BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) - There’s something strange about the man who moderates “I grew up in Vermont!” - the flourishing Facebook community that’s become the go-to place for Green Mountain natives to discuss and reminisce about their home state.
He didn’t grow up in Vermont.
“I live in Burlington - Burlington, Iowa,” said Norman Schafer, who created the group and serves as its administrator. Although his wife has family in Brandon, Vermont, Schafer has lived in Iowa his entire life, and has visited Vermont only three times.
But the group, which Schafer created in 2017, is thriving nonetheless. And it’s notable not only for its popularity, but also for its civility - unlike many densely-populated online communities, which devolve into political bickering, Schafer’s page is harmonious, dominated by nature photography and remembrances of Vermont childhoods. And it has allowed Vermonters to travel back in time online, in a way they’ve never been able to before.
Schafer said his foray into Facebook communities started in 2014, when he founded a group for his own home state: “I grew up in Iowa!” It grew rapidly, with membership now totaling almost 170,000. But a few years in, he noticed that there was no equivalent group for Vermonters, and created this page in 2017.
At first, members joined slowly. But things have recently picked up steam - the group now boasts almost 9,000 members, nearly 2,000 of whom joined in the last month. Schafer, 55, who also moderates dozens of other Facebook groups, said he now spends two to three hours each day fostering discussions and responding to user complaints - in addition to working full-time at a utility company and raising four kids.
“It is kind of overwhelming,” he said.
But his community-building work has paid off. Each day, the Vermont group sees dozens of posts and hundreds of comments. This month, users have posted photographs of their snow-covered backyards, sepia-toned images of historic Vermont, or questions intended to spark discussion.
On a recent Friday, Linda Ozzidi wanted to know: Did anyone else remember putting bread bags over their socks to keep their feet dry as a child?
Dozens of commenters answered in the affirmative.
Scott Wheeler was curious: Did other Vermonters grow up calling the noontime meal dinner, and the evening meal supper?
Over a hundred people chimed in: yes, they did.
Wheeler, 53, a resident of Derby Center, posts regularly in the group, and also works as publisher of the Northland Journal - a monthly magazine chronicling the history of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. He explained that joining the Facebook group has been a boon to his work as a historian.
“It has provided me an ability to reach out and hear from other Northeast Kingdom residents, many of them now living afar,” Wheeler said. “In a way this site is sharing and preserving the history of Vermont, at least the oral history of it, that is often lost to death.”
When broken down by age, the biggest fraction of group members are over 65, according to member data that Schafer shared with the Free Press. About two-thirds are female. And many members who use the group to reminisce are native-born Vermonters who have since moved elsewhere.
“We now have Vermonters who now live in all 50 states,” Wheeler said. “Although they might be residents of other states, much of their heart is still in Vermont. This Facebook community allows people to reconnect to that part of themselves.”
Tom Rood is one such Vermonter. A Lincoln native who now lives in South Carolina, he discovered the group a few weeks ago, and soon posted a question: Do other Vermont expats get excited when they see a familiar green license plate pop up in another state?
His question soon blew up with positive responses.
“It’s probably been the busiest post I’ve ever posted,” Rood said. “As soon as I put it up there, I wished my computer had been a cash register, because I’d be rich right now.”
Meanwhile, members who still live in Vermont use the group to show off the state’s wonders to those who have departed. Kristi King, 22, of Shrewsbury, is a prolific nature photographer, who shares her shots of birds and snow-covered mountain roads. One December image of a barred owl racked up triple-digit reactions, and rapturous comments.
“It brings joy to me when a member of the page used to live, or grew up in Vermont, commenting on my photos saying things like, ’Thanks for reminding me of my home state,’ ’Vermont will always have my heart,’ ’I am looking at a great picture taken by a great photographer,’” King wrote in an email.
This positive reception is what makes her keep coming back to the Facebook group, she said, but she feels she should do a better job reciprocating it.
“I need to work on that more,” she said. “I feel like I should give feedback to others as much as they give me.”
Facebook comment sections are infamous for their tendency to break out into bitter disputes. But Schafer said there’s a secret to his group’s tranquility: his strict zero-tolerance policy on political posts.
“I don’t like drama because it upsets people - membership goes away,” he said.
Scott Wheeler is one member who would give up on the group if politics ever takes hold. “There’s plenty other sites where people can waste their time talking politics,” Wheeler said. “If politics should take over, I suspect it’ll really hurt the site.”
Occasionally, though, something slips through. Last Sunday, Jan. 27, a post appeared about a possible presidential campaign by Sen. Bernie Sanders - within hours, the post had been flooded with over 100 comments, as Sanders’s supporters squared off against his detractors.
“Idiot”
“Moron”
“Libtard”
Amid the chaos, some pleaded for calm. “Kindly keep politics off this page, or I and many others will sadly stop visiting,” one commenter wrote. “Please give me back my wonderful, peaceful, happy Vermont memories!” begged another.
They had their wish - within a day, Schafer took the post down. As of Thursday, Jan. 31, order had been restored: the top post was about farm-fresh milk.
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Online: https://bit.ly/2WIgU8N
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Information from: The Burlington Free Press, http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com
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