was a different world. People helped each other. They drove down here, I think, where the fires were. And Diane, I can't tell you when you called me to tell me about the fires, how choked up I got hearing that. But some of the buildings along here, I can remember my parents going to the grocery store. And the kids would be in the car. We'd pull up to, obviously, an area where people of limited means were living. And my dad opening the trunk, taking a bag of groceries up to the second floor, the rickety stairways outside, knocking on the door. People would come to the door and hand them the groceries. They'd say thank you and they'd leave and get back in the car. Never told us who the people were. He just said if people are in need, help them. And it meant a lot. You touched a little bit on your library card at the age of four. Yeah. Maybe you're also talking your book a little bit about being in the supermarket, looking at comic books. You had only sight in one eye. And so reading became your passion. And maybe tell us a little bit about what did the Kellogg Hubbard Library look like when you were a four-year-old? I know the Leahy Wing wasn't built yet, so we can say that. I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that at the age of four. But I was born basically blind in one eye. It's like you had severe macular degeneration in one eye. So sports are a difficult thing because of lack of depth perception. And that brought about the accident I had last year, walking upstairs. But reading, I only needed one eye. And here's why individuals are important. Do any of you remember Mrs. Holbrook? Okay, I see a few hands going, good, thank you. I'm not that old. But Mrs. Holbrook was the librarian. The library was in the basement. And it was very, very small. And I went to St. Michael's Greater School up on the top of the hill. I walked down the hill, go in the library. She said, well, Patrick, did you read the book you had two days ago? Yes, I did. Tell me about it. And I would tell her, she said, good, now here's one by Mark Twain. You might want to read or something. And I was, you know, like, first, second grade. And by the end of third grade, I'd read all Twain, all Dickens, all of these others. And history books and she just kept encouraging me to read these. And it was so enjoyable. And I know that when one of the floods here in Montpellier when that was still there, people showed up from around, say, just ran in and grabbed all the books they could off the shelves, just ran out through in the cars. And to save them, otherwise they'd be destroyed. Flood was over, they brought, every single book came back, plus about 20% more. Now, wouldn't I, I've always felt that that was one of the most important things in my life. And my parents encouraged me to read. And after I got in the Senate, I couldn't forget about that place. So the nice thing about being on Appropriations Committee, you get to determine where money goes. And they now have a beautiful new wing for the Children's Library. And, well, I commend the architects of everybody else who put wood and stone all together. But you can be somebody who has a reading problem or somebody who's reading several grades ahead of themselves and they have programs for you. Our grandchildren, when they had come up to the farm during the summer, they'd just go down. First thing they'd go down, they'd load up on books and we'd bring them back. We've got at least one six-year-old in the audience who wants to hear a little about your Batman history. Couldn't be a senator like he talked without talking about Batman. I did read Batman comics. And ten cents. Finally went to twelve cents. We would go in. I'd be there the first one at the store when the new came out. I tended to remember everything I read. And I do recall when I was in the Senate talking with people from D.C. Comics about legislation. Something was said, I said, no, no, in 1947, in our spring edition, about page five, such and such happened. And they thought, yeah, we humor the guy. I said, oh, yes, Senator, of course you're right. What the hell is he talking about? Never happened. Go back to the archives and find that you go back. That's exactly what happened. And one thing led to another. I worked with them on a very powerful, we got the characters on Batman comic because I was trying to ban the export of landmines from the U.S. No country had done that. And when I started off, I could count about 12 votes in the Senate. Among the things we used was this Batman comic book and several of us worked on it, including debating for two days the ending. It's a short story. Somebody worked for the Wayne industry in a combat area. Parents killed. A little girl was captured. Batman wouldn't save her. In the last panel, the helicopter was coming to pick him up and she said, look at the shiny toy. He said, no, and then boom. And she's destroyed. And the reason we debated on that, and I went to every single senator across the political spectrum. I said, read that. And they said, okay, just leave us all over here. And they said, that's a terrible ending. I said, there are no good endings in landmines. I was a medical surgical nurse. She's been in war zones and in the operating rooms and in the surgery places where they're having to re-amputate and to put process. So there's nothing happy. It's mostly civilians. And we passed the bay at 100 to zero. The only controversial bill for 10 years. So I like Batman. And the kids seemed to like it. I did reading our, I volunteered reading