Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • Stoic Reminders

      Welcome to the second half of the year!  Is the year half full or half empty?  I’ll go with full…  While WordPress doesn’t recognize it, I’ve written every day this year and plan to continue doing so for as long as I’m able to.  I bounce around a lot with topics, but I write about what draws my attention, and believe in a healthy mix of diversity and eclectic chaos in my otherwise structured life.

      Forget everything else.  Keep hold of this alone and remember it.  Each of us lives only now, this brief instant.  The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see.” – Marcus Aurelius

      The reminders are always there when you pay attention.  As a history buff reading some Scottish history in preparation for a fall trip I’m reading about people who have been dead for hundreds of years, but who’s lives resonate still today.  I write about dancing with ghosts, and I don’t mean the kind that haunt your house, but the kind that get into your mind.  I love to get to know the place where I am, and learn about the place I’m going to.  History tells one story, and the place itself tells another.  If you pay attention you see the old road that cuts through the forest, or an ancient stair tread that’s been worn down with thousands of footsteps over the years.  What an extraordinary thing that is – a stair tread that’s born the weight of people long departed from this world.  Their footstep, and mine today, each mark time as a drop of rain fills a pond.

      Lately I’ve been doing a lot of online research in preparation for a trip that happens in late October.  It’s funny how we get so excited about a trip four months away that we neglect the day at hand.  It’s okay to build plans, but there’s a lot of life to be lived until then.  The second half of the year has begun, and if it goes as quickly as the first half just went I’d best get moving for there’s no time to waste.

      “Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life.  Let us postpone nothing.  Let us balance life’s books each day…  The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” – Marcus Aurelius

      Thanks for the reminder Marcus…  and Ryan Holiday for the daily reminders.  The analogy of balancing life’s books every day is a good one.  We only have today, after all.  Tomorrow isn’t promised to us, but let’s plan (and hope) for a healthy, vibrant second half of the year anyway.

    • It’s Not a Miracle

      Entertaining guests yesterday I had the question and answer exchange every gardener has:

      Question: “What’s your secret for growing such a beautiful garden?”

      Answer: “Miracle Grow.”

      This of course is completely inaccurate. The real answer takes more time than a cocktail conversation allows.The person asking knows the answer as much as I do. Is Miracle Grow a good gardening hack?  You bet.  Does it accurately reflect what gets you to a beautiful garden.  Not at all.  But in the Q & A session at a party small talk should be kept small.  Follow-up questions indicate a real commitment to learning more than “use liquid fertilizer” and those who dive deeper are rewarded with deeper answers.  Which begins with “You grind away for years having success and epic failures, incremental improvements and adjustments along the way. You learn what works and keep doing that, learn what doesn’t and change how you do that.”  And if they want more then the details come along.  Gardening is a long climb towards a level of mastery that I’ll never reach. But I’m better for having made the climb than someone who hasn’t. At gardening anyway.

      Robert Greene writes brilliantly of mastery in his book of the same name. He describes the phase of developing skills that move you to mastery as the Ideal Apprenticeship. I know with conviction that I’m no master gardener; I’m somewhere in the next phase after apprenticeship, which Greene calls Creative-Active. With recreational gardening I’m not sure there’s a mastery stage in my future. I don’t aspire to be a horticulturist or botanist or landscape architect. Being a knowledgeable enthusiast is enough for me with gardening.

      And what of other interests? Career and family, of course, and the other pursuits of history, travel, writing and the like? Does being a generalist dilute each pursuit? No question. Does it mean pursuing more than one interest isn’t beneficial? That depends on what you think your best life should be. Personally I’ll take Jack-of-all-trades, thank you. But that doesn’t mean you can’t strive to be your best in each of those “trades”.

      We live in a time and place where pursuing fancies like an ornamental garden or casually researching the best London pub crawl route for an October visit while poolside on an iPhone (guilty) are available options. I’m well aware that the settler who first cleared and farmed the land I’m on never debated whether to move the dahlias from one side of the garden to the other to give the variegated impatiens room to grow. Mastery for that settler meant nurturing crops to a successful harvest, hunting or fishing for that night’s dinner, and generally staying alive in an unforgiving environment.  Mastery in recreational gardening isn’t a life or death matter for me. It’s like making your bed in the morning; It’s not going to change the world in any meaningful way, plenty of people get along just fine not doing it, but it elevates my day a notch higher for having done it well. And isn’t that enough?

