Welcome to 'Ruralopolis'

Ruralopolis: That’s my description of a five- or six-town region where we who live in rural, small-town America forage. Hey, we shop around. We improvise, combining the best variety of five or six towns that surround home base, offering a reasonably large choice of shopping, restaurants and entertainment. All you have to do is climb into the car and drive. It offers the equivalent of big-city services while maintaining the tranquil beauty of rural life.

Movie theaters offer a wide variety of film entertainment when combining towns, and you can vary restaurant dining from ethnic to special night-out spots. Shopping from Connecticut and Massachusetts to New York state increases the options exponentially, providing lifestyles equivalent to big-city neighborhoods accessed by rapid transit lines.

Years ago on Cape Cod we traveled the full length of the Cape constantly for the alternative environments provided by each town; even the beaches were different to the extent of some for swimming, others for beachcombing or just sitting back with a cooler of drinks and some barbecue equipment.

The Ruralopolis image also translated to Southern California, where a visit to Santa Barbara stretched all the way up that beautiful coast through the northern towns from Pismo Beach to Big Sur (a place too beautiful to describe) and Pacific Grove, home of “Cannery Rowâ€� on the Monterey Peninsula.  The driving was long, meaning overnight stays, but scenery that beautiful relieves the tedium.  California as the ultimate “car countryâ€� is visible while cruising past homes with six cars in the driveway.

Or course the word “rural� does conjure up a few less pleasant reminders, images worth noting in regard to “Ruralopolis,� such as spending the better part of a month cleaning the skunk odor from your front left tire. Then there’s the trauma of hitting a deer on the highway and the equally traumatic shock of receiving the car repair bill from the mechanic.

I’ve got a special place in my heart for those hellish field mice that invaded the vent system of my Honda with nesting material, seed (food) storage and lotsa mouse poop. Sure, I paid a mechanic hundreds to clean it out. But when you put out poison to try to dissuade them, they die in the walls. Owls, they eat ‘em, so their “hoots� are music to my ears. Coyotes feed on house pets and deer feed on anything that you enjoy growing. Bambi never had it so good.

But the air is clear and sweet with the scent of fresh cut grass (that requires constant cutting in season) and the lakes are pristine and pure and everybody knows your name and business. Hey, it saves the energy involved in introducing yourself. Folks I never thought I met smile and say, “Hello Mr. Lee,� and I just smile back because danged if I know who they are.

But my lifestyle in Ruralopolis has been devoid of transgression, I’m happy to say; I’m clean as a whistle (so to speak) compared to some years back in the big city. Ancient history. I’m pure as the driven snow up here, and speaking of driven snow, are you ready for the full onslaught of another winter in Ruralopolis?

Bill Lee lives in Sharon and New York City, and has for years drawn cartoons for this newspaper and many other publications of note.

Latest News

Bunny Williams's 
‘Life in the Garden’
Rizzoli

In 1979, interior decorator Bunny Williams and her husband, antiques dealer John Rosselli, had a fateful meeting with a poorly cared for — in Williams’s words, “unspoiled” — 18th-century white clapboard home.

“I am not sure if I believe in destiny, but I do know that after years of looking for a house, my palms began to perspire when I turned onto a tree-lined driveway in a small New England village,” Williams wrote in her 2005 book, “An Affair with a House.” The Federal manor high on a hill, along with several later additions that included a converted carriage shed and an 1840-built barn, were constructed on what had been the homestead property of Falls Village’s Brewster family, descendants of Mayflower passenger William Brewster, an English Separatist and Protestant leader in Plymouth Colony.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Creators: Sitting down with Garet Wierdsma

Garet&Co dancers

Jennifer Almquist

On Saturday, March 9, the people of Norfolk, Connecticut, enjoyed a dance performance by northern Connecticut-based Garet&Co, in Battell Chapel, titled INTERIOR, consisting of four pieces: “Forgive Her, Hera,” “Something We Share,” “bodieshatewomen,” and “I kinda wish the apocalypse would just happen already.”

At the sold-out show in the round, the dancers, whose strength, grace and athleticism filled the hall with startling passion, wove their movements within the intimate space to the rhythms of contemporary music. Wierdsma choreographed each piece and curated the music. The track she created for “Something We Share” eerily contained vintage soundtracks from life guidance recordings for the perfect woman of the ‘50s. The effect, with three dancers in satin slips posing before imaginary mirrors, was feminist in its message and left the viewer full of vicarious angst.

Keep ReadingShow less
Kevin McEneaney, voice of The Millbrook Independent

Kevin McEneaney

Judith O’Hara Balfe

On meeting Kevin McEneaney, one is almost immediately aware of three things; he’s reserved, he’s highly intelligent and he has a good sense of humor.

McEneaney is the wit and wisdom behind The Millbrook Independent, a blog that evolved from the print version of that publication. It's a wealth of information about music venues in this part of Dutchess County interspersed with poetry, art reviews, articles on holidays and other items, and a smattering of science.

Keep ReadingShow less