our one day, which is easy to come from our home, middle sex on Saturday. Jeans and sweatshirts and somebody hands me a note that Batman enemies had their pictures in the library. I could not figure out the clues. I need help. I grabbed my phone and you nearby, girl was a burst smoke in walks Batman. And you can imagine these four or five, six girls. Well, anyway, long story short, he couldn't figure out the clues, but the children did. And on the way out, he says, I want to thank you children. You're welcome, Mr. Batman. It was fun. So we're going to open it up in a few minutes to questions, but I'm hoping before we do that. I'm getting out of sequence. No, that's, I'm out of sequence. I'm hoping we can back it up a little bit just to get the visuals. What did downtown look like when you were a kid growing up? I talked to Mary a little bit in preparation. She told me a little bit about the two supermarkets in town, the two competing downtown supermarkets. Yeah, I worked in one. You worked in one? I was a meat cutter. Just tell us a little bit about that and the visuals of downtown when you were a kid growing up. That story is no longer there. In fact, there was a fire that destroyed that wing and then... The city center. Ben and Jerry's. Yeah, the city center building. But it was a part-time job when I was in high school. And I learned two things. One, I learned how to carve meat. And secondly, I learned this is hard work. And I had a lot more... I think I had respect anyway for people who worked in stores like that, but I had even more. Realizing how hard the work was to do it right. And the difference in people coming to the store, some very nice, some not so nice. But you learn that and you learn... You should treat everybody with respect. And so it was part of growing up. Most of the stores, we knew the people. We knew the people who ran the stores. I'd deliver printing there from the way he pressed. Usually I'd go to school, drop off this, such and such a place. And it was different. You had tunnels, you had all these others. Because everybody knew everybody. And it... I mean, so I'm gonna live in this... Oh, your mother was just in here. And she forgot this, be sure to bring it to her. Whatever it might be. It was a different world. You tended not to judge people. I mean, it's a lot different than with my father. As a 13-year-old, when there were religious prejudices and others, that had diminished substantially. And I remember we used to joke about mom and dad being the Democrats. Well, that's where the Democrats live over there. In that house. But Dean Davis, who's a Mr. Republican, and his president of National Life, who's across the street, he and his wife would come in and play bridge with my parents at least one night a week. George Jetson, who introduced me, his father, the landlord, the mother, they would... My parents would play bridge at their house one night. They'd play bridge at ours. Everybody knew everybody and socialized. But helped each other. Said, my mother, where are you going? Where are you going with that food? Well, so-and-so, sick. And I just thought I might hop up. And I said, well, who are they? Well, I don't really know them, but their friends are so-and-so. And so my friend brought him supper last night. I'm bringing it tonight. And, you know, you grow up in a community like that. That's going to affect you for the rest of your life. No matter what you do. I didn't expect to be a U.S. senator, but I tried not to forget the things I learned. And so Montpey has been special. And as Marcel knows, when I watch the news of the flood here this year, I literally sat there in tears. Does Montpelier still feel familiar to you, you know, having grown up here, does it feel different as just the landscape and look at the place? Well, the landscape is much the same. And we used to when I had an office here in Montpelier as a senator in that terrible-looking post-office building. I'm not going to say what I call it, Marcel. I think I've heard about this. But we drive back to our home in Middlesex. I usually go up the hill and go over past what we call Codyville and into Middlesex on the back road. And so much that's always looked like. But the people I knew that nowhere near as much, I mean, I grew up in the high school class I was in was only 30 or 40. Is that right, Xie? 25 to 30. Just 25 to 30. And the sad thing was that more than 10% of the class was dead within a few months after graduation. Several in an automobile accident. And another one, one of my classmates, had joined the military in the paratroopers in the parachute did not open. Every time I parachute, I thought of that. Well, I think on that note we can open it up for a little Q&A from the audience. We've got Catherine with the microphone here. Oh, or George, sorry, George. You understand with both Catherine and George, I want to really date myself. But Mary and I knew their parents. And there was such good people growing up. Just bring the microphone over maybe. Thank you. I do have a question, Senator, but first, are my parents and yours or friends also? I'm Stan Sloan. Is that microphone on? Hold it close. Hold it closer. Okay. That okay? Yep. And subsequently I worked for the congressional research service on international affairs and to work for you and your staff as well. But my question, and I delivered the pre-press. I have my morning routes going up East State Street. I've never been a morning person. No, I wouldn't do it again. So I would rather have the arguments about no