    • Built for Celebration

      Build it and they will come.  And build it we have.  Our home is built for celebration – designed with hosting in mind.  And we’ve hosted since we first had a house on the other side of town.  Thanksgiving.  New Year’s Eve celebrations.  Super Bowl parties.  Pool parties.  Anniversary celebrations.  Birthday parties.  End-of-season sports parties.  And just plain parties.

      It starts with intent.  We built our current house twenty years ago knowing what worked and didn’t work from hosting Thanksgiving in our previous house.  Wide open floor plan is desirable, or as close as you can compromise on that with architectural and daily living considerations.  A wet bar was added in year 18.  Overdue I’d say.  And of course a bathroom on the first floor close but not too close to the action is required.

      The deck came first.  Expanded in 2004 to provide more outdoor living space.  Pergola above for some level of shade and aesthetics.  Rebuilt in 2018 when the carpenter ants laid the pergola to waste.  Some lessons learned, some ignored on that.  I’m just not a fan of pressure treated wood.

      Next came the brick patio.  Father’s Day 2005 – very hot, miserable day and I’m spreading crushed stone as a base for the brick that would come later.  The brick patio and curved walkway remains a favorite feature and serves to bridge the entire backyard when entertaining, gardening, or really anything we do in the backyard.  If I’d replace a hundred other things I’ve done over the last twenty years, I wouldn’t change that.

      Next came the pool and a poured stamped concrete deck.  I’ve come to appreciate it and resent it in waves of emotional ebbs and flows over the years.  But on the whole it’s been a nice addition to the yard.  When people tell you a pool is a money pit, they aren’t kidding.  But it’s also an nice way to pull your kids back in a bit when they’re younger, a nice reason to have a social gathering as they get older, and a nice way to spend a hot summer day in general.  As long as you remember the level of work it requires year-after-year, for three out of four seasons.

      The garden filled in the blanks.  It’s filled in my personal blanks for years, but it serves to soften the hardscape, brighten the landscape, spark conversation, and otherwise beautify the backyard.  The lawn is large enough, but not too large.  The woods snugs in just enough to provide shaded areas on hot days, and screens the houses beyond.  The woods on the whole have been a good neighbor, even if the pool doesn’t get along with them all that well.

      So today we host another party.  This theme is a bon voyage party.  The day started with rain and storms threaten to intrude again later in the day.  No matter; rain changes the equation but we’ve been here before.  Make the most of what the day brings you and don’t wish for things you can’t control.  So I’ve done what I can to bring in cushions, put up pop-up tents, weed the garden and spruce things up a bit.

      As with every party this one will go too fast, and become one more memory in a long string of great days spent living here.  But so goes life.  Build the life you want, pull in those who brighten your days on this earth and don’t invite those who ruin the party.  A party is more than a Great playlist, a cooler of ice and beer.  Ultimately you can’t have a party without great people in your life.  And if we’ve been lucky at all, it’s in finding the right people to bring sparkle and brightness to our lives.  So let’s celebrate!  And afterwards clean things up and reset for another day.

    • The Second Step is Easier

      “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – Chinese Proverb

      The first burpee is the worst one. More specifically, the first push-up on the first burpee is the worst one. Sure, they don’t get more pleasant later in the set, but then it’s just fatigue. On the first one you have to clear the hurdle too.

      I do these burpees at 6:15 AM, when the tightness in my shoulders stubbornly refuses to go quietly. Warming up on the erg helps, and some dynamic stretching gets the blood flowing in the old joints, but that first one is always a bear. Just getting on with it, fingers pointing slightly inward to relieve stress points, I shoot my legs back into plank position and slowly descend into the push-up. Creaking old guy complaints ensue and then recede; I’m on my way.

      The starting is the hard part. Always. But once you get going it becomes a lot easier.  The habit loop makes it easier to get some exercise in the morning, get some reading in, and to do some writing.  This morning was particularly foggy and the brain wasn’t completely wrapped around things until I started those burpees.  They have a way of focusing you quickly…  once you begin.

