Ten Things I WILL Miss About Connecticut

Yesterday, I had to drive down to N.J. and back for a sales meeting (which is worthy of a post in and of itself, but I’m going to leave that up to your imaginations. Suffice it to say that driving while exhausted is not a good idea and can easily turn what should be a 2-hour drive into a 4-hour drive, even without the help of rush hour traffic, especially if you refuse to spend a fortune on a GPS and have maps in your glove compartment for every state except – you guessed it – New Jersey. I mean, when would you ever decide to go to New Jersey, except to just pass through it? And the maps for New York and Pennsylvania show enough of it to help you do so. I’m still wondering, though, why a car that lives in Connecticut and has never been west of the Mississippi, houses a map of California in its glove compartment). Because I ended up taking a rather circuitous route, I was hit over the head with how beautiful this part of the world is (not Jersey City and Newark, I promise you, but upstate New York and Connecticut). Thus, I was reminded that Charlotte had requested a post on things I will miss about CT. How can I deny Charlotte? Here are my ten things I will miss about this state:

1. The Long Island Sound
Before I’d ever been to Connecticut as an adult, my friend Kathy, who is basically the reason I ended up here, made me very jealous by telling me she could ride her bike to the beach. You have to understand that I grew up smack dab in the middle of North Carolina, a state in which you can drive from the beach to the mountains, in oh, about eight hours (yes, it’s one of those states where we always think in terms of hours, not miles). To get anywhere on the coast was at least a four-hour drive. If my father happened to be at the wheel, make that six. However, when you arrived at “the beach,” you were greeted with miles and miles of sandy shoreline and wondrous waves crashing in from the depths of the Atlantic. If you were lucky enough to be up at the Outer Banks, you were greeted with sand dunes so high people hang glide off them. When I came to visit Kathy for the first time, and she took me to “the beach,” my question was, “Are we there yet?” What I saw was a lake with a sand lot and lots of rocks. Twenty-two years later, I’ve come to love the placid Long Island Sound, having discovered what fun it is to explore the jagged coast line with its rocky sand bars and little islands.

2. Tree Tunnels
When we were kids traveling around England, Ian one day noted how he loved all the tree tunnels. The way the tops of the trees grew into each other above some of the roads, it really did seem as if the little roads had been carved through the trees, just as roads are carved through mountains to make tunnels. From that moment on, we kept a lookout for tree tunnels. We thought they were grand in England, because we hadn’t spent much time in Connecticut. One doesn’t keep an eye out for tree tunnels in this state. This time of year, on the “back roads” we all travel in order to avoid the traffic on the highways, one keeps an eye out for patches of sky through the leaves. It’s lovely, and it’s really not all that hard to believe that when the first settlers arrived in this area, it was nothing but trees. I’m moving to farm country. I’m sure I can find a tree somewhere in Lancaster County, but I’m going to have to drive quite a ways…

3. Unexpected Snow When the Leaves Are Still on the Trees
It doesn’t happen often, but every once in a while, we’ll get a snow storm in October. This is New England. One thing no one can deny is that fall is spectacular here. If you’re someone who happens to think snow is beautiful settled on the branches of evergreens, that bright white contrasted against the dark green, just imagine what it’s like in contrast to fiery orange, yellow, and red oaks and maples.

4. Stone Walls
Centuries-old stone walls are so much a part of the Connecticut landscape, they can’t be used as landmarks. You’d have one terribly confused driver if you said, “Turn right when you get to the stone wall.” Lots of people repair their stone walls, but I like them best when they’re crumbling. On the woodsy part of the walk I take every day, we've got some wonderful crumbling ones that just begin and end with no apparent rhyme or reason. It’s hard to believe they could possibly have once been markers for fields, but then again, see point number #2. I once heard on the radio that whole ecosystems in the state are completely reliant on these man-made treasures, a fact I find very cool, because it gives me a little hope. I suppose, sometimes, through dumb luck, our industry actually creates havens for those sharing this planet with us.

5. Pizza
Sorry, New York. All your best pizza-makers must have moved to Connecticut. The only places you can get a bad pizza in this state are chains like Dominoes and Pizza Hut. The fancier places are really good, but try some small, unimposing place (most likely called John’s Best Pizza or Pepinos or something) situated in the middle of some strip mall someplace, with just a few tables, and an Italian flag proudly on display. I promise you, you can’t go wrong.

6. “Olde” Taverns and Inns
If you want a really good New England clam chowder and a chicken pot pie you’ll dream about for weeks afterwards, stop in at anything that describes itself as a tavern or an inn. You’ll most likely get to eat them in a wonderfully warm and friendly setting (in some places, even surrounded by bookshelves. Just don’t look too closely at the “books,” which are probably fake), with wooden chairs and tables. Expect a roaring fire in a huge old fireplace in the winter (don't forget how long I told you that season is, so as long as you aren't here in July and August, you're likely to have one. I'm feeling as though I could use one right now as I type this).

7. The Long Wharf Theatre
Broadway, Schmoadway. If you want to see something really good, something you’ll be discussing for hours after you leave, and you’re stuck on 42nd Street, just walk on over to Grand Central Station and catch the Metro North line to New Haven.

8. Coyotes
There is nothing more eerily beautiful than to wake up and hear them howling somewhere “just out back.” Everytime it happens, I think of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

9. The Library System
Connecticut spends a lot of money on its libraries, and it shows. Most of the libraries in the state have reciprocity. This means if you live somewhere between two or three major cities, you can go to any one of those cities and check out books with your hometown card. And they attract great authors from all over to come and speak. My favorite was hearing Mark Mathabane years and years ago. I recently discovered I’d just missed seeing the other Emily Barton speak at one of the libraries I frequent. Too bad. I bet you all would have loved to have read a post on that.

10. My friends
This is self-explanatory, don’t you think?

The Gastronomical Me in a nutshell: Shhh. Please don't tell Rose Macaulay I have a new infatuation for whom she's going to have to make room on the shelves. Although M.F.K. Fisher has a way of leaving out personal details (what happened with that first marriage to Al? How, exactly, did she and Chexbres come about? Her brother died? When? How? In WWII?) that left me hungering for a big, juicy biography, her details about food leave me completely satiated. In fact, her details about food leave me thinking, "Man, I don't pay nearly enough attention to what I'm eating, where, and when." Combine the food and the many places in which it's eaten with a way of making the reader's emotions run cross-country and you know you've got me. Caution: don't read this book if you're hungry and have no means of getting any food for a while.