A Short Letter Home: Is nothing sacred?

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Is nothing sacred?

I forget if I've mentioned the ongoing construction effort here. Basically, when we arrived here, our windows overlooked rice paddies and other plots of farming heading up to Qi Shan. (Or "Flag Mountain", if you prefer English.) For most of those fields, however, this harvest was to be their last. A few months ago the construction started, and now we're looking out over bulldozers, dump trucks and a rapidly rising building across the river. (I should see if I can do a before and after shot.) And yesterday came the final insult--they started dismantling the outhouse on the edge of the field! Is nothing sacred?

Anyway, I can't say that we've really welcomed the change. (Overall, not just the outhouse.) For me it brings back memories of my own lost childhood. I grew up in a suburb that was in the process of urbanization--an old depot town that was becoming a bedroom community. There were still plenty of empty fields to play in and you didn't have to travel too far to see a field of corn growing. It was even nicer at my grandparents' place. They had an acre of two or land, as did their next door neighbor. There was a small housing development and an industrial park in sight, but for the most part it was nice, wide open space. Well, that changed over the years, the end coming in the mid-eighties when my grandparents and neighbor sold their properties and the two homes gave way to dozens of townhouses. Today I suppose most folks would consider it a pleasant looking neighborhood. For me, however, it will always be ugly as I can see what used to be through the eyes of memory. Anyway, now it's deja vu all over again. I look out at the barren ground and miss the fields or the grazing livestock.

Of course, it really is none of my business, nor would I necessarily want to stop the process. Some of the new construction will be housing for the college and many people will be getting a nicer place in which to live. Still, I have to wonder if anyone here will be looking out at the new campus twenty years from now and lamenting the loss of the landscape of their childhood.