      And beginning is the theme of this morning.  Get started already, do what you’ve got to do to move forward.  Burpees, writing, work tasks…  whatever.  Carpe Diem isn’t just a clever quote in Dead Poets Society.  It’s a call to action not a poster on the wall.  Seize the day already!

      “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.” – Annie Dillard

      Dillard reminds us to structure our day to make the most of it.  And life is a series of days of course, though we don’t always see the forest for the trees…  I’ve been guilty of winging it over the years.  A scheduled day minimizes the downtime a restless mind carves out for you.  But not busywork; productive, planned tasks that move you forward.

      I’ve found the scheduled reading time immediately after exercise has been highly beneficial.  And starting with a little stoicism before reading whatever book I’m tackling is like finishing that first burpee – I’m focused and ready for what comes next.  The Daily Stoic is a good level set for me that I wish I’d discovered earlier in life.  Ryan Holiday boils down the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca and other great Stoics into bite sized daily chunks.  I wish I’d thought to write this book, but since he did I’m thoroughly enjoying it.

      That habit loop got the heart rate up today, but also got the electrodes firing in the brain.  When the student is ready the teacher will appear….   and the messages keep piling up this morning.  James Clear Tweeted his own reminder to get on with it today:

      “Life is short.

      And if life is short, then moving quickly matters. Launch the product. Write the book. Ask the question. Take the chance.

      Be thoughtful, but get moving.”

      And on cue, Mookie starts whipping me with her tail as she murders the birds outside the window in her mind.  I haven’t done all the reading I wanted to do this morning, but I can’t ignore the messages.  Get to it.  I realized that I haven’t had a second cup of coffee this morning.  Somehow that fog I walked downstairs with has lifted without the need for much caffeine.  And the day is well underway now.  Best to focus on the next task at hand.

    • Finding the Essence

      I grew up following my grandfather around the garden. By all accounts he wasn’t a good husband or father to his 16 kids, and I’m told he was once a vicious drunk. But he was a good grandfather to me. Age likely tempered him as it does most of us, but I think it was largely because my memories of him were from that garden. With 16 kids you need to grow some of your own food, and he knew his way around the garden. He’d likely shake his head at my flower garden, wondering why I’d take up so much valuable land on ornamentals. But I’ve raised a more manageable number of kids, and there’s benefit to flowers that go beyond caloric intake.

      I think of myself as primarily a flower gardener, but taking stock I have a respectable number of herbs and edibles mixed in; basil, cilantro, oregano, lemon verbena, chives, monarda, dill, bell peppers, jalapeño peppers and four varieties of tomatoes. I also have two apple trees, blueberry bushes, a lime tree and coffee bush in pots… and those frustratingly unproductive grapes. This year I opted out of some other vegetables I’ve traditionally grown like nasturtium, sunflowers, string beans and squash because they simply overwhelmed the garden.

      The harvest is already coming in, particularly the herbs. The challenge now is to keep up with them. Which means expanding the menu. Growing a new herb or vegetable offers two unique experiences; figuring out how to optimize its growth and then what to do with it when its time to harvest. When I was in Israel the employee kitchen had bunches of freshly picked mint that people would plunk stem and all into their tea.  I’ve been growing mint for years but never thought to do that until they taught by example.  Now that the mint is exploding I’ve taken to drinking more tea with fresh mint and give a nod to my former co-workers for showing me the way.

      So consuming the edibles is one benefit, but the larger gift is in living amongst them day-to-day. Rub the leaves and smell the oil released on the fingertips. Flowering herbs like cilantro, chives and monarda (bee balm) are good for the local bee population, and good for me as I enjoy the show as they work their way around the garden. The garden becomes multidimensional. Good for the senses, good for the palette, good for the soul.

      I think my grandfather was essentially a good man, but he was caught up in the frustrating struggles of his life and alcohol poisoned his mind. The garden drew out his attributes, and I saw the good in him. I haven’t struggled with the demons he struggled with, but I know I’m better for having been in the garden. And so was he.

    • Tech Leaps and Twinkies

      Yesterday morning I caught myself in a moment unimaginable at any time in human history beyond the last generation or two. I sat parked in my car inside a touch less car wash. Realizing I had upwards of five minutes of downtime I pulled out my Surface Pro, logged onto my iPhone’s wireless hotspot, connected to the Salesforce CRM and modified a quote that I submitted before the car wash moved to the rinse stage. None of these things existed when I last ate a Twinkie, which was, by my best estimate, sometime around 1987 or so.

