Local Environments

Most of the interstate highway corridor, but the specific one I'm now thinking of is Rte. 91, the north-south asphalt ribbon that bisects the Pioneer Valley in New England. Small farms diminished or ceased to exist as a result of this unnecessary engineering horror. Ponds, small lakes were filled in, neighborhoods demolished, and the local economies of some small towns were changed or ruined. In the never ending quest for instant everything, habitats disappeared at a rate proportional to a desire for the Holy Grail of convenience. I have early memories of regional dialects, the kinds of small town characters that inhabited the nooks & valleys & byways of New England that, for better or worse, now a rare phenomenon indeed.