This summer I took a road trip. First I went to Tennessee, where I grew up. The little old farm house we lived in, out in the middle of the cow pastures, is gone. So are the cow pastures. My buddy Larry was with me. He talked about how he used to walk across the cow pasture to get from his house to mine. Now its all million dollar houses and streets. The house my folks now live in sits where I used to hunt Pheasant, and rabbit. When my Grandma died I wanted to buy her farm, I asked mom to wait till I could get the money together, but no she wanted the money RIGHT NOW, least that's how dad explains it. She sold it to a developer, and got screwed on the deal. Now there is subdivisions on all the old tobacco fields. The wooded hilly half was divided into one and two acre lots, with bigger homes put up there amongst the Oaks, Hickory, Walnut, and Poplar trees. My one brother that does hunt, drives to wildlife refuges to hunt. Or hunts in the wooded area of the Interstate Cloverleafs, with a bow. He usually gets one or two bucks out of there a year.
Then I went to Alamogordo, New Mexico. Where my wife had grown up, and where we lived in her Dad's house ( the house she grew up in) shortly after we got married. The house had been on the edge of town then. We could get on our horses and ride right out into the Sacramento mountains. Nothing but dessert between the house and the trails. Today there is solid houses, with little space between them, all the way up into the foot hills. The little house we lived in is now considered the old part of town, and is being torn down to go commercial. No one wants a little three bedroom one bath house anymore, made of CBS construction. The new houses are all brick.
Now for where I live. When we bought 20 years ago, we were on the edge of wilderness. The Alaska Oil Pipeline runs right at the edge of my property. I could get on a 4-wheeler or snow machine and got for miles. Now within the last two years, there are subdivisions all behind us. I have five acres here and am totally surrounded by small lots with a big house on each one. A developer bought the homestead land directly behind my place and built houses right next to the pipeline easement. Now those folks are fencing off their property, including the pipeline easement, and restricting access. So I now have to ride down streets to get out of the residential area and to the trails, or trailer out. Beginning to have trouble with little dogs running loose. Coming over and chasing the ducks and chickens I raise every year. And house cats hunting the birds as well. I just quietly follow the three Ss and let it go.