      Sometimes our collective massive leap forward seems commonplace.  People watching streaming movies or checking email on a plane flying from New York to Tel Aviv is a miracle, and yet we think nothing of it.  We live in a time where miracles happen all the time but we’re so focused on the latest outrage on Twitter that we don’t appreciate the phone we’re reading it on.

      I remember being wowed by Sony Walkmans, and Compact Disks, and Cell Phones, and Blueray, and HD, and Wi-Fi, and the Internet…  and so on.  The march ahead with technology in my lifetime has been stunning.  Moore’s Law may have predicted something like this on paper, but just look at what we’ve created in so short a time.  Amazing.

      The technological leap forward from here is even more striking.  Artificial Intelligence is coming fast.  Robotics, automation, sensor data correlation, facial recognition, self driving cars, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s), Hyperloop vacuum tube travel, and 3D printing are already here in various stages of development or adoption.  We’re in an exponential technological revolution the likes of which has never been seen before.  Best to take a moment to appreciate the little miracles that happen all the time now.  Blink and you’ll miss it.

    • Elbow Room

      I’m not sure what my best life is, but I know that it doesn’t involve sitting in a car by myself stopped in relentless traffic.  But that’s where I found myself twice in the last 24 hours.  Friday getaway traffic in the rain was understandable.  Saturday logjam on two different highways was less expected.

      The older I get, the less I want to participate in the engineered world we’ve built around us in the United States.  I’m not particularly interested in sitting on a crowded beach, or going to the Esplanade on the 4th of July, or shopping on Black Friday, or commuting to anywhere on Route 128, or the Financial District, or really anywhere a lot of people are trying to congregate.  I don’t like traffic lights all that much, especially the ones that aren’t synced to have traffic flow logically.

      Crowded attractions aren’t my scene. Going to a Patriots game or a concert at Gillette Stadium is wonderful when you’re tailgating or in your seat watching the action.  Shuffling through security lines, lining up to go to the bathroom, shuffling back to your car to wait in traffic on Route 1?  I think not.  Irish Cottage on St. Patrick’s Day?  No Way.  Hampton Beach on a hot July Saturday?  Rain check.  Disney in peak summer crowds?  Been there, never doing it again.  Standing in line to get the best picture of St Mark’s Campanile in Venice?  No thanks.  Times Square?  I’ll walk three blocks around to avoid it.  Stand in a cue to summit Mount Everest?  You’ve got to be kidding me.  No, I’m an off-season kind of guy.  If I can’t get away with off-season, then you’ll find me up early before the crowds blow up your day.

      The planet is getting more crowded.  More people have disposable income that allows them to travel to the top sites in the world.  And I’ve got my own bucket list that includes some pretty popular places; Hawaii, London, Paris, Rome, and yes, Venice.  But I’ll find off-season if at all possible, thank you.  I’m not a hermit, I love a great conversation, a boisterous party, and the energy of a great concert.  But there’s no solitude in a line, and there’s great upside in a little elbow room.  So tell me how it goes at the opening weekend for the Encore Casino in Everett.  Expecting 50,000?  Lovely – I promise I won’t make it 50,001.  If there’s any upside to that, it’s that I’m giving someone else a little more elbow room at the slots.  You’re welcome.

       

       

    • The Daily Whip

      My morning begins with exercise, however modest, moves to daily stoic, then reading whatever book I happen to be tackling, and some writing if time allows before I plunge into the daily routine of work and life. I’ve continued this long enough that it’s become habit, and there are worse things than beginning the day this way. I won’t win the CrossFit Games or Jeopardy, but I’m further along than I’d otherwise be.

      A month after Bodhi passed, the muscle memory of my routine with him is fading. I don’t look out the window to see if he’s ready to come in, but he’s still lingering somewhere in my mind. But underfoot is a newer morning dance partner; Mookie joined us when the Red Sox we’re making their World Series championship run last fall. Once chipmunk size, she’s a lanky teenager now; full of energy, mischief and spirit.

