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In the spring of 1983, I co-wrote a best-seller in three months. I joined University of Vermont professor, Frank Bryan, to pen, Real Vermonters Don't Milk Goats, a Vermont knock-off of the national best-seller Real Men Don't Eat Quiche. Frank was more-or-less conservative and I was a more or less liberal and we found fertile middle ground to sprinkle 96 pages of humor. We filled the book with nuggets, like "Real Vermonters Don't Drive Volvo's" or "Ski at Stowe," or "wear L.L. Bean boots." We had quizzes, listed strange but true names of Real Vermonters, poked fun at real politicians and overall benefited from the excellent cartoons of a local newspaper artist Howard Johnson.
Our timing was impeccable. The book took off and sold 45,000 copies in four months, eventually reaching 70,000 copies, more than one for every 10 residents of Vermont. What began as essentially a one-joke book about the differences between the real article and the new arrivals, grew to include social comments, pokes at religion, style, autos, schooling and habits. Our shaky but plausible premise was that just about all virtue resided in the natives and all pretence, hollowness, striving, and ignorance came from away.