question about that. But my question is what values do you think that you came away from growing up in Montpelier that influenced the way that you acted as a Senate as a U.S. Senator? Because I know that I took a lot of important values that are still important to me today. And I'm sure you did as well. And I'm sure you're exactly how you see that. Well, thank you. It's a good question. I think the values continue at all levels of light. When I was state's attorney in Chittenden County, I was on call seven days a week, 24 hours a day. You don't see that today. Several nights a week I'd be out at two or three o'clock in the morning with the police. See, what happened when people did not treat people the way they should. And I thought back to where growing up in Montpelier where people tried to help each other. When I went in the Senate, I realized the worst thing could do is to automatically catalog somebody. People talked about that when I was chair and when I was vice chair, the appropriations could be the close relationship I have with Dick Shelby in Alabama. We're poles apart philosophically. The only thing we have in common is the two of the biggest people in size in the Senate. But we always kept our word to each other. We always worked things out. We always said, what's the bottom line going to be to the people who are affected by it? And we were talking about this just the other night when I called Dick just to check on how his wife was doing. So I think these are the things I learned I tried to carry in the fact that it came from a small town. People would call us by our first name. They would say, oh, great to see you. I saw your sister last week or I saw your cousin or whatever it might be. And you realize this is real life. Maybe the best way to answer it is I grew up in a real life. Some of the people, and this is why there's been such deterioration in the Senate and especially in the House for our presenters. People grown up in a make-believe, go for that moment's headline, life. And that's not America. Did you feel the same way about it? I do. Grab the mic. Okay. Thanks. Okay. I grew up with the sense of strong community respect for other people. And as you pointed out, not prejudging people and understanding that there are things going on in their life that may be influencing what they're doing and what they're saying. And it's always important to look at that. And in Washington, I didn't see that that always happened. No. I couldn't say it better than you just did. Precious. Senator, I realize you're probably younger than this, but I wonder if you ever had a chance to ride on the Montpeil, your O'Bells River Railroad. Oh, damn. I guess that's a yes. As I said, I didn't know my paternal grandparents because they both passed away before my parents even met, but my maternal grandparents immigrated from Italy and we still have a lot of relatives there. And Senator in South Brigham, my grandfather's a stone carver, and he and his brother started the example of stone shed. And his kids would sometimes go over to visit our grandparents for a few days. We'd get on the train right out here, and my folks would put me on the train. The conductor knew who we were and said, don't worry, Mr. and Mrs. Laidale, I'll get them off. We'd bribe in South Brigham. There was a stop there. My grandfather would be there and he'd say, Mr. Stamble, I got your grandchildren here. Oh, I don't know what to say. And he'd take us off. I don't know. And wave goodbye. What else are you doing on a train? Since then, I've taken the train a lot between New York and Washington, Washington, Philadelphia. It's a little bit different. But we've had grandchildren up here at such memories that we have several times taken our grandchildren. We've gotten on the train in Waterbury and written down to White River. Got out in White River. Somebody from my office had been us there. We'd have lunch, go to the Montshire, and drive back to Middlesex. Those kids still talk about it years later doing it. It's a special way to see Vermont. Tom, yes. Well, thank you for being here. I imagine that being a senator might be a little stressful. And I wonder, just Tom. I'm Patty, Casey. I'm just wondering what you do to take care of yourself to stay so vigorous. I'm fortunate that I married way above myself. I married a compassionate, wonderful registered nurse. We had to wait until she finished nursing school before we could get married because somebody had to have a job. I was a lost. But she has gone all over the world with me. We've done things together. We've had watched raising children, spending time with grandchildren, caring for a mother for years in her later life, and learned about human beings. Now, I'll tell you a secret. Don't tell her I told you this. But when we first started dating, she and her parents would only speak French at home. And I had to dramatically improve my French. So I can understand what they were saying about me. Is that right? Yeah, it's nothing wrong with that. But I think that being able to come back home, I would hold them several times a month. And the nice thing is it's not that long of a flight from Washington during the time I was in the Senate. And I'd get to see people in the grocery store, pick up my newspaper, do whatever I was doing. And people would stop and talk. And you realize what you're hearing from people in the store walking down the street might be a lot different than what you're hearing on pundits on national television from the right or the left. And that helped