      Make no mistake: I don’t generally bond with cats. I’m a dog person, and always have been. But Mookie got hold of me early on, and I find myself picking her up and petting her when I might have ignored another cat (as I do with the older cat). So here we are, sharing our morning together once again.

      It starts from the alarm going off, and she follows me from the closet, down the stairs and at my feet while I hydrate. When I’m done with exercise and sit down with my coffee and book she bounces back into my life and inevitably finds her way behind my right shoulder, surveying the action out the windows behind me. And that’s when it starts… the tail flicks once, wacks me in the cheek. A second time, swatting the top of my head. And then a steady beat of rhythmic whipping begins as her eyes flit from robin to chipmunk to a hummingbird working the honeysuckle. It feels like a fight scene from the old Batman TV show complete with kitschy Smack! Bang! Pow! thought bubbles.

      And I tolerate it. I’d never tolerate it from another cat. But I tolerate it from this one. This cat has worked her way into my routine. Strange days indeed.

    • Choosing the Great Over the New

      New is overvalued relative to great.  … for example, when choosing which movie to watch or what book to read, are you drawn to proven classics or the newest big thing?  In my opinion, it is smarter to choose the great over the new.” – Ray Dalio

      I’m reading a Henry David Thoreau book called Walking.  It’s a quick read – not very long at all – but full of wisdom nuggets as I posted yesterday.  I’ve recently re-read Walden, and read some Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises last fall.  It’s no secret that I’ve been reading a lot of stoicism over the last couple of years, and re-read Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations again last year.  And I have a pile of classics teed up for future reading.  So this Tweet I read from Ray Dalio today was especially meaningful for me as I try to mix in classics and opt out of things just because they’re popular at the moment.  They’re classics for a reason, and you can glean a lot of out of them if you dive in.

      Choosing the great over the new goes for things beyond books and movies of course.  You get what you pay for in life, and that applies to time as much as it does money.  I dropped a Derek Sivers quote a couple of blogs ago; “Hell Yes or No” that concisely articulates great over new in career opportunities, relationships, what you spend your weekend doing and which food, books and media you consume.  So it was with great interest that I read another Twitter thread from George Mack early this morning:

      The most VALUABLE piece of investing advice I ever received came from Warren Buffett.  

      Buffett gave a talk at University of Georgia.

       He told the students to look around at their friends and answer the following question:

      “If you could get 10% of their earnings for the rest of their lives, what friends would you INVEST in?”

      Once you have the 2-3 friends that you’d invest in, explore the WHY you’d invest in them.

      What values do these individuals hold?

      What habits do they engage in?

      Here’s teh values of friends that made me want to invest:

      1. High Agency/Resourcefulness
      2. Consistency
      3. Give more than they take
      4. Learning machines
      5. Live on the edge of their comfort zones of creating a new project
      6. Pay attention to small details

      After doing this, Buffett sugggest you look around at your friends again.

      “If you could SHORT 10% of their earnings for the rest of their lives, what friends would you choose?”

      Again, once you have these friends in mind – ask the WHY you’d short them.

      What values do they have that you’ll think will harm them?

      What negative habits do they engage in?

      Here [are the] the values of friends that I’d SHORT:

      1. Narcismism
      2. Inconsistency
      3. Arrogance
      4. Dishonesty
      5. External locus of control
      6. Map knowledge/know it alls

      Once you [have] these lists, you have finally answered one of life’s wooliest questions:

      “What are my values?”

      You have the guiding principles you can look to embody.

      You can extrapolate this further than just financial ROI.

      You can look at your friends balance sheets for happiness, relationships, fitness, etc.

      Who would you invest 10% in?  Why?

      Who would you short 10%?  Why?

      You can download the values you need for these areas too.

      This exercise is so powerful because our identity isn’t involved.

      “It’s easier to recognize other people’s mistakes than our own.” – Daniel Kahneman

      Emotion & Ego distort our reality.

      It’s so easy to see when a friend should break up with their partner, quit their job or shut down their company.

      Yes despite having more information on the subject than you, they still can’t see it.

      Why?

      Emotion & Ego (Identity)

      The Buffett exercise is so powerful because it gives you the ability to view your human operating system in the same way everyone else will:

      1. Objectivity
      2. Don’t care about you
      3. Want to know what value you can provide

      Self aware ness has the Dunning-Kluger effect built into its software.

