Wednesday Walks

Ok so I really took this walk on Thursday and today is Friday but don’t hassle me bro, I have an infant. Baby Evan and I walked downtown to the library to return the two whole books I managed to read in the last two months and pick out three new ones. THREE! I am so ambitious. Even more impressive, they are books I have not even read before (although really, once you’ve read one Clive Cussler you’ve read them all). Still, BOOKS!

I don’t know how much I’ve talked about where I live in the past, besides calling it small-town New England, but really some days it seems more like a painting than an actual town. We have the Norman Rockwellesque town hall complete with annual Christmas Tree lighting party consisting of carolers, small children and free hot cider. We have what seems like a hundred banks in old stone buildings with big external alarm boxes and thousand-pound wood doors. We have old fashionedy light posts with hanging flower baskets. There are two old hotels from when this was a booming mill city full of prosperity and hope. It’s the kind of place where politicians leave out bumper stickers with “please take one” signs to get support – and people take one.

Unfortunately, the boom has long since banged out and the town is mostly populated by workers from the nearby casinos and…well, to tell the truth I have NO IDEA what most of the people here do for a living. We have several large companies and factories in this part of the state but those people all live in the suburbs for the large yards and lower taxes. I guess the infrastructure of a small city (local government, schools, restaurants, skilled workers) provides enough jobs to be self supporting for the most part, although the slow decline of my town proves that can’t last forever. I hope the current economic problems facing our country (and our STATE – WAY TO GO CONNECTICUT one of only two states still operating without a budget) don’t cause any irreversible damage to this place. I like it here.