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Community Corner

Something's Missing Here

Last year, I wrote this article for my school’s newspaper, with the intention of educating the college's population about Newtown:

Newtown, Connecticut yields Sandy Hook massacre yields the deaths of 20 children yields push for stricter gun-control legislation yields fights between members of Congress and the NRA yields teary appeals by Sandy Hook parents on the president’s weekly webcast…

            Stop.

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            Something’s missing here.

            Is Manhattan just Ground Zero? Is Aurora/Virginia Tech/Columbine (take your pick) only the site of a horrible mass killing? Is there more to Boston than two historical massacres?

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            In the months since Sandy Hook, there has been an over-emphasis on the tragedy and on its impact on the legal world, and a lack of coverage about the community it affected. This imbalance hurts Newtown by placing a permanent and massive asterisk next to its name in the annals of history, which in turn makes it difficult for those of you who have never ventured into Fairfield County to appreciate the town for everything that it was, is, and shall be. Like anything, like anyone, Newtown is many-sided, three-dimensional, deep, engaging, etc. To reduce it something so small, so tragic, is to deplete it of the complexity that has sustained it through weeks of grieving and lobbying.

            I’m not going to list population numbers or statistics. I’m not, in any way, attempting to diminish the atrocity committed by Adam Lanza. I’m simply aiming to do what the media has not done, and that is to show grief-stricken Newtown from a much more appealing angle and a much more tolerable angle than what has traditionally been shown, by virtue of its emphasis on the strengths of the community and not its struggles.

            A curious road, originating in the quietude of its southerly neighbor, Redding, winds its way into Newtown, a curious road by the name of Sugar Street.

            Sugar Street…how appropriate, for off its paved banks lays the Newtown Creamery, sometimes in repose, sometimes in wild intoxication, the latter especially on mid-July, early-August evenings. I’ve not had the pleasure of traveling down Sugar Street in Autumn, but I can imagine, and marvel at, the spectacle. The New England forest swallows up your car and steals your mind as you pass beneath the saffron leaves of ancient boughs, and you drive along in a half-trance, for the scene is as speckled, as detailed, as sensuous as a landscape by Monet, as vivid as one by Thomas Cole. The trees vanish, and suddenly- the Creamery! Silent, empty, a monument to warm April nights and melting ice cream and the frustrations that inevitably arise from having too many cars in a too-small parking lot, waiting, waiting for the flowers to bloom and the robins’ eggs to hatch.

            Though the Creamery is fairly removed from the rest of the town (okay, really removed), it is, by no stretch of the imagination, inferior or superior to any of the downtown sites. The Edmond Town Hall has the distinct honor of recognition by the National Park Service as a national historical landmark. A gold dome, scintillating in the sunlight, greets people before they enter the Hall’s lavish foyer, where they purchase reduced-price tickets for movies caught in the phase between big-screen and hit and DVD box has-been. Granite benches, inscribed with lines of poetry, urge the weary passerby not to sit, but to walk around and among them, and, in doing so, to read, and in doing so, to live.

            The Cyrenius H. Booth Library-- I’m fairly certain that it’s in no way affiliated with that Booth. Check me on that-- is a brick, three-story safe-house for rows of books, and is the progenitor of a few stimulating discussions between my grandfather and myself…is one of the few places where Old and Young can mingle comfortably. Neatly-trimmed hedges line the brick walkway that curves from the rear parking lot to the entrance door, tucked into what could be described as a ‘cute’ corner.

            Swanky Frank’s meaty aromas and promise of horribly unhealthy food at a horribly good price urge hungry Main Street drivers to pull over and spend a few bucks; the red general store is the de facto water-cooler of the town; St. Rose of Lima Church peacefully, graciously, welcomes the Catholic community into its ornate interior; Trinity Episcopal Church keeps a watchful eye on the town from its hidden spot atop a heavily wooded hill. The Boulevard is a street known for having some of the oldest houses and some of the finest examples of ingeniously simple architecture in the town; a well-kept trailer park provides homes for dozens of lower-income families and individuals; and then there’s Newtown Heights.

            Here, on a small, gradually rising mountain, are the testaments to Fairfield County’s wealth. Houses with two three-car garages; five bedrooms; three floors; at least six bathrooms; one, maybe two, hot tubs; giant chandeliers; model yachts; private gazebos; electronic fireplaces; sweeping staircases; mahogany furniture; dazzling Christmas displays; and friendly, content people.

            Newtown. Romantic, full of culture and history and religion and small-town camaraderie and poverty and excessive wealth.

            Newtown. Where Old and Young can mingle in a Zen-like temple to human intellectual achievements.

            Newtown. The town that is still vibrant, still thriving, still complex and still fascinating.

            When you think of Newtown, I implore you not to think of the town that suffered, is suffering, and will always suffer, but of the town that knew Peace and collided head-on with Chaos and managed to survive with its unique flair intact.

            When you have the time, visit this small New England community, and witness for yourself what it means to endure and to overcome a crisis. Hopefully, you, too, will be inspired to love a little more, to give a little more, to reach higher, to work harder…

            And maybe, just maybe, the world will be a little friendlier, and its children a little safer, thanks to our efforts.

 





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