For me, you don’t have to die heroically or face bullets to be a hero. Some of the bravest heroes I know are the people who take risks and make leaps of faith to do what they love and do it well.

I’ve seen Nancy with her hot dog stand in Manchester, Vt. for years now, but it was only in the past several years that Maria and I ever stopped at her stand – she calls it “Nan-Z’s” and got to know here and love her quite exceptional turkey hot dogs.

I had heard a lot about her: her hot dogs are especially good, she has great mustards, her stand is spotless, she is lovely and remembers many of the people who have faithfully come to eat at her stand in all kinds of weather.

Nancy is coy about where she gets the hot dogs or just how she cooks them. She does say fresh rolls are important. She is a fresh face and admirable soul in a world increasingly occupied by unhappy and angry people who rarely get to do what they love. There are few callings in our time, only jobs that last as long as a company’s profits rise.

It is no longer in fashion to love your work, the goal is to keep from getting thrown into the street for as long as possible and work hard to build up hopelessly small IRA and pension funds that will not last very long once you need them.

I am lucky, writing is my calling and i have clung to it for dear. life. I have no pension plan or IRA, this is a trade I knowingly made for love and fulfillment.

A literary writer friend has obvious distaste for my blog, he wrinkles his nose  asked me once what Mark Twain or Herman Melville or Emily Dickinson might think of it. I said Mark Twain would love having a blog and I didn’t really care what Herman Melville or Emily Dickinson might think of bedlamfarm.com.

I get to do what I love, every day.

So does Nancy. For decades, she has been selling hot dogs in that parking lot near the popular outlet stores and hotels and inns of Manchester, once a quiet Vermont town, now a very busy commercial and skiing and tourist hub.

She gets to work for herself, live her life, ski all winter.

Nancy has been there through the good times and bad times, she cares deeply about the quality of her hot dogs – she has beef hot dogs also – and even got a picnic table installed on the edge of the parking lots.

She is, in fact, incredibly nice and raises hot dog making to the highest possible culinary standards. I’d rather eat there than most of the restaurants i know. Sometimes, we just make the 35 minute drive to Manchester to have lunch in Nancy’s parking lot. If you come early, you can eat at the picnic table.

Nancy is out there all day in the heat and cold from April to Christmas. This year the temperature was below zero and her mustard froze, it was the first Christmas in 30 years that she wasn’t selling her hot dogs. In the winter, she mostly skis, there are mountain ski resorts all around Manchester.

I love living in the country for many reasons, one is that it is still possible for individuals like Nancy to live their lives and be fulfilled and not tremble all day in fear of being fired or laid off. In the country, it can still be done. I am doing it, and so is Maria.

I count Nancy as being among the blessed.

People have the right to choose their own lives, but in my  mind, to work only for money is to be a slave.