Smart Growth

On Wednesday evening I will be attending a gala dinner at which the keynote speaker is the governor of Maryland. I am an invited guest of the nonprofit organization responsible for the gala.

I'm a little bit nervous. I'm not even sure my best behavior is good enough for such a bash.

This nonprofit group, which has been instrumental in keeping development out of Terrapin Run, is all about "smart growth." Smart growth is amazingly logical. It's an intentional decision to grow communities where infrastructure and residences already exist.

The state of Maryland has a dizzying array of ecosystems. It has ocean beaches. It has the mighty Chesapeake Bay. It has the rolling farmlands of the Piedmont, and in its nether reaches, it has mountains. At its far western extreme, there's one place that actually has a few hundred acres of Arctic tundra (it's called a "frost pocket bog").

Maryland also has Baltimore. And the suburbs of Washington, DC.

Beginning in the 1960s, people moved out of the big cities in droves, to suburbs that kept cropping up farther and farther from the urban areas, in those beautiful natural regions of Maryland. The line of suburban sprawl has crept across the state in every direction. There are many people who drive 70 miles one way to work, so they can go "home" to the Chesapeake, or to the mountains, or to the Mason-Dixon Line.

 If you want to see something sickening, go visit the Antietam Battlefield and then travel around that neck of the woods. You'll be cruising along a country road, and all of a sudden, up springs a hideous development of over-sized houses, with brick fronts and vinyl sides and grassy front lawns. These developments suck up farmland while older suburbs (and downtown real estate like Hagerstown, MD) abound with unused housing.

Smart growth advocates are trying to change that. They want to rehab existing houses in neighborhoods closer to urban centers. They want to concentrate housing on smaller parcels to save open spaces and farms. And they want to preserve wild lands in the state.

These are extremely laudable goals.

My heart, my soul, and my grave are in Appalachia. But it's easier for me to deal with not living there if I feel like I'm a "smart growth" kinda gal. And I am. There are 11 houses on my block. I can walk to the grocery store and the El train. This tiny plot of land where I lay my head could not be more different from the magnificent, empty vista that I cavorted through, summer after summer. But it's smart growth. I'm not sprawling in some former farm field. I'm not bulldozing trees for a mountain view. I live in a crowded neighborhood in a crowded county at the edge of a huge city.

It's idyllic to want to go "back to Nature" by living in the deep woods or on the edge of the rolling Chesapeake. Truth is, though, people don't go back to Nature. They bring the city with them when they move ... and suddenly Nature isn't natural anymore.

I pine for my mountains. I do. But when the fickle finger of Fate dropped me in Philadelphia, I just indifferently looked for a house near the El. Turns out I was a smart growther before it got called "smart growth."

My house is 90 years old. The yard is tiny. But suddenly, this expatriate hillbilly feels better. I'm proud to be part of the smart growth movement. It's one way to respect Mother Earth.

This Works on Every Level

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" This morning we're finding religion and social justice in up-ended junk stock cars! Pinch me on this one, I think I'm dreaming.

An Ogden, Utah farmer found his life transformed when a developer put in a subdivision at the edge of his farm.

The newly-built "luxury homes" sold pretty quickly, because everyone likes to gaze out on a peaceful farm scene as they gulp their coffee in preparation for a long commute to work.

But then reality set in. Because the farmer really does farm. He has cows. They eliminate waste, and the product does not smell nice. He also makes hay, which makes dust, which rises through the air and lands on upholstery. And all that machinery! It's noisy!

The farmer's neighbors complained. He offered to split the price of a privacy fence. They declined, saying that they didn't want to ruin their view of his pretty property.

So the farmer evoked the bored gods. He went out and got a few junked stock cars, fired up the backhoe, and upended those suckers in the ground, in a nice array, at the edge of his property.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you

REDNECK STONEHENGE

That's what this inspired farmer called his creation.

