When I tell people in town where I live, I generally get one response in a variety of combinations.  Something like:

“YOU LIVE NEAR THE WALKING PATH!”

Yes, it’s true.  I do live near the walking path.  And as daylight brightens my kitchen, men arrive in trucks and start making noise and shaking the earth to finish paving the path.  From my home office perch, I see the dump trucks going back and forth, hauling dirt this way and that.  Sometimes, foul language drifts up the hill, over my potato plants, and into my mud room.

When I first bought my house in May and started mowing the lawn, I knew I would have no need of the walking path.  As my possessed self-propelled lawn mower dragged me up and around my little acre like a flimsy kite, I knew I wouldn’t need a one million dollar trail to improve my life and health.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not opposed to public spaces and nature. But I don’t believe the only way to get big things done is by the coercive taxing hand of Gooberment.  The only certain observation I can make about public works projects, aka pyramid building, is that they are costly.  It’s not difficult to spend money when it’s not yours.  Even if the majority of the funding came from a “grant” from the Schtate, ultimately all tax-payers are responsible.

Alas, I was not living here at the time decisions were made about the walking path.  There’s no stopping it now; I’d better like it or lump it, right?

I don’t like lumping things, so I’ve decided to embrace the walking path in my own special way. The first thing I’m going to do, once it’s finished, is take a walk on it.  Naturally, I’ll write about it here on the blog, maybe make it into a “Lady Alone Traveler” bit complete with birds swooping down at me and deer charging out of the woods along the Androscoggin River.  Stay tuned.

If the path passes muster, I’m going to invite others over to walk it with me.  Friends, relatives, and angels.  Angel investors, that is.  The path will be part of my pitch to the “angels” I’m asking to fund some of the excellent unfunded projects I’ve got up my sleeve.  After we walk the path and we’ve taken in the great natural beauty along the river, I’ll offer them some coffee or tea at my big old house on the hill and we’ll seal the deal.

Yep, more moving people.  That’s how I’m embracing the walking path today.

There goes the house shaking earth movers.  I’d better get busy pounding my keyboard so I can pay my taxes.

I’ll see you on the walking path!