Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Circadian upset

In the midnight blue
     Of autumn's night
I ponder my circadian plight.

Plying my craft from dawn
     To dusk
Back to my abode I trod,
     An empty husk.

The sofa beckons my weary bod.
     Eyelids flutter;
The new's "music" makes me nod.

Then at bedtime , do I awaken.
     Refreshed anew,
 Alert, my rhythm shaken.

But again when Moon is nigh,
     I'll briskly walk to work
And lend to you my watchful eye.

Saturday, November 04, 2017

Death of Americana

Remember when we first moved to Main St.?  There were kids In the neighborhood, lots of kids.  The Durant kids, Leblanc kids, Larocks, Meads, Colburns, Van Tassels, Manns, Crings, Otts, Mouricks, Bennetts, Fraser's, Hollerans, Barnes, Wards, Barleys, Wrights, Spillmans, Robinsons, Lacomb's, Caseys, McDougals, McNallys, Bogart's, and Woodcock's, just to name a few.

    Remember the school had 750 students K-12?

Where are all those kids today, 40 years later?

Gone, almost to a person, from the area; gone to areas of greater economic prosperity.

A community will falter and die when its youth leave the nest and don't return to raise their own brood.  

The 
LaRock kids have moved on. The Leblanc house is empty and the Bennett's house is occupied by a childless couple.  The Van Tassel kids are here; Andy and his wife Lynette moved into Colburn's house and have two kids. The Colburns are all out of the area.  All the Spillman, Holleran, and Casey kids have moved on.  The Meade girls are gone as well as Millie Robinson's kids.

A few have stayed: Kevin Crosby, Patrick Barse,  Andy VT, but by and large, the kids that grew up with our kids have moved on, taking the heart of this small rural community with them.

  Now the State is bribing the community (village) to dissolve and become part and parcel of the Town.  The remaining social fabric of the village i.e. the fire Dept. will be hard pressed to hold off the appeal of 50% tax reduction in perpetude.


    And so another remnant of Americana dies away, relegated to memory of the few left who will soon enough take those memories, also, to the graveyard of used-to-be.