Students of Vermont geography will know that you will not find the town of Bethany on any map of the Upper Connecticut River Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire. It exists, fictionally, between and among actual towns and villages, in the words of Tasha Tudor, “West of New Hampshire and East of Vermont.”
A note about the spelling of “Vietnam”: In 1965, some Vermont newspapers, including ones my characters would have read, were still using “Viet Nam,” while The New York Times, other Vermont papers, and many national news sources had adopted “Vietnam” as accepted usage. I have chosen to use “Vietnam” to avoid reader confusion.