StoryCorps: Rebecca Boothman and Jeffrey Parker (Web Extra)

Jeffrey:: Now, our family began sugaring in 1936 and…

Rebecca:: Dad did.

Jeffrey:: So, tell us about the original sugarhouse. That building, to my recollection, had a dirt floor and a brook running through it most of the time.

Rebecca:: Yeah, that was great. Because it was at the bottom of a hill, when it would rain or when the snow would melt you’d have water coming down both sides of the evaporator. So you just dug a little trench out underneath the door so that it could go out and move along. One of the most frustrating times for my dad was when he decided to put 800 taps on tubing.

Jeffrey:: Instead of buckets.

Rebecca:: Instead of buckets and that happened to be that year was one of the best running years we had ever had. I guess it was early ‘70’s. So he ended up going to Sears and Roebuck and buying a kiddy pool and running the tubing into the pool because the tanks were overflowing and there was sap running down both sides of the evaporator which wasn’t good.

Jeffrey:: Now, we still had buckets going at that time as well.

Rebecca:: We had both buckets and 800… but and then he took all of the buckets we didn’t hang and lined them up in back of the sugarhouse and took the hose and started filling the buckets. It was really bizarre. It was, it was quite a year. We had a donkey. He wandered over to the sugarhouse. I don’t know how he found his way over there.

The train would go by twice a day and when we were boiling the train would always toot and it was a big deal for us kids because we’d run out and wave and they’d toot and they’d wave. Dad never let Mom forget that the train tooted twice as much one day when they found her dragging her ass home. As I grew up and had children of my own, I was over there and working in the sugarhouse canning and doing that kind of stuff. And then when Jeffrey came along he was born in January which was kind of inconvenient because the next month is sugaring season. So I wrapped him up in sweaters and blankets and we emptied out a cardboard box that had quart jugs in it; a nice tall box so that the wind couldn’t get to him and made a bed for him on top of the wood pile where it was nice and warm next to the fire. So Jeffrey grew up during his first sugaring season as…living is a box!

I can remember being so impressed with my Dad when it would come time to, everybody does things differently. And when it came time for him to take off a batch of syrup he always opened the doors to cool the bottom of the pan down. Because you’re bring the syrup to a point where it’s almost candy, and then you’re drawing it off and if things aren’t just right when you draw it off it’s going to burn. And when it burns, basically what it does is caramelize. Some of the best syrup I’ve had has been caramelized syrup. When Dad was doing it, when it came time for a batch of syrup, all he had to do was just look at you and you knew it was time to be quite. He needed to concentrate. This was important to him. And the very first time he left me alone with the syrup pans I did burn it. And I didn’t know I was burning it until he came in and he says, “You’re burning those pans!” And, yes I was. The boiling process is different for everybody, but it’s something that you never forget. I mean, I haven’t done much of the boiling or anything for years, but I bet I could take a batch of syrup off if I had to.

Jeffrey:: Oh, I know you could!