Sardines

More Tales of a Tyler Place Youth
By Ted Tyler

Sardines are not to be found among the eighty-odd fish species in Lake Champlain. Nonetheless they, or more accurately “it”, was a frequent nighttime presence (and pleasure) from my early childhood on.

Sardines is a game – played inside and after it is quite dark. Like many games, it started with a deck of cards. Highest card drawn had the privilege of being the first hider.

The approved venue was a large house, the more floors and rooms and closets and nooks and beds to crawl under, the better. One with two sets of stairways and a fireplace with a smidgeon of light – perfect. In those days Farmhouse Up and Down were one unit occupied by the Wristons – and that was often the locus, Farmhouse West being included in later years. When the Old Inn (the Franklin House) was purchased near the end of World War II – four stories including the huge attic, staircases at either end – it was baptized with a (completely terrifying) game of Sardines.

Getting back to the rules of the game, almost all light in the building was extinguished. Everyone but the hider would retreat into a bathroom and stay there, giving the hider (who after all, had to navigate in the dark) sufficient time to secrete herself. After three minutes or so, the group would stumble forth.

Now as you have surmised, this game was like hide and seek in the dark, but there was more to it than that. True enough, whoever found the hider first got to be the hider for the next round – so it was quite competitive. But when the hider was found, you didn’t announce it. Quite the contrary, you ever-so-quietly slid under the bed (or wherever) next to the hider and waited for the next searcher to find the two of you, and so on and so on until one poor soul might be left wandering around the house wondering where everyone had disappeared to. Actually this last happened rarely, because by the time six or seven people were crammed together under the bed, the giggling got sufficiently intense so only the stone deaf couldn’t find you.

Three short anecdotes of “Sardines games I especially remember” – in chronological order:

1. Like many of our games, Sardines was “family” and for all ages. Once when I was five years old or so, I was the hider. My six foot plus uncle, Deke Wriston, assisted me in hiding and placed me seven feet up on top of a large wardrobe. No one ever found me.

2. At law school age we played a game in the old Inn where the rooms had twelve foot ceilings. I dreamed up a perfect place to hide – on top of a door in one of the guest rooms where there was enough space to crouch and (because the door was in a corner of the room) I could balance myself with a hand on each of two walls. Searchers could enter and leave the room (as long as they didn’t close the door completely shut) and I could simply swing with the door. It worked great – but (there must have been some connection) an hour or so later I was being driven to a Burlington hospital at 70 miles per hour (that was fast then) with my first and only kidney stone.

3. Fast forward to just twenty years ago and the stone house in Swanton. Cathy and I had recently begun our relationship. My niece Pixita’s connection with Luke was new as well, or at least we didn’t know each other well. It was Christmas time and a game of Sardines had been underway, from which Cathy and I snuck out and went to bed. A short while later Luke opened the door, felt around a bit and got in bed with us. We chatted a bit (quietly of course). Luke became silent for a moment and then said, “You aren’t playing this game, are you?”

Springtime, Maple Syrup, & Salad Dressing! by Quintin

Hector is on his way back from his winter gig in Los Angeles. Tasney is busy sending out staff employment and housing contracts. The rush of warm weather has Tyler Place flowers tentatively poking their heads out their winter beds. The last fishing shanty is off the lake. And, of course, maple-sugaring season is in full swing.

Lots of Vermont dairy farmers cheerfully supplement milk production with this seasonal “gold rush” from their maple

tree groves. Many have invested in complex mazes and networks of tubing, new-style plastic taps with valves for more output, reverse osmosis systems that remove much of the water from sap before boiling, and large, gleaming, gas or oil fired evaporators that produce barrels (not quarts) of maple syrup daily during the fickle sap run.

Other entrepreneurs go at it the old fashioned way of tapping trees with metal taps, and hanging those iconic galvanized-metal buckets with the roof-like covers for daily collection. Yes, some still use horses drawing a sleigh with a collection tank, but realistically, most use a trusty tractor towing a wheeled wagon tank, (much more effective when the track turns from snow to dirt). And of course, many still stoke the ‘ole fire from a massive pile of seasoned firewood. (I suppose some of that burning wood is actually maple, so there is a cyclic thing going on?) Upon initial appearance, some of these more primitive set-ups, located in tucked away places, with sap tanks, fire and distilling, sort of resemble a moon shining operation, only legal.

Some folks sort of do a mix of all harvesting options, as is the case with the Reed Farm in Sheldon, a nice blend of new school and old school. My daughter’s pre-school took a field trip there to get at first-hand look at one of Vermont’s prized assets.

And to get your really in the mood for some Maple Syrup deliciousness, here's a favorite TP recipe!

Tyler Place Balsamic Salad Dressing Recipe

In a pint jar, combine:

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

3 tsp. dijon mustard

2 tsp. oregano

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

1 heaping tbsp. finely chopped garlic

Add 1 cup good quality olive oil to jar. Screw on the lid tightly and shake like crazy!

