Happy Birthday, Doris!

Today, we celebrated the 90th birthday of one of our favorite people – Doris Washburn!

Doris has been a Green Mountain Club Montpelier Section member since 1964.  She saw a listing in the newspaper for an oyster stew hike up to Taylor Lodge that January and she thought she’d try out snowshoeing.  (Yes, bringing oyster stew on hikes is a GMC tradition!)

From there, Doris was hooked, and she spent the next couple of years becoming a Long Trail End-to-End hiker.  She hiked most of the trail’s pieces in day hikes at intersectionals, week-long gatherings GMC used to hold in a different location in Vermont each year.  She did a few day hikes on her own too and only had to spend one night on the trail to hike every mile of it.

After a few years, Doris became a very active and dedicated volunteer, working at the Club’s offices in Rutland, Montpelier, and our current location in Waterbury Center.  Since this office location opened in 1992, Doris came in almost every Thursday to do volunteer office work until just a few years ago when she finally decided to “retire.”  In fact, there’s a note in our membership database that says, “Regular Thursday Volunteer who is literally the greatest human being who ever lived.”  She’s received just about every volunteer award we have.

To celebrate this milestone birthday, we had to get Doris up to the recently renovated Bolton Lodge, where she used to ski to as a younger member.  GMC members and staff gathered to share cake and sing songs, one of Doris’ favorite activities.  We brought along copies of a booklet from 1951 called “Green Mountain Club SONGS” for everyone to sing along.  Here’s her favorite, Green Mountain Club Walking Song, written by Richard W. Saunders.  (Air: “I went to the Animal Fair.”):

I joined the Green Mountain Club;
I felt like a regular dub;
The first four miles were only smiles
And then there came the rub.
My prayer for a rest was balked;
No matter how hard I talked,
They would not rest at my request,
But only walked and walked.

(Refrain in monotone)
And walked and walked and walked and walked
And walked and walked and walked.

Oh, but my feet were sore,
And some of my clothes I tore;
The mud was deep, the hills were steep,
And fences we climbed galore;
As onward the leader stalked
My prayer for a rest was balked;
They left me dead as on they sped,
And walked and walked and walked.

(Refrain in monotone)
And walked and walked and walked and walked
And walked and walked and walked.

Happy birthday, Doris!