vision2020
Re: Paved Paradise
David--Please do not apologize if you think you're style of writing is
inadequate--that's far from the truth. What you wrote is beautiful
and needs to be said again, and again, and again!
Date sent: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 18:18:27 GMT
From: "david sarff" <davesway@hotmail.com>
To: vision2020@moscow.com
Subject: Paved Paradise
Friends
My name is Dave Sarff.
Those who know me know I,m better with a wrench then a pen so please bear
with me a little bit.
I am a fifth Generation North Idaho resident......Fourth in the Moscow area.
The amount of change in the region that this person has been witness to in
the last 35 years have been heart wrenchingly difficult.
I think that probably most of the good people who live here are so busy
working just to keep comfortable or just plain caught up in a game of
conspicuous consumption that they don't have time to really see where they
live or even give a care.
I can see that many of you do and from the bottom of my heart I thank you
all for this.
Presently my family and I live in a seemingly isolated pocket two miles
south of Moscow.
Of all the changes in North Idaho I am grieving is the loss of solitude.
In the mornings the air starts to fill with the roar of the town waking
up.....every year a little louder.
Day and night jets fly over head .....ever year their numbers building.
In the night the lights of the stars grow dimmer.....drowning in the light
from over the hills.
Yesterday a fellow was riding around in back of my home on a four wheeler
with a GPS unit ......He stopped and we talked a bit. He was gathering
information for the Transportation Department for the new highway.
You see this isn't just a little widening that these folks have in mind
For good old 95.. but potentially from my perspective an extreme move that
could put it right up against the western face of Paradise ridge.
.. or down lower through a particular hill ..a picture of which can be
found in National Geographic representing the Palouse...A old farm wife
holding out a pie as if to share with the world.
At any rate it'll likely go in front or in back of this old run down farm
yard I call home and divide some poor farmers land in two.
And now I can imagine two Native Americans looking out over the land
Seeing a big black snake billowing smoke and roaring along.
They look at each other commenting that this can't be a good thing.
The people[perhaps some of my ancestors] in the train look out and
see....Paradise.
I find myself looking for those people looking out over the land.
Because in my heart I want to stand with them.
Dave
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Joan Klingler
Moscow Idaho 83843
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