If BRATTLEBORO , in the south-central section of the state, is your first taste of Vermont, it may come as a surprise. Not the quaint, 1950s-throwback village you might expect, its style owes more to the central and northern Massachusetts college towns, with numerous little stores catering to the youthful and vaguely "alternative" population that has moved into the surrounding hills over the last two decades. The town's one unlikely claim to fame is that this was where... [More]