Not a hard choice

by Todd Moe on March 25th, 2009

In chatting with writer Chris Bohjalian about life in Vermont, I asked how he came to move from New York City to Burlington. He says he and his wife decided to relocate after an unpleasant experience involving a rude, reckless taxi driver. “He only came to a stop after seeing a policeman,” Chris said. “My wife and I bolted out of the cab and went up to the officer and I said, ‘Excuse me, there’s an extremely discourteous cab driver pulling away!’ The police officer told us to immediately hit the ground, which we did. And then we understood that we had just walked in on six of New York City’s finest while they were storming a crack house. So, it’s about midnight on a Saturday night and now we’re face down on the pavement, and my wife looks at me and whispers, ‘Why do we live here?’ And the next day, the New York Times had an article on Burlington, Vermont and an upcoming food festival called the Green Mountain Chew Chew. So, we flew to Vermont to scope out this city on a lake with a food festival and we decided to stay.”