I remember sitting in the breakfast nook of my sister's new "luxury home," staring down upon a pair of unhappy Old Order Mennonites as they did their farm chores with full knowledge that they were being gawked at. I thought to myself, "Gosh, if I suddenly found myself surrounded by monstrosities of vinyl siding on every boundary line, I think I'd just shuck my clothes and start doing my work buck naked."

Oh, my lack of imagination! Why work naked amongst horse flies when you can erect a henge? Heck, you don't need old cars. You could use just about anything stiff enough to stack. Like laundry baskets. Or junked computers. Or random pieces of furniture, trash-picked from sidewalks.

Of course, all of that pales in the presence of a Car Henge, but we can't all operate back hoes.

If you need a henge in your life, beseech the wisdom of the bored gods. They will help you with your creation. And those pesky neighbors deserve just what they get.

Our operators are standing by to take your call.

Coming Soon to a Rural Area Near You

I asked my daughter The Heir to take some pictures for me while we were home in Western Maryland. The red brick house pictured here is protected from tear-down because it is historical. It was probably built around 1840, which means in all likelihood that it housed wounded soldiers from Antietam. My daughters and I were able to take a tour because the house is empty and someone had broken in, so it was easy to open the door.

The other pictures are the "neighborhood" in which the 1840 house now finds itself. Within 10 years it will be surrounded. The roads have been plotted out, the sewer lines laid. The developer is just waiting for the current real estate bust to turn around, and then he'll start churning out "luxury homes" again. But he can't demolish the old farmhouse. It will sit there till it crumbles from a broken heart.

My sister is concerned about the old house. Since it was broken into, she is sure it will be used by teenagers for Satanic rituals. If you ask me, the devil's not in that house. He is nearby, though. He creates a wasteland and calls it progress.

If you want a luxury home with a view, here's a nice one. It has an enormous solarium facing southwest.

There is no need to ask the bored gods to curse this development. The builders did that when they loaded the luxury homes with great big windows that will catch every ray of afternoon sun, all summer long.

Pay no attention to that sound in the distance. It's just a way of life crumbling. It will soon subside.

Be It Ever So Humble

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," brought to you from the Garden State... New Jersey! Isn't that one of life's little ironies? New Jersey: The Garden State. Well, you can't argue that we grow good vultures here.

The Garden State. Can you picture Bruce Springsteen in bib overalls, forking manure onto his tomato patch? Me neither.

From Tuesday evening until Thursday morning, my daughters and I were guests in my sister's new home in Western Maryland, better known as Chateau Fundie.

I know that the Christian religion brings great solace to my sister, so the fact that she would have Christian art did not surprise me. What did surprise me was the scope and extent of it. Either your eyes fall on the tarnished view outside or on some piece of religious artwork. Or the floor, which is now being occupied by a sprightly and amiable mutt, new to the family.

The dominant motif consists of huge wooden plaques that have been digitally carved with Bible verses, or whole hymns complete with the musical notation. There are alcoves with crucifixes, several Bibles on display, portraits of handsome, white Jesus throughout. A prayer my grandma cross-stitched hangs in the guest bedroom.

I noticed a pretty painted object that was not religious on one of Sis's tables. It turns out that thing was a Native American item brought back from Ecuador by her pastor. He was in Ecuador doing missionary work amongst the heathens who apparently can't do anything right but make gorgeous artwork.

What bugs me the most about Chateau Fundie is that it is one small piece of what I'll call the reconfiguration of the old home county. The house sits in a brand-new development on what once was a Mennonite farm well known to me. Other farms have likewise disappeared under a grid of big box stores and developments. The crowning blow will be the development of Artz Farm, which was one of the largest of the farms between our home and Antietam Battlefield. I believe 1800 homes are planned.

By golly, I never thought I'd get lost in the land of my birth, but I can hardly drive around anymore and recognize anything. I had the deuce of a time finding Sis's development in the dark, even after I'd been there 24 hours. This might not sound surprising until you consider that the development is about three miles from the home where Sis and I grew up.

