Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Just around the corner

Just around the corner from my house, an ancient farmhouse sits forlorn like a lumpy old woman with her slip showing sitting at a bus stop. It is being razed to make way for a new development of condos.

It was a house that saw oilcloth on the table and cornbread browning in the oven. There the addition of running water and an indoor bathroom was cause for great celebration. Model T cars once lined the yard for turkey and dressing on holidays. The wire fence around the yard is lined with daffodils every spring, planted decades ago by a young farmwife wanting to escape the hot kitchen.

The shiny condos that replace it will never see cornbread or oilcloth. They will more than likely have a seldom used "extra" bathroom. The Hondas and Hummers that will sit out front will leave at 6:30 in the morning and return home at 6:30 in the afternoon--too late to plant daffodils.

Some call it progress--I call it travesty--especially if they cut down the forest behind my house.

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