By Bob Deakin
Nice up here in Connecticut in June. As a Florida resident, I’m used to it already having been in the 90s since April, but I can handle this.
I’m here visiting family and friends and stayed a bit longer than I thought. The run on gas stations in the south a couple weeks ago put my plans to drive back south on hold. At least it’s nice to know the general public is always ready to hoard supplies of products they won’t use for months and transport them in glaringly unsafe containers.
Much of my time here has been spent doing research in certain small towns on their local history. Libraries, such as the Norfolk Library pictured above, are a great help and I’m always amazed at how helpful the staff is. I can get lost in research, out of sheer curiosity, even if not pertinent to my project. I’m also usually in the middle of the towns I’m studying, which makes it easy to walk out the door and down the road to most of the historical landmarks I want to see.
Most of the towns in central to northwestern Connecticut are small, and many of the residents have been in the area their entire lives. Spend a little time and get to know a few people and you’ll realize how small the towns actually are and how many people know each other’s business. It’s not outwardly social, in that people are inviting each other to their homes or hanging around with their neighbors as in generations past, but they will on occasion, particularly around the Holidays.
It’s been a good opportunity to sequester myself in corners of little libraries in little towns and work on my next book. The unfamiliarity keeps it fresh and I happen to have friends in many of these little towns from the days when I was a Connecticut resident. A day of writing and research is frequently followed by a late afternoon get together with someone, somewhere, and it’s been a nice stay up north.
Once I get back south it’s back to the old routine, which isn’t all that different from what I’m doing here, only a lot hotter with a lot less traveling. My laptop’s about shot, and I’m tired of watching a little circle spin on the monitor while I roll the dice hoping it’s going to go to the file or browser that I want. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.
Time to take a long walk while I wait for this thing to go back to my Word file. Pretty soon it’ll be time for a long drive, but it’s been a good trip.