Do you Feel It?
Me? No, not much. We have left it thrice over: from living in a metropolis by moving to a small town; by moving from the small town to a rural community where we could see a few of our neighbors' houses; and finally by moving from a rural neighborhood to a neighborless wilderness where the only noise we hear is our own and the creeks'. That the urban world is eating itself up in asphalt and excess is seldom in our faces or on our minds. We've turned our hearts from it, because it is hideous and makes us sad. But look at it we must.
I seldom order a book on impulse, but I just Amazon One-click ordered the one from which the following excepts are taken (thanks to Orion Magazine.) When something makes you laugh and that laugh ends with a tear, its author has hit you at your core. This hits mine. Excepts don't do justice. Please read it all and One Click the book for yourself.
My generation is weighed down by a sadness we do not know we feel. The promise was whispered melodiously in our ears sometime after the enjoyment of the great treasures beneath the TV dinner's foil and before the deep velvet of sleep in our soft, footed pajamas. The delivery, we have discovered by now, is not as we were pledged. The disparity is so geologic that we risk our necks attempting to view the whole towering thing. The velocity of change has picked up a bit: no longer can we disregard it as some crumbling old history. What is lost was here just thirty or forty years ago, and thus it is written all over the pages of your life. But still you don't know what can be done. Each announcement comes wrapped in its own fait accompli: this going, this coming, look out, look away, cry alone, it's done.
... Those old farms bearing new billboards of what's to come: forty huge houses of Frankensteinian architecture unmoored from any landscape to float just above its treelessness. Your ancient mountaintop a resort and vacation homes. That Beaux Arts post office a Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits. This revered battlefield fertilized with men's blood a shopping center. The dirt road paved. The paved road once two lanes, now four; once four, now six. The crossroads with no light gets its signal. The march of time keeps marching, the army bigger every day.
Nostalgists? Maybe. But there were good ol' days and good ol' places and I wonder if we should give them up without a fight.
Comments
No, we should not. But it is hard to fight developers, who seem to have government and momentum on their side.
Posted by: kenju | January 25, 2006 9:40 AM
I'm with you on this one, Fred. I look on these clear January nights and see the stars and pray our mountains never change. But it seems I see more and more lights comming from the Ararat Valley. On my post today I noted farmers on the outskirts of Woodlawn are selling their land to developers for 50 to 60 thousand an acre. I guess the day will come when we'll just have to move further up the mountain.
Posted by: Dave | January 25, 2006 5:38 PM
Before you give it up, come down to Florida and look at the future. You'll go back loaded for bear!
Posted by: M. Lawless | January 25, 2006 5:38 PM
I've been watching this all my life. I grew up on Cape Cod, a paradise in the 50's and even more so when my mother grew up there in the 30's and 40's. My family has been there since the PIlgrims and one of my plans is to write a book on them and the heartbreaking changes to a wonderful, unique landscape.
We saw a vision of hell in Virginia last time we drove south. Pulled off 95 to find a place to sleep and saw a nightmare stretching to infinity of cars, malls and every chain business in the US. Got back on the road and kept going. We decided that is where you go after you die if you have been very, very bad.
Posted by: zuleme | January 26, 2006 7:04 AM
Zuleme, let me guess - Fredericksburg, VA - exit 130 on I-95?
Posted by: COD | January 26, 2006 9:09 AM
Ah yes, paradise in the 50's unless you were black, brown Jewish or female.
The traffic light also brought a more powerful light that shone on restricted deeds, segregated schools and the lack of female participation/opportunity.
The paved road provided public utilies and works that we take for granted.
You are throwing the progress baby out with the "ticky-tacky" bathwater.
Posted by: BJ | January 26, 2006 4:28 PM
Wait a minute, BJ. Your choke is open a bit wide on that shotgun. I didn't see anyone rejecting social changes that have accrued for the better in this piece. What I read is the price we've paid for putting the short term good of the few (realtors, politicians, corporations) ahead of human scale, aesthetics or the greater good for the long term. Surely you don't equate a cause-effect relationship between roads and human rights, between traffic lights and womens sufferage as you seem to be saying here.
Posted by: fred1st | January 26, 2006 8:38 PM
In rural mono-ethnic/cultural communities the mores and status quo are challenged when diversity arrives on the new highway. People have to adjust their way of thinking and living to accommodate a broader range of opinion and lifestyles. That is a good thing.
Development also brings improved public infrastructure, health services and educational opportunities to rural communities.
Urban sprawl needs to be addressed to maintain a quality lifestyle while accepting the advantages growth can provide. Surely none of you would deny your children the experience of Latin, Arabic, Asian or (the horror of all horrors) Californian classmates. :^)
Besides, barring the door is no longer an option in our inter-connected world...even blogs are bringing newcomers to Floyd.
Floydians will have leave their comfort zone, run for local office, present viable alternatives and fill chairs at planning and zoning meetings...lots of chairs.
We saved a great deal of our green space and restored much of the bay's marshes and coastal habitat by putting the brakes on development very hard thirty years ago with master plans and public land trusts. However that also meant outrageous home/land prices, high taxes and fees up the whazoo. Everything is a tradeoff.
Posted by: BJ | January 27, 2006 6:36 PM