SPANNING THE CENTURIES | Surrounded by fall splendor, teamster Claude Desmaris, and Fred, a 12 year old Belgian draft horse, pull FairPoint fiber optic cable across a wooded ridge between East Bethel and Tunbridge last Tuesday. Desmaris, who lives in Barton, has the contract for pulling all off-road FairPoint cable in Vermont. "I've pulled cable for 32 years," he says, adding, it's nice today, but we show up on time 24/7, whenever we get the call. It's some different out here when there's three feet of snow on the ground!" Of Demaris and his draft horses, said lineman David Cay of Sutton, VT, (in the background), "It's the perfect blend of old and new technologies; there's no better way to pull this cable than with draft horses." And so, the nineteenth century meets the twenty first! (Herald / Bob Eddy)