keep me, keep me anchored. I think I know I've had different senators who have come up here in both parties and stay with us at the farm and go around. And every one of us said, this is different than my state. And I think that's a compliment because of the way we could be. And even when I was president for 10 and I walk around with this entourage and harm guards because you're third in line to the presidency. There was only one time that I was really glad to have him and I was hearing from him. Then that was, I was in St. Johnsbury. And this little guy comes up to me and he says, Pat, do you remember me? I said, I'm sorry I don't. He said, well, we met before. And I said, well, when? He said, 1974. And I said, well, I wasn't in the Senate in 74. I was state's attorney. And you threw my ass in jail. And I've been wanting to talk to you about it. Now, I had an airplane to catch. We were in St. Johnsbury, even with these guys with their police guys. I said, I got to catch a plane. Oh, he said, I've been meaning to talk to you. I think this guy's been meaning to talk to me for 40 years. I don't want to talk to him. One of the agents who's a lot taller than I am leans over to why don't you talk with me? I got caught. I have no idea. I felt like saying, you weren't the only person I prosecuted. I was there for eight years. I'll also just add this quick addition to that. I think you wake up very early in the morning and read every local paper in the state of Vermont, even when he was in D.C. Because I'd call him in the morning with some news because I was his eyes and ears for Montpelier for many years. And he'd already know it. There was nothing I could tell this man that he hadn't already read by seven in the morning. So that kept him young, I think. I think Digger in seven days is so good at getting stuff out. And the other newspapers I can read online. I think local news is very important. And it's diminishing because of the cost and everything else. And you lose on that. And I think it's, maybe that's one of the effects it's having in the Senate and the House, that they're interested in what's going to be on that 30-second bite. Somewhere in national dues. Senator, can you hear me? Yep. Okay. My grandparents were sort of on different sides of the aisle during the strikes in Barrie. My grandfather was the Comptroller for the Rock of Ages. My grandmother was the cousin of the socialist mayor. Oh boy, that was a fight at home. Well, they seem to get on okay, despite all that. And I'm just sort of wondering if you have any memories of that time. The other thing I remember is, like, I grew up more in New York, sort of back and forth between New York and Vermont. But in Vermont, there was a big competition between Barrie and Montpelier. Montpelier was bad and Barrie was good. That's how I understood it. And so anything you want to comment on. The strikes were before my time, but I do know that you go through one of the cemeteries in Barrie and you see a tombstone with Patrick J. Leahy on it. Now, some of my opponents have said, damn, wrong one. But that's my grandfather. My father was born in Barrie. And we always had friends in Barrie and Montpelier. My grandfather, my Italian grandfather, would come to Barrie and be with a lot of his friends that have lunch in one of the restaurants. I forgot what it was, but I was about six or seven years old. He'd bring me with him. And they'd be going in Italian, French, English. And I just sat there and listened to him. And I had a lot of classmates here at St. Michael's who came here from Barrie. So I never felt the animosity between Barrie and Montpelier. And I could never understand what I had been told about. Thank you. Hello, Senator. My name is Liz Dodd. And I moved here from Washington, D.C. about 42 years ago. And my husband was Tom Dodd. And we've spoken about this before. And Tom was with WDEV. And he was a reporter for WDEV for many years. But I wonder now, given everything that this wonderful community has been through in the last few years, in the last year particularly, in the last few months, what advice you have that you, in the wonderful career that you have and the wonderful giving person you are, any advice that you have about how we might best get through what we have to deal with in coming through where we're at now? Any suggestions? Of course, WDEV, we knew well when the lady pressed it. Printing for WDEV. Lloyd Squire, as a little kid, I knew Lloyd Squire and his wife would come into their house. And while Barrie, she'd be making cookies or donuts. And as a kid we thought, boy, that's really, that radio station is important. We're getting hot cookies here. But we sometimes forget how small our state is. And there's some trends that bother me. Our graduation rate from high school is diminishing. Too many of our young people are leaving the state. And we are, the ages, the average age is going up. I worry about those who say, well, do we want to bring this business or not? We want to bring businesses that require an educated workforce and then make sure we have the education and we push for it. We've seen this in some of the places like an Essex Junction. I know some people are worried that they might want too much parking for this electric airplane, electric helicopter they're making in Burlington. I look at what they're paying, the people who have to have all kinds of education and I'm thinking, build a parking lot if you want. If you need these people there, the ones who are going to buy homes and the ones who are