Thought for the Day - Feb 11

Subject: Thought for the Day - Feb 11
From: Peter T.
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 08:53 AM

Every morning as I go to work, I pass by an ancient failure of mine, which never does anything to perk me up. If you are going to be an environmentalist in a city, it is important to have a short memory. 20 years ago, I was part of a fight to save the last old meadowland in the heart of the city, a few acres of lovely ground right on the edge of a ravine. As with many of these places, it was owned by a school, and they needed to sell it to build new facililties -- my own university is in the process of selling off all its remaining downtown green space for the same reason. We fought it all the way to the final hurdle, and then lost to a man who owned the Minister in charge. Where there was once meadown is now a truly ugly grey condominium. When I pass by, I often remember the sound of the wind in the late summer as it passed over the meadow. And I remember in particular one winter day when I had just been at an exhibition of Van Gogh's brown pen and ink drawings, and found myself walking in the snow surrounded by sketches of dead wildflowers, high meadowweeds, withered thorns poking out through the white. I am fond of the city: but this scene always reminds me of the natural ghosts that lie whispering under the miles of concrete, only recollected, if at all, by someone who was there before the new foundations were poured.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 11
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 09:09 AM

Oh, Peter, nice to see you must be feeling better to have graced us with such beauty, again. I know just the type of scene. We fought tooth and nail to save a beautiful wooded hill in Connecticut for the bluebirds which were many, only to lose out to tract housing which is horribly ugly. They tore great chuncks of forest away making long winding wide paved roads into and out of the resultant subdivision.

The same thing is going on across the road from our house right now. It will be time to move soon, as I won't be able to watch the sunrise over the backs of grazing antelope once the houses march on down across the way. Makes me sad to think of it.

kat

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 11
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 09:11 AM

High in the hills in the area know as the Lake District in England, I stood in the entrance of what was at one time a Roman Fort. (Hardknot pass) The Gate hinges were still in place, the whole area showed outlines of the original parade ground, and bath house. The walls of the fort and encampment area, were covered by grass and scub brush; but the outlines still showed as man made intrusions. The power of nature is such, that if we left the concrete untouched long enough, the wild flowers and ghosts would reclaim the meadow. Perhaps, in the distant future, your meadow will return. Yours,Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 11
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 09:24 AM

Our family has rented houses since I was born and every affordable one has been on the edge of country. I've had to move out of every last one of 'em because someone decided the time had come to build a subdivision, and usually I've had to live there and watch it grow before we left, having my wander zone get narrower and narrower. This used to really make me nuts. One became a mall, where I had ridden horses.

One day I meant a man who had grown up in the urban choke of south side Chicago, alongside the coal and steel and rails, and rotting apartments. He said, "If you find yourself overcome by courage one day, let me know and I'll give you a guided tour of a dead and dangerous neighborhood." Who could resist a line like that. We made a date.

Driving by the rusting closed down cold steel mills I heard Si Kahn's "Aragon Mill" running in my head, Stan Rogers' pieces about dying fishing towns, a Gordon Bok piece about a crumbling tall ship left rotting on the shore... lots of other voices... and I wondered what it must be like to pour your sweat and a whole lifetime into an industry that isn't "viable" anymore, and then pass by the abandoned memory every day. It's all the same thing, isn't it, there's a way we are invested in what we do that gives life meaning and that then can cost us dearly when it's gone.

Peter T, your eloquent marking of the loss now lives in my head with the vpoices of all the other grand men who have worked hard for something they cared about and have to live with the daily reminder. Isn't it really odd to think that in that very building are people who will eventually "lose" what has now become their place of good memories, and that right now we are building new memories that may hurt later as life changes?

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 11
From: MMario
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 09:31 AM

This makes me realize how truly blessed I am living where I do. Pictures from the '20s show the bluff south of us, denuded of trees, now covered by (admittedly second growth) woods. Our property was pasture when purchased, now most of it is woods. Wild turkeys, deer, foxes, coyotes, and other assorted wildlife in the yard are virtually daily occurences.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 11
From: Peg
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 09:57 AM

Jack, do you never sleep?

Does the grief still run deep in your heart?

Or will these changing times, motorways, powerlines, keep us apart?

Well, I don't think so

I saw some grass growing through the pavement today.

"Jack in the Green," Ian Anderson

peg

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 11
From: catspaw49
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 10:20 AM

Very sad Peter......

In our home we have a 4'x5' old sepia toned picture of a farmhouse and the ponds and woods surrounding it. It was done from a photo and is the farm once owned by Karen's grandparents where she grew up. They sold it in 1967 when she went to live with her mother and they entered the Peace Corps. Karen has wonderful childhood memories stemming from them and that place. We buried her grandmother in the old churchyard at Weldon Springs, just across the road, a few months ago. The little church is all that's left, surrounded by condos, apartments, and shopping strips.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 11
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 11:01 AM

Well there are some good things I know of: even though Boulder, Colorado, has grown tons within its limits, it still, as far as I know, has an ordinance requiring open, green spaces around it. My great-grandparent's farm, near Boulder and still in the family, is no longer out in the country the way it was, but it is on an historic registry and being preserved, just not all of the original acreage.

Conversely, the Grand Valley (town of Grand Junction) in Western Colorado has lost almost all of its peach and cherry orchards to subdivisions and wineries.

Just east of there, in the foothills of the Rockies, near Glanwood Springs, though, my other great-grandparent's ranch, with its original homestead cabin, has been preserved as an Elk Refuge, so....maybe sometimes things balance out.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 11
From: canoer
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 12:14 PM

"Once I had you and the wildwoods

Now it's just dusty roads ...."

--- "The Coming of the Road," B.E. Wheeler