Jay Wrote

  Son of Vermont’s Forests, Reflections After Reading: When the Trees Came Back. The Great Battle to Save Vermont’s Forests. Robert Mello. Vermont Historical Society, 2026. I am a son of Vermont’s forests.  This book tells of the denuding and reforestation of Vermont. The people, places and decisions described in it created a landscape and experience which has had profound effects on me  This essay reflects on this impact and adds just one of the many necessarily-missing biographies which could have appeared in When the Trees Came Back. My father, Jim Wilkinson, was hired by Perry Merrill (head of Vermont forestry from 1930 to 1966) soon after his return from flying 32 B-17 bomber missions out of England. A native of New Jersey and graduate of Penn State forestry school, before enlisting Jim had worked loading logs at a company town lumber operation in the hills of West Virginia. Merrill hired him via the Postal Service to supervise the fire lookout stations in the south...

  You have heard of the assassination of Melissa Hortman, her husband, Mark and their dog on June 14.   You may not know that she was a fair housing heroine as well as a humble, effective and respected leader in the Minnesota legislature. In 1998 or '99 Legal Aid's Housing Discrimination Law Project, a FHIP program, had been operating for just a few years.  We were fortunate to hire a law clerk, Melissa, as she had a sterling resume and could have worked anywhere - maybe even at her family used auto parts business (junk yard).  She caught the fair housing bug.   Our sister organization, Central MN Legal Services, soon hired her as a housing attorney.   Melissa took the case of a CMLS tenant with severe repair problems.  Because she was the person she was, she didn't stop at investigating the lack of heat that brought the client to the office.  She learned that the owner of the property treated her with terrible...

  Linen: The Warp and Weft of History. Jay Wilkinson, April 2025 jewilkinsoniii@gmail --- jwwrote.blogspot.com “Show me that you’ve been working over, Christina.” He leaned forward in the  rocker and touched the square of linen. His speech sounded of his Silesian birthplace.  His granddaughter pulled the piece away from the loom, carefully to keep the threads  aligned and untangled.   He rubbed the cloth between thumb and forefinger and remarked: “Very vell done!  The tight weave will last a lifetime.” “It's my first one, I want it to be right so I don’t forget, poppa. You know I sowed the  the flax seeds, weeded the field, pulled the plants, laid them out, soaked them, broke  and stripped the threads out, carded out the seeds and such.” “Yes, under your muter’s supervision and with Nana’s spinning help. You’ve done  a wonderful job. Talented nine year old, you are.” I am touching this fabric as I write. Did my fifth great-grandfather,Christo...

 Family and Inheritance:  The Wilkinson Case My paternal grandfather and name-sake,  J. Edgar Wilkinson, who died soon after I was born, was a private firm lawyer practicing in Philadelphia’s Orphans’ Court.  We call that probate court in Minnesota and it addresses disputes over the deads’ estates and wills and oversees trusts and guardianships.  I was told he spent a lot of time seeing to it that the needs of widows and orphans were attended to.  But I know nothing about his practice save the following story I have pieced together. In a case where he was appointed guardian of an older man, Brooks, there was much at stake.  It was alleged in the Philadelphia court filing that led to J. Edgar Wilkinson’s appointment, that Brooks was "feeble minded and unable to properly care for his property; that he was the victim of designing persons; that large sums of money had been secured and extorted from him …”  The guardianship, with its first stop in Phil...

 My last paid job was working as an election judge for the spring 2020 primary election. It was thirteen hours of civic service and there was no trouble. When was my first job? Was there any trouble? How about the next one? I’m referring to “trouble-trouble”, not John Lewis’s “good trouble” - maybe another essay to be written.    Misaligned.   My first paid work was mowing the family lawn in Proctor, Vermont, probably when I was 9 or 10 years old. The mower was a manual, boy-powered push mower with two wheels at the end of a reel holding four curved, spiraling blades that sliced grass off against a metal piece mounted at the bottom rear of the mower. A wooden roller followed behind the cutting platform, probably to keep the mower balanced and rolling forward or back. The handle shaft was well-patinated wood with a T handle at the top. It seemed old at the time. It was surely manufactured but it was easy imagining a blacksmith banging away at iron to ma...