In 1925 the electric company built a dam. The lake behind the dam soon became a place where rich city people travelled by train to stay at their summer “cottages”. That was when we became the state’s vacation land.

Now…now I am 51 years old. The family farm is split between the three children (there was no will), the lake with its quaint summer cottages has become a thriving commercial success. Houses stand eave to eave and are more akin to mini-hotels than cottages. The mountains that were once glorious riots of color in the fall are now bare of trees and covered with “hi-line houses” for people that could not afford lakefront. (Not that there’s much left). We have at least one sewage spill a summer polluting the lake from the system not large enough to handle high volumes of sewage. We have a Wal-Mart Supercenter, 2 Burger Kings, 3, or is it 4 Subways, 2 McDonalds, an internet cafe, and more antique stores than you can shake a stick at.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my modern conveniences, though there are days when I would just as soon throw my cell phone and laptop out the door and let the next log truck flatten both…but when the electric goes off due to accident or storm, it forces me to slow down…read a book that I hold in my hands using a oil lamp for light, play cards, or a board game, or actually holding a conversation with another person.

Without electricity today’s world stops. I sit in my overstuffed chair and transport my mind back to my grandmother’s farm. It’s 4:30am and we have just finished milking. I’m eight years old and my roots sink a little deeper into the loamy soil.