Not quite cosmopolitan but not quite clueless, a hotdog eating yoga teacher shares memories of folly, foolishness, and forgiveness, beginning in the 60s in a small town in southern Vermont. Follow Alexandra from a small dairy farm in the hills of Dorset to the ski slopes of Australia, and back again. Many of us experience love, death, marriage, divorce, success, failure, enlightenment, concussions, speeding tickets, and running over dogs. It isnât always easy being human, but it may be entertaining.
Not quite cosmopolitan but not quite clueless, a hotdog eating yoga teacher shares memories of folly, foolishness, and forgiveness, beginning in the 60s in a small town in southern Vermont. Follow Alexandra from a small dairy farm in the hills of Dorset to the ski slopes of Australia, and back again. Many of us experience love, death, marriage, divorce, success, failure, enlightenment, concussions, speeding tickets, and running over dogs. It isnât always easy being human, but it may be entertaining.
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1965 was the year I was going to win first place at the church Halloween party. I was a six-year-old secret agent complete with trench coat and briefcase. The plastic face mask was a blonde woman with a fedora and dark glasses. Itâs quite possible that a cigarette was smoldering between her cherry red lips. I personified my heroine, Agent 99, of the iconic TV program Get Smart. She was the real brains of the show. Every week she and Maxwell Smart, the goofball, fought against an international organization of evil. Although she was a brunette (and I was blonde), as far as I was concerned, we were one and the same. Â
I was mysterious and brave at the Halloween party. I stuck my hands in bowls of cold spaghetti intestines and peeled grape eyeballs without flinching at the parish house party. Spies arenât squeamish. I personified the perfect secret agent, with a real-life nemesis, Susan. Despite being a year younger than I, Susan had won first place two years in a row at the Halloween contest. Her mother made an elaborate Heidi of the Alps outfit the year I was a cow. As Little Bo Peep, she beat out my Casper the Friendly Ghost; I donât know what the judges were thinking. That autumn night I confidently, stealthily, snuck around until Susan floated into the room in mounds of tulle. The child bride, fashionably late, with veil and corsage did it again! She walked off with my prize. Â
I was astounded and horrified. âHow could a stupid old bride win?â I whined to Mom. âDonât the judges know that a secret agent will help save the world? Whatâs a bride going to do?â I was disappointed and delirious with envy. Â
Mom patiently reminded me that the main purpose of Halloween wasnât about how much candy we got or how many prizes we won. It was about collecting coins in our orange UNICEF boxes for poor African children. At six, I knew that was a lie. We went from house to house before the church party each year, shaking our boxes yelling, âTrick or Treat for UNICEF!â before grabbing a handful of Tootsie Rolls. Granted, the coins would allow some poor kid to get vaccinated, but shots hurt. I was slightly uncomfortable with my part in their pain, although the boxes were fun to put together. Â
Not long ago Mom reminded me of another tough Halloween, âYour father and I went to New York City for a weekend. We left you at Mrs. Hagarusâs house.â My brother, sister, and I loved staying there. She had a monkey swing inside her garage. Â
âWe brought back an army outfit for your brother and for you, a nurseâs outfit complete with a cape, medical bag, and candy pills. You broke into tears. You were somewhat difficult to deal with,â she added, unnecessarily. Obviously I didnât think nurses, like brides, were essential to saving the world. Â
Sometimes itâs hard to be happy for the winners, whether one is four or 64. Questions pop up like, âWhy them, why not me?â Reasoning happens as well, âIâd be happy too if I were an only child, had curly hair, or won a darn Halloween contest.â Jealousy often leads us to unkind actions. For a four-year old it could be wrecking her brotherâs Matchbox car garage with ramps and a battery-operated lift at Christmas because it was so much neater than the set of Colorforms she received. A 64-year-old may be envious of someone getting a blog published on a major platform and then proceed to tell anyone whoâll listen that the ignoramus wrote that acorns fell from maple trees. Â
It takes practice and awareness to realize that jealousy only hurts the one who is jealous. Â
Successful friends, acquaintances, and competitors arenât just lucky. Nothing in life comes easy, no matter what we think. Everything takes practice, commitment, and hard work. Some work harder than others. Â
How many times did Susan get pricked while her mother sewed seed pearls on her gown? What does one give up in order to be successful or to be happy? What am I not giving up? I have no doubt that many brides and nurses have helped save the world much more than I. Iâm more apt to rejoice in their happiness and success now when Iâm not coming off of a candy corn high. Many of them have, in fact, saved my world.Â
Virtuous Sinner Made In Vermont by Alexandra Langstaff is a charming, funny memoir by a globetrotting ski-instructor turned yogi. Langstaff was born and raised in Vermont, and her stories touch on the joys and frustrations of Vermont life and life "as far from Dorset, Vermont as [she] could get." The book is set up in a childhood to adulthood arc with individual vignettes that make setting time aside for reading easy.
Langstaff's joie de vivre shines through the pages, from her starting tales of Halloween costume competitiveness (girl spies in the 1960's should definitely have beaten out brides - anyone could be a bride, but how many girls got to be spies?) to her discovery of love in later life. Virtuous Sinner does a particularly good job depicting Langstaff's family relationships, as in this interchange in which Langstaff's sister places a prank call to their brother:
âWe have reservations for Christmas vacation, can you give me directions from Chicago to Vermont?â When he lists off highway numbers and exits, she blows the prank, laughing. If he was serious, then he is an excellent customer service representative. If he knew it was Dee, then heâs a good brother playing along.Â
Although I appreciated Langstaff's lighthearted approach, she glossed over some potentially quite moving moments in her story. The reader knows those moments are there, and though Langstaff touched on them, she seemed reluctant to give them emotional weight. Yet, as the book is meant to be humor, it works.
Still, the writing was strong and the stories good-humored: Vermonters will appreciate the difficulties of mud season, and non-Vermonters will laugh as they learn. The same is true for other tales that follow the author from Vermont to the hotels of Spain and the ski resorts of Australia before she comes home to Vermont once more. All in all, I recommend this book to anyone looking for a lighthearted anecdote-based memoir to gift or to enjoy for themselves.