      The most self aware people I know are convinced they lack self awareness.

      The least self aware people I know are convinced they are self aware.

      Buffett’s investment advice passes Peter Thiel’s test.

      You know your friends better than ANYONE.

      This means that you have a SECRET that the rest of the world doesn’t have about their values and habits,

      This information gained is truly unique to everyone who applies it.

      SUMMARY:

      1. Treat your objective analysis of other people as the best form of self knowledge
      2. Understand what values you’d invest in and what you would short in every area of life.
      3. The tactile knowledge of your friends is a secret as unique as your finger print.

      I copied this down here as much to retain it for myself as to blog about it.  Coming back around to the Dalio quote, choosing the great over the new, I’m applying this in my work as well as my reading and other pursuits.  I’ve weaned myself off of low value business relationships, and avoid toxic business relationships whenever possible.  I’ve fired customers who are such A-holes that they aren’t worth the commission check that comes with dealing with them.  And I’ve developed other business relationships that are absolutely worth the long term investment even though the return isn’t there quite yet.

      So the quoted material is longer than the original content from me this time around, but I thought I’d stick with the great instead of adding the new.  Hopefully some of my new will prove great in the long run.

    • Fences and Forests

      “At present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is not private property; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative freedom. But possibly the day will come when it will be partitioned off into so-called pleasure-grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and exclusive pleasure only – when fences shall be multiplied, and man-traps and other engines invented to confine men to the PUBLIC road, and walking over the surface of God’s earth shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman’s grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities, then, before the evil days come.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walking

      When I moved into the house I’m living in twenty years ago, when this cul de sac was just being built, I watched a dozen deer run through the woods and diagonally through the backyard out to the front where the driveway is and then off to wherever they roamed from there.  A few years after that I became annoyed with one of my neighbors central vacuum system which didn’t (and still doesn’t) have any form of muffler on it.  I put up a six foot privacy fence on that side of the house to block out the noise a bit.  Fences make good neighbors, they say.

      A few years after that we got a very energetic one year old black lab and put him on a run, which was a cable strung tightly between two trees in the backyard with his chain hanging down, giving him some freedom of movement but not enough.  Eventually we fenced in the backyard entirely, and he had room to roam without running away.  Well, we thought so at the time.  Snow pack and exceptional climbing skills proved the fence wasn’t always as high as it needed to be.

      Then came the pool, and it justified the investment in the fence.  And that fence continues to serve us well, in theory keeping the young neighborhood kids out of the pool while being compliant with the town’s codes which require a fenced-in pool.  With a pool you have liability.  Lawyers love pools. Insurance companies love fences.

      The forest remains timeless.  It’s just on the other side of that fence, and it’s largely as it was twenty years ago, and twenty years before that.  It continues to invite itself back into the yard.  After all the backyard was once part of the forest and perhaps one day it will be again.  I see the deer sometimes just on the other side of the fence.  But they don’t run through the yard anymore.

      Thoreau would find his walking to be very different than it was when he wrote those words.  Aside from conservation land and State Parks like Walden the landscape is completely different than it was for him.  Roads are paved, land is subdivided, fences are put up to screen annoying neighbors or to protect pool owners from wandering toddlers.  Thoreau might say that the evil days have indeed come.  And looking at the building boom going on seemingly everywhere I can’t help but think that myself.  Houses and residential communities popping up everywhere.  Roads getting more and more congested.  Mixed-use development projects all the rage.

      I read a book recently that described the frustration that a family had at the development of Bedford, New Hampshire back in the 1960’s.  I know the stretch of road they described as it is today, but never knew it as the quiet country road portrayed in the book.  They ended up moving further north into Maine.  And maybe moving further away is the answer.  Or maybe it starts with taking care of your own backyard before it’s too late.  Conservation and preservation, zoning restrictions, political will and public demand are the formula for open space.  Developers rule most town halls nowadays.  When people are indifferent to the land around them the void gets filled by people who build 55 plus housing developments.  This isn’t developer bashing – developers do a lot of great things and I’ve directly benefited from development.  It’s more a call to all of us to demand more for the environment we’re creating for ourselves and future generations.  A little preservation goes a long way.