going to raise their children. We have got to have more emphasis on the education of our younger people. But then we've got to have the jobs that appeal to them. There will always be minimum wage jobs, I understand that. But we've got to ask them, we can hold out to them and say, you graduated from high school. You learn this, maybe you go to a trade school, whatever you do, or to college who find ways to pay for it. But there will be jobs available and jobs in Vermont. If we don't, I worry about Vermont. I felt very privileged, especially in my last 20 years or so in the Senate because of my seniority, we could get money for things. When COVID hit, I remember calling the governor and said, I put in a small extra appropriations under the laying small state minimum. He said, oh, how much? I said, a billion, 500 million. It was a positive. He said, do you say billion? I said, don't forget the 500 million also. He said, how'd you do that? It helps to be chair of the committee. But I wanted to do that because we could have been devastated with COVID. We could have been devastated the next generation. We could be devastated generation of my age. I was going to have fine medical care. I saw a lot of people in Vermont were not, and we wanted to get that money out here and protect our state. But then we have got to encourage the younger generation that there will be things here and work to have jobs for them and work to have things they can do. Global founders, as a conjunction, I was concerned when people, some people oppose legislation to fund them. Where do you want to build these chips in China? I want to build them here in the United States. And if we're going to build them in the United States, let's do a state alphabetically starting with V-E-R-M-O-N-T. Senator Leahy, I'm curious. George Edson here is kind of our N-C. And I'm wondering if you have any reflections or remembrances of his father's Landl's C-H Cross bakery. Oh, I do. I also deliver newspapers there. And I love the smell of coming in, and I would get the de-arthenies, the government de-arthenies worked there and others, but I'd come in and talk, deliver the newspapers. I remember first, when you grow up with an Italian mother, you get used to home-baked things, and this cross-baking was close to home-baking we could. But I also saw the pride that people took in cross-baking. And I think, George, I think your father really instilled that in them and encouraged them in that. So it's the kind of thing that made Montpellier special. Patrick, I have a question. Tell us about your neighborhood. What did you do as kids? And do you remember the Montpellier curfew? I remember that. You knew when the curfew was. What was it, 10 minutes of 9 or 10 minutes of 9? How's that for memory? But the curfew was suggested, recommended. But I think our parents liked it because, told us to get home. We had friends. State Street did not have many families around where we were. Our friends were up the hill or other places and it reminded us to come home for our friends' houses or for them to go home from ours. A sister with Barbzia diathlete and others would. But you get used to playing with it. Well, in fact, down the street from us, on the other side of the street, was a big open lot. They had a soft ball diamond there. People would play all kinds of sports there. A lot of us would go up to Hubbard Park. We'd walk up behind the State House, go on up. We'd go sledding in the park in the wintertime. We'd climb up there, climb up the tower. That 3,000-foot-high tower when you're five years old. And then they had a whole area, I don't know if they still do, where you'd cook out. First come, first served. It would be so many families there. It was, you knew families. You knew which door was never locked. But you also knew you had to behave yourself, mostly. I behaved myself. I worried about my brother and sister. I got a look. My sister was listening. Yes, sir? Senator, it's good to see you again, especially in this capacity. You did good things. You do good things. And you continue to do good things. I don't have a question, but I'll sit down quickly after this comment. I said you do good things. My wife and I arrived here in the States going on 40 years. And what you represent is one of the reasons that we're still here. I said you do good things. The fact is, in church this morning, the pastor kept saying, thank you, God, thank you, God, thank you, God. I don't think God would mind if I said thank you, Senator, thank you, Senator, thank you, Senator. And as I close, I'm looking around as I hear you talk about values, from human values, family values, vision. And as I look around here, I see one or two youngsters. And it is good that they're hearing you. I spoke to Elizabeth here to my right, and my question was, is this your first of a series of interactions? I don't know. However, I do hope it's not your last as you go across this state. Our young people need to hear you. You're an icon of what you want to call a role model, et cetera. You and the Mrs. Senator, okay. That's factual. They need to hear that. I read about your being here today in the seven days. And I said, I'm going to be wearing a suit tomorrow because I'm going to church. In other words, I'm going to keep on that suit because I'm going to hear a person who continues to make a difference in our society. In our human family, our kids need to hear that. I'm active, that is, I participate very actively in our school board meeting there in Fairfax. And the adults, some of the adults who come bring some very negative and provocative stuff. And I've heard more than one student at that school shush some of the adults because the adults are not bringing some, a percentage, but a distinct percentage, a bringing verbiage that's not good, either for the students or our teachers or administrators, et cetera. Again, I say, the body, us as a state, just say nothing about the nation and foreign stuff. It needs people like you to be. You're doing good things. You'll do more. There's a scripture that says in gospel that we are expected to do more and greater things. Your presence encourages people to do that. Your profile encourages people to the reality that it can be done. And I thank you again. