A Perambulating farewell after a great adventure


Circumstances beyond my control compel me to end the regular appearance of this column. That is a decision made with great reluctance, because apart from my bride of 66 years (on Dec.22), this newspaper has been the great love of my life. But demands of advancing age are inexorable.

The Christmas issue of The Lakeville Journal 38 years ago announced its sale to Mary Lou and me. I had been on the staff of The Washington Post as an editorial writer, editor and foreign correspondent for 25 years, and she had shared my ancillary responsibilities. Now we had been captivated by the beauty of the Tri-state Corner and the opportunities the newspaper offered. In June of 1972 the then-publisher of The Millerton News, John Hager, approached us with an offer to sell his paper, and we borrowed the money to buy it.

During those years Mary Lou contributed her photography and I produced more than 2,500 columns apart from much other writing. The column got its present name in 1973 when Salisbury First Selectman Bill Barnett, at the urging of Donald Knowlton, appointed me a town perambulator with the duty of walking the bounds to report on the integrity of the borders with Massachusetts and New York. In addition to doing a lot of hiking, I viewed this as a license to perambulate verbally anywhere my fancy took me. Manifold changes have come to the corner since then, including sophisticated development pressures, but thanks to prudent restraint with perhaps a dash of good luck the area has avoided the glitz of the Hamptons and retained its rural charm. To be sure, many years have elapsed since anyone has heard a whippoorwill, whose shrill cries used to echo from the evening hillsides, or the occasional mournful loon at Twin Lakes. But in the wildlife department the black bear population has virtually exploded and the occasional moose is no longer a rarity.

In terms of government the rural towns have mostly been well served. Competence and vision may have varied, but there has been no evidence of the corruption associated with the cities. Many of the elected officials sent to Hartford and Albany and Washington have been of superior quality. But local economies have been hard hit and too many persons must work two or three jobs.

Physically the appearance of the area has reflected controlled change, mostly for the better. Millerton has undergone a remarkable renaissance. The center of business in the town of Salisbury has migrated from Lakeville to Salisbury village, thanks in part to the off-street shopping center there. For a while there was a penchant for moving buildings; for example, the onetime corner jewelry store in Lakeville is now an apartment building several blocks away.

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The point is that essential values have remained, aided by a lively sense of history. Historic districts have preserved essential architectural values. The new Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area has brought federal help to various historical projects. The prized Canaan Union Station is well on the way to restoration.

There has been phenomenal expansion of health-care facilities, including the success of the sale of Sharon Hospital to a for-profit organization that has carried out improvements. Long-term care and retirement complexes like Noble Horizons and Geer Memorial augment the choices. The Taconic Learning Center is a welcome cultural addition, Music Mountain, the Hotchkiss and Salisbury schools and various musical groups offer concerts in every season. There are abundant forums and public lectures, and groups offer concerts in every season.

The Lakeville Journal papers have undergone a transition from hot type to photo-composition to total computerization, from in-house printing on their aged web press to electronic production elsewhere. How to make constructive use of the Internet is a constant challenge.

 


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One task I enjoyed was conducting occasional exercises in language and grammar. Elisabeth Childs of Norfolk urged me to discuss the differences between "lay" and "lie." "Lay" is a transitive verb requiring an object, as in "I lay the book on the table. "Lie" is intransitive. You can’t lie something down, although in a different sense you can try to lie yourself out of a predicament if you are a president trying to justify his invasion of Iraq.

I used to enjoy discussing the weather with Mrs. Childs’ husband, the late Ted Childs, who was the U.S. meteorological observer for many years. I learned a lot from him and wrote monthly weather summaries for The Journal. I also had a computerized system of my own that kept track of temperatures, wind velocity, rainfall and the like until a nearby lightning strike fried it. Too bad.

 


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Browsing through The American Scholar, I came across a passage written in 1630, 378 years ago, by John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He urged fellow Puritans to "do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God, for this end, we must be knit together in this work as one man, we must entertain each other in brotherly affection, we must be willing to abridge ourselves if our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities, we must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality, we must delight in each other, make each other’s conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor, and suffer together . . . so shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace."

Substitute nation and world for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Isn’t that what we are really seeking for ourselves and for peoples everywhere as we undertake an exciting new adventure with a new president and new ideas? It seems an appropriate note on which to end my formal perambulating career — always reserving the right to erupt and venture forth again if the spirit moves me.

So long to all of you who have put up with my scribbling. It has been a great adventure.

 

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