F-35's Break Through Chamberlin Community Barrier in South Burlington, VT. Full Story yet to be told.

  

Just as a boundary of settlements could buffer a Rainforest against waves of outsiders moving in, so too on the inverse could a boundary of a neighborhood act as a buffer against runways for airplanes from embroiling surrounding neighborhoods, towns, and cities. 

The Chamberlin neighborhood, a quiet, close-knit neighborhood built up mostly from the 1950s through roughly 1990s, provided such a boundary until, as the fate of bowling pins blocking a lane, the installation of F-35 Fighter Jets at the airport rolled down the tarmac and decimated the wood-framed houses - many built from old-growth forest trees. 

Once this buffer was flattened, bulldozed, hauled away, and cellar holes buried with no tombstones in place to mark the history of the people who lived there, the sound barrier, previously a curtain, became an open window. 

The lion’s roar was no longer secluded nor fenced inside the forest. 

 

Many photos are available of the houses reminiscent of a western ghost town, as well as photos of the structures later being torn down. 

What is missing are the stories of the people who previously had lived in harmony with the airport before the deafening, thunderous, roaring, cacophonous military airplanes breached the "threshold" or "permissible exposure limit” (PEL) expelling many from the

Chamberlin School District and encroaching well into the surrounding cities and towns with unbridled tenacity. 

Underneath the barrage of jet engines directly overhead, are faint voices which, when and if gathered, might stand testament to what was a fortress akin to Fort Sumter - where the first shots of the Civil War were fired.

 The sound of the jets breached their voices and now override many others. 

Who will gather and tell the stories whereby these historical photos might give support to a picture of a close-knit community of moderate-income housing before outside forces roared through the barricade that was, for a while, at peace with a bridled lion?

Contact Bernie Paquette about the photos for such a project. Thousands of photos are available. 

Shall the personal stories, the history, of the Chamberlin Community remain buried, untold, or will they be brought together, recorded, and shared in remembrance and in lesson?