Some background
(Return to Part 1)I spent my earliest years in the Bronx, New York. When I was about 11 and a half, we moved to Danbury, Connecticut. Moving from a fourth-floor apartment to a raised ranch on a half acre didn't cause much in the way of culture shock, as my grandparents for many years had a summer home nearby in New Fairfield. I was already somewhat acquainted with Connecticut and comfortable in the area. I appreciated many of the changes: waking up in the summer to the sound of birds singing, being able to ride my bike in relative safety on the streets, eating hickory nuts that had been dropped by a tree along our driveway, making "forts" out of branches in the small bit of woods that lined the backyard. Aside from one year, during which I lived in a tiny apartment just over the New York State line in Patterson, I spent the next thirty-seven of my forty-eight-plus years on Earth living in and mostly enjoying western Connecticut.
My wife Anna grew up in the Waterbury, Connecticut, area and went to college at the University of Connecticut. When we married in the autumn of 1991, we moved into a home - a pretty split-level ranch on a half acre on a dead end road - in the town of New Milford in southwestern Litchfield County. In terms of land area, New Milford is a very large town. But it was not very built up when we moved there.
It was not a wild frontier, by any means. There was plenty of shopping and a fair number of industrial and office buildings and a fine hospital. But there was also a great deal of open space. In our neighborhood, in the south of town just off Route 7, there were a number of unused and lightly wooded lots. Along commercially developed Route 7, there were vast stretches of woods and open fields. It wasn't entirely a country setting, but it was country enough for us.
Anna and I appreciate quiet and a degree of seclusion. We want our home to be a place where we can enjoy each other and our kids and our pets without intrusion. We like to see trees and fields and hills around us. And we generally dislike seeing other people's houselights. Our home was ideal for us. Large evergreen trees created walls along the back and one side of the property. Several trees and a large front yard shielded us from the road. One side neighbor was a bit close, but you could only see that house from garage windows that we kept curtained.
Even assuming a modest pace of development, we imagined we'd be comfortable in New Milford for a long time. Well, I guess it was a long time - more than twenty years.
Things change. And development doesn't always take a modest pace. The woods and fields along Route 7 gradually shrank and disappeared, replaced by large stores and restaurants and their parking lots. I recall years ago walking a number of times through a pretty field with large old trees which has since been flattened and asphalted over. We saw K-Mart come in. Big-Y took over a shopping center north of there. Then Walmart moved in to the south. K-Mart was replaced by Home Depot. Staples and T.J. Maxx opened a plaza and then developers began clearing and leveling an enormous stretch of open land across from Walmart.
By that time, we had fled the Route 7 corridor and scampered across town. We moved into a newer home in a very small subdivision with large, lightly wooded yards and many acres of thickly wooded sloping land across the street. We fought just a bit against encroaching civilization, bringing a horse and a bunny and six hens onto our new two-acre property with us. We composted manure, grew a few vegetables and ate a whole lot of eggs. Anna regularly rode her horse down dirt trails into the woods and over the streams across the street. Traffic hummed not far away, but we had an oasis of calm and quiet. For a while.
To be continued.