Hector Explains Nei Kung

One thing I always loved about growing up around the Tyler Place—and later working there—was the wide range of different things you found yourself doing. One moment it might be teaching someone to water-ski; the next it was building a bonfire. It could be leading a bike trip or mixing up a mojito. Ask Chad or Q or Tasney or anyone else in the family and I bet there’s not much they haven’t done at the TP. I don’t know what their first gig at the Tyler Place was, but for me it was when "Mrs. T," our grandmother, ‘contracted’ me out as a cigarette-butt-picker-upper. Going rate for said job? 10 butts earned you a penny. Now, in health-conscious 2010 a 7 year old kid would be hard pressed to make even that first penny. But the late 70’s? Let’s just say I was able to make more than my share of candy runs up to Martin’s Store.


The past couple summers I’ve added another gig to the list. Nei Kung. For those of you who haven’t signed up for this Sunday morning workout, here’s a brief description to hopefully tempt you into joining me…


Nei Kung is a yoga-like workout consisting of 10 forms. Some you simply hold a pose; some you move slowly in a manner similar to Tai Chi. There are no weights and very little cardio, but the workout can be strenuous. By aligning your body in certain ways, it gets the chi, or energy, flowing and really gives the body a great kick start to the day. It addition to strengthening the body, it also can be meditative and leave you (after the hard work) with a general calm. For guys that haven’t done anything like this before, I know you may be a little dubious. But take it from a longtime basketball/baseball/football guy…it’s a great complement to other workouts.

Some of you would probably prefer your Sunday mornings sipping coffee and plowing into Chef Jeremy’s tasty breakfasts. Hey, I don’t blame you. But if you’re up for something new to start the week, drop on by. You can always make up for it at lunch…

Ted's Reflections from a T.P. Childhood

The following is the first in a series of reflections from Ted on life at the Tyler Place during his youth in the late 1930's and the 1940's. Following posts will include reflections on various topics from hunting for ducks, skunks, games like this one and Arrow in the Air, The Tyler family and more.

Ringalevio

Ringalevio, a more exciting cousin of kick-the-can and Capture the Flag - played over a wider terrain, both horizontal and vertical. "Out of Bounds" consisted of the lakeshore (note the bluffs and cliffs along the lake was legal); the Shipyard Bay Road and its extension east to Route 7 on the south; the west side of Route 7 north to the Raake Road; and the Raake Road to the lakeshore near where we now have the Monday night bonfire. I mention "vertical" because any place in or on the huge, old barn (where the pool complex is now) was in bounds, including the rooftop (with its cupola). (When we only had an hour or two for the game, the eastern boundary became the Old Dock Road.)

Like most of our games, Ringalevio was designed for participation over a wide range of ages. Teams were chosen in the usual way: two captains alternately picked team members from whoever was present - the oldest, fastest and those with the most wind power being the first choices - without qualms on anyone's part: if you were the youngest, you knew that your day would eventually come.

One team (I'll refer to them as Team A) would then enclose itself in the silo or milk house or some other small space while the other team dispersed or hid. Here were the two alternate strategies for Team B: if you were fast and could keep up the pace, you might not even try to hide, but just count on outdistancing your pursuers on Team A. If you were slow or small, hiding was your best bet - and here is where a really young participant could get his or her revenge for being picked last. There were games that petered out at suppertime because a 6-year old had holed up somewhere that no one else had thought of - or could fit into.

As you have no doubt surmised, the "finder" team proceeded to find or run down the members of the opposite team and bring them back to the jail. Once touched, a member of Team B was duty-bound to go to "jail" and stay in physical contact with it. Once all members of Team B were jailed, that round of the game was over and the teams switched positions.

The choice of the location of the jail (perhaps a tree stump or a boulder) needed to be carefully considered. Ideally it was out in the open, approachable from all sides - but with some sort of "cover" (woods, a building, or the like) available at a reasonable distance from several directions. This was because if one uncaptured member of Team B could touch the jail and shout, "Ringaleveo" before being touched by the jailer, all captured members of Team A were free to run and Team B would have to capture them all over again. This meant that a strategic part of the game was Team A's choice of a jailer. On the one hand you wanted someone fast enough to be able to catch an incoming runner from Team B before he or she could reach the jail; on the other hand, this same person might be required to assist in running down some speed demon on the opposing team. (Jailers could be changed in the course of the game as strategy required, but one important rule was to allow no member of Team A - besides the jailer - to come closer than 25 feet from the jail. Outside that 25 foot radius, any member of Team B was fair game for any member of Team A.)

As you can imagine, a great deal of ingenuity was used in finding places to hide. Likewise, there were some marvelous "chases", often hand over hand, along the cliffs, or races along the beams high above the barn floor, or chases well up into some pretty tall trees. And even the fastest and most indefatigable runner could eventually be cornered by a pack of members of Team B.