Vermont Phoenix, July 7th, 1855  “BALLOON ASCENT.—Mons Gustave Reynard, an experienced aeronaut, ascended in a balloon from Springfield on the 4th. The Springfield Republican says:

“The wind was high, and when the cords were loosed, the balloon with its daring aeronaut shot upward like a rocket. It rapidly rose and swept away to the east of north and in a very few minutes was lost behind a large bank of white clouds. When at an estimated height of four thousand feet, the aeronaut detached his parachute, an umbrella-like structure, to which was attached a live white cat in net work and basket. This came slowly and safely down, but was wafted so far north by the wind that it only reached the earth in Chicopee Falls. Pussy was very badly frightened, net unhurt.

In 1969 Peter Gould was, “tired of the Vietnam War, [and] angry at my county,” as he fled the disconsolate urban chaos in search of an alternative. He found it in at Packer Corners, in Guilford, Vermont and spent the next 9 years at the farm.

In June of 2016 Peter sat with Brattleboro educator and historian Bill Holiday to recount those times in Peter’s personal narrative and the narrative of a remarkable place that lives on, nearly 50 years later.

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It might have been lice and crabs that first prompted men and women to deforest their pubic hairs. It was much easier to remove the offending critters by “deforestation” than to try pick the nits off through a tangle of curly hair. If you look at paintings and sculptures of nude men and women over time, however, curiously, they often have no genital hair. Historically, I haven’t found an explanation for this. Nevertheless, our recorded history of pubic hair removal dates back to antiquity. Our forebears of civilizations in Egyptian, Greek and Roman societies employed pubic hair removal, but it was more likely on a courtesan level.

It was the wealthy, upperclasses and monarchal courts who would have the free time to cosset themselves in the vogue and erotica of smooth pudenda. It was the poor, incoherent, uneducated masses who missed out on the fun erotica of the times. Perhaps, they devised their own?