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Sir, that means so much to me because you only do your best on things. And it's not always the easiest. I can do all the luxurious trapping and being in the Senate. As the dean of the Senate, I have the nicest rooms and all that. But that's not what the Senate is. The Senate is how you act, what you do for the country. Do you follow your conscience? And one of the reasons I like coming home so much, that people like you, others would renew in me, it's not about me, it's about all of us. And it means people coming together. I think of the battles that we still had in segregation when I first came there. I remember talking to people like Hubert Humphrey who talked about how he fought that. I think of two of our granddaughters, one white, one black, walking down the street here in Montpayer, the white granddaughter was here. She was asked, well, who's this? She said my sister. And I don't think I could have done 48 years or done the things I'm most proud of if I couldn't come back to Vermont. And my son and I talked about this when a few years ago we're basically making up our mind not to run again, even though I knew I could be reelected. And we wanted to come back here. We were both born in Vermont. Our roots are here. We believe in Vermont values. And so we came back. And the reasons for coming back, we see every time we're going to the grocery store, walking down the street to get a paper or whatever we're doing, we run into people and we hear it at all ages, all income levels, everything. And we just hear the reasons why we come here. People agree or disagree with me on issues. We can at least discuss it. And I watch how the House and Senate had degenerated. People forgetting they have an oath to the Constitution. They have an oath to respect all of us and they're not. They're respecting their own individual advancement or whatever else. And that's wrong. That, one thing I pray for is that that will change. And we made our first trip back to Washington a couple of weeks ago. Two or three days and running into some of my friends that I was pleased to hear those who wanted to change. I'm distressed at those who don't want it to. And that's a terrible mistake for our country. We're a good country. We have good values. But we have to fight to keep those values. When children go to school, they have to be taught those values. Real values, not sloganeering. They have to, I'm thankful. I'll stop with this. I'm thankful. Other times that I finally realized why my parents stopped on the way home after leaving the grocery store. I had enough of those rickety stairs, knocking on the door, leaving a bag of groceries. And I think of all the, you know, we're saying the same thing. It's keep our values as Vermonters. I wish to hack the rest of the Congresswood. And your teacher is going to get the final word. I had not planned this, believe me. What grade was it, Maxine? I had you twice a day, every school day for a whole year. What grade? Senior. You were a senior. Chemistry and sociology. And why you are still here after that chemistry class? I do not know. I decided not to become a chemist. I knew about chemistry was mighty little, but I was one of the sisters of Mercy and you went and taught what you were told to go teach. And you were the first class I had for chemistry. And it's a miracle, and I'm not religious anymore, but it's a miracle you're here. It's a miracle this building is still here because we didn't blow it up. That's right. I want to ask you, do you have any good memories of your time in this building? And this, of course, was the gymnasium without that ceiling. And do you have any that you'd like to share with us? Just seeing my friends walking in. It would walk from home. I'd walk home for lunch. Sometimes down the railroad tracks, but it... No, just seeing friends and talking with them. I didn't spend that much time in gymnasium because with my lack of depth perception, I wouldn't be good at... Although I didn't have one part of this thing. We had... Oh, what was the coach's name? Sheridan? Yes. And Roger Sheridan, Mary, just from my... Roger Sheridan was a good-sized person. And they named me... I was over six feet tall by the time I was a freshman in high school. And they named me the manager of the team. So Coach Sheridan and I would drive to a town we probably hadn't played before and go there to set things up. And we'd walk in and everybody would look at me and say, what position do you play? I said, I was too short to make the team. I know it was a little bit of a lie, let's be fun, but it sure had an effect on me. Okay. Thank you all for coming. Thank you, Senator Lehi. Thank you, and Diane Triggy. Yeah, I want to thank Diane because Diane is more tired on this one. Thank you all. Thank you.