I will have more to say on the subject of housing developments when my daughter The Heir loads the photos she took for me.

On Thursday afternoon, myself and daughters Heir and Spare went to our favorite nosh pit, the Road Kill Cafe in Artemas, PA. It will be hard to alter the landscape around the Road Kill Cafe, because the place is so deep in the mountains that you need several good hounds to sniff it down. But hey. The developers are trying to bring their McHouses to the area. It just hasn't happened yet.

By the time myself, Heir and Spare stumbled out of the Road Kill Cafe, stuffed to the gills with savory home cooking, I had pretty much decided I couldn't stand the sight of Interstate 95 through the windshield. So we headed north and got on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It's a longer trip. I haven't gone that way in years.

We tootled back on the Turnpike, and when we were about 45 miles outside Philly, Mr. Johnson called on the cell phone. The Walt Whitman Bridge -- the one I wanted to take to the Smokestack State -- was closed in both directions due to a hostage situation. The Walt Whitman is Philadelphia's busiest bridge. I was headed straight for an F5 traffic jam.

So I said to self: "Anne, you can't find your way around the old home county anymore. Let's see how you do in your replant region, your good ol' major metropolitan area. Let's find an alternate route."

I did it. And without a GPS.

I circumvented every backup and every roadblock. In the process I passed the exit we take from the Blue Route to get to our Druid Grove meetings (a welcome signpost indeed) and the road to the book store where The Heir works. By the time we got home, the hostage situation had resolved, but the bridge was still closed due to ongoing investigation.

Ah, my messy, cat-infested, book-laden, faerie-filled domain! Ah, New Jersey, trampled into hideous conformity during some other generation! As Dorothy put it, "There's No Place Like Home."

Never did the ancient and widespread New Jersey asphalt look better.

FROM ANNE

THE SEAGULL OF NEW JERSEY

My Very Strange Bedfellow

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," lovely liberalism lavishly applied! Blue isn't good enough for us. We say, Go Green!

Today when I came home from work, there was an email waiting for me from a reporter at Fox News in Baltimore.

Yeah, well, there are more than 341,000 Anne Johnsons in the U.S.A. Some of them must watch O'Reilly. Sure as hell not me.

Then I read the reporter's note: "Please call me if you're the Anne Johnson interested in Terrapin Run."

Bingo. That's me. I called Fox News. Me. Anne Johnson, calling Fox News. Geez, it's like taking lunch with Darth Vader.

But wait. Let's not jump to conclusions here. The only thing we at "The Gods Are Bored" jump to conclusions about is the indisputable fact that ALL POLITICIANS CURRENTLY IN OFFICE ARE POCKET MONKEYS FOR THE RICH, RICHER, AND RICHEST.

The kind young reporter alerted me to a sneaky bill that will be introduced in the Maryland State Senate on February 20, just a mere 3 weeks before the issue of Terrapin Run (a little stream trying to avoid becoming a sewer hole) was to be taken to Maryland Circuit Court.

I rapidly directed the kind young reporter to the head of Citizens for Smart Growth in Allegany County.

Here are the two kickers:

1. The reporter at Fox News said: "Yes, we're ultra-Republicans, but we oppose this bill and the ramifications it has for the environment in Western Maryland."

Anyone with this attitude is welcome in my circle of friends, no matter where they may be employed.

2. Big kicker: The reporter tracked me down through this blog. Oh yes, I am proud to say that Fox News firewalls "The Gods Are Bored," but he found a computer that lets him read about Zeus.

And so my magickal quest to save Terrapin Run and its environs from townhouses, asphalt, shopping centers, and fatal deer-vs.-SUV encounters has found an ally in ... drum roll ... Fox News.

Yeah. I've pinched myself black and blue.

FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
SAVE TERRAPIN RUN!