Being the last day of January, it is probably an appropriate time to quote Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Let’s face it. Newburyport is a pretty place, put on a pretty river, facing a pretty bay with a pretty string of seven islands from Deer to Plum. It’s rich with majestic history and surrounded by nature’s best. So many, who come to our fair city; not only fall in love with it – but often have an intense desire to live here.
So let’s say you make that momentous decision to live here. You pick out a house, and one of the first steps you do before purchasing it is have a house inspector check it out. And the house, which looks so fine and surrounded by a lovely yard comes up with a little problem:
TERMITES, CARPENTER ANTS AND POWDER-POST BEETLES!
You’d probably will walk away but if you had your heart really set on that house – you’d probably demand the owner to repair the damage before you put down a single dollar on the property!
Well, I’m afraid before you pick out a house, that you reconsider your location, too. Our city has become the home of TERMITES, CARPENTER ANTS AND FAR WORSE!
Now you’ve got to make a decision. Walk away from living here or demand the owner’s (that’s the citizens) repair the damage. Unfortunately, they’re just as clueless as anyone else. In fact, they’re as blissful as can be, content on thinking everything is just fine.
And that is where activists and bloggers (thankfully not just me) are spreading the alarm about the nasty creepy things that are being done behind the scenes that will, if not put a stop to, will crumble the House of Newburyport right down to the foundations.
It is far easier to shut up, go with the flow; and pretend that everything is just fine. And yes, if you are that demographic that when the show is over, gets up; dusts yourself off and just moves on – it will do. But what about the rest of us, who have fallen deeply in love with the whole Greater Newburyport Area? Our lives will end, forced to live in another place, and I assure you, the lifestyle will be but a shadow of its potential here.
We will be but refugees never having a permanent home again – our hearts stuck here.
But I’m not one of the doomsayers. If there is a problem with infestations that are threatening us, then we have an obligation to put a stop to them. The first step is to apply the light of knowledge; and just like cockroaches when the light switch is struck; these creepy things will scatter. That is just the first step, of course, then you’ve got to eradicate them before the damage gets so bad that a solution comes too late to do any good.
Next post has to do with first turning the light switch on!
-P. Preservationist
http://www.ppreservationist.com
Brick and Tree 