I hadn’t noticed the downed trees.  Driving home tonight I passed through a stretch of road historically so thick with trees you would think it’s twilight at noon.  A couple of acres have been cleared.  This county is roughly 85 percent fields and forest and I’m not opposed to the latest development but the change was nonetheless jarring.  A fellow comes to the radio station every Wednesday and does a segment with me about finance, economy and investment.  We’ve become friends and I like a phrase he often uses.  “The only constant in our lives is change”, he tells me.  September the 5th I mark two years on the job here at the Lower Shore.  Two years ago tonight a short Asian man was barking orders at me, instructing me to hand sort third and second class mail before loading an automated machine.  When he wanted to speak with me he would walk up and take my identity badge in his right hand and look at my name and then babble at me in some failed effort to communicate in English.  “Beeeeelllll”, is all I understood. 

While life here is quite different and a boon for my self esteem, not much about day-to-day life has changed around the house or at the grocery store.  I met my buddy Phil Plack at the diner the other morning and we had breakfast in anonymity.  I still cherish being unnoticed in public.  The redhead dropped by on her way to a doctor’s visit and we talked about our hopes for the future.  Too many to mention in my letter and perhaps we didn’t share nearly enough of our fears.  Phil and the woman with the long red hair suggest I start making some demands at work.  Hey, I’m just happy so many people are listening.  Saturday I get to meet many, many of them. 

A few weeks ago some folks affiliated with Delaware Tea Party asked if I could be the master of ceremonies at the first centrally located statewide tea party.  Of course I accepted.  I’m getting four hours in the sun on the Legislative Mall in Dover.  We’ll see some of the national folks from across the big bay joining us and there was a rumor Glenn Beck would drop by, or some fellow on Facebook identifying himself as Glenn Beck.  Tomorrow’s program is a warm-up for September the 12th in Washington.  In between I’m squeezing in a vacation for my daughter.  Last summer I postponed the time with my teenager because I was on a mission to Washington.  One hundred twenty one miles by bicycle to deliver petitions to our elected officials and our state’s member of the House of Representatives brushed it aside.  And he now wonders why he faced an angry “mob” on June Thirtieth.  It was the spark igniting the powder keg.  Georgetown, Delaware may well become the historical “Ground Zero” of a populace taking its government back from an insensitive House of Lords.

Not long ago I didn’t see much hope for my country’s future and it mirrored my time in the wilderness in late 2006 and 2007.  The forest around me appeared an immovable object.  Today I’ve been experiencing inner stirrings I haven’t felt in years.  The feeling you had throughout the 24^th of December, as a kid, as you watched the ticking clock and the anxiety multiplied exponentially.  I see light.

Yesterday an old coworker sent me a note and said there was a time 4 years ago when I warned the country was heading for a crack-up that she thought I was cracking up.  So did my employer, a company now heading for the fire sale.  About the same time I made the on-air prediction I had a lunch meeting with an old friend, Father Chuck Vavonese.  He’s the actual administrator of schools for the Syracuse Roman Catholic Diocese, even if the title belongs to someone else.  We talked about our nation’s cultural and economic rot and he suggested a second civil war was approaching.  It wouldn’t be regional, he explained, instead it would pit neighbor-against-neighbor.  For Father Chuck it was 1850 all over again.  Last week I thought the experience was 1859 and from what I’m observing today we could be at 1861 by summer’s end.  Like the land down the road stripped bare of trees there won’t be any cover for which to hide.  Now we’re riding history’s tide and it promises to sweep away so much and leave us a clean slate. 

Joni Mitchell sang, “They paved paradise & put up a parking lot”… condo, town house, mini-mall…..    

Yeah – I can play the “I remember when” game when it comes to Delmarva.  I remember when I was a kid when there really wasn’t anything much north of 33 Street except the Carousel Hotel.  I remember when Route 1 in Delaware was pretty much two lanes and bumper to bumper traffic – well some things never change.  But tell me – when did Ocean City turn from a place I used to love to go to as a kid and a teenager – to one pretty ugly town?   There’s development and then there’s development gone wild.  I know folks in Sussex County say development is out of control, but there are development districts in the county – where development is allowed (like it or not) and other places where there’s no infrastructure to support development – and you can’t develop those areas.  In Ocean City – it seems the entire town is one ginormous development district – and if there’s not the space to build – they’re filling in the bayside wetlands to create more space to pave over!   There’s so little green in Ocean City today – about all that’s left are the ball parks at 3 Street and Northside Park.  Much of the rest of Ocean City today is tar and concrete.                                     I was watching a DVD recently by an aerial photographer, Jim Whaley.  While his “A Bird’s Eye View” DVD has some spectacular shots of the resort I spent at least part of every summer in since I was a kid – it also made me realize just how “developed” Ocean City has become since I first saw it as a child – and ugly.  When the condo my parents live in was built in 1975, it was one of the tallest buildings in the lower part of town (basically south of 33 Street).  Height variances had to be obtained to build as high as they did – 11 stories – with a parking garage at the ground level (so 12 stories actually).  There was nothing taller to the south.  Not any more.  While Mayor Cropper dreamed in the 1960s of developing Ocean City to the state line, I don’t know if that dream included what has come to be.  Some of the ugliness can be attributed to a handful of people – like Buddy Jenkins who started filling in the bayside wetlands to develop 28 Street bayside and gave others the idea to fill in the other bayside wetlands – like Charles Holland – who’s new Sunset Island at 66 Street is one of the ugliest creations I’ve seen.  Those are only 2 examples – there are many.  Of course all that wouldn’t have been possible without the approval being granted for all these projects by the Ocean City planning & zoning commissions and the town councils through the years. Condo Row in North Ocean City was inevitable, but the bayside was supposed to stay less developed with smaller buildings – like single family homes or town homes.  Even the high density mobile and manufactured home developments like what’s mostly at 94 Street and Montego Bay, while pretty ugly – at least allow for something green – like a lawn.  Not multi-level monstrosities like Rivendell at 81 Street.  A high rise condo on the bayside that was, oops, built taller than what was approved, but the town council has not said – “oh well – it’s already there, so it can stay.  Besides they’re going to pave the sidewalks and powerwash the neighboring buildings as a consequence for being too tall.”  Right now the centerpiece in the current crop of OC ugly is the monstrosity that’s being erected at 48 Street and the ocean.  The Gateway Grand - a 16-story, 196-unit, oceanfront luxury condominium.  What was wrong with the old Gateway?   Oh – I get it – a motel just doesn’t generate the revenue that these condos will bring in - prices range from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000+.  Just how many Bill Gates and Warren Buffetts do they expect to be moving to town?  The Gateway Grand is just too – everything.  Too big, too tall, too out of scale to the rest of the area and too UGLY (of course that’s totally my opinion).  Of course it also brings up the questions everyone asks – there’s someplace to house all these folks – but there’s no place for them to go.  Coastal Highway can’t handle the traffic, there’s no where to shop because they’re closing many of the stores to build more housing (45 Street Village), grocery stores are far and few between.   And you just can’t have EVERYONE in town head to the second main attraction in town – the Boardwalk – all those people & their cars just won’t fit.  You just can’t pour a gallon of water into a pint bottle. At the rate that Ocean City is being developed – both up and out, it’s a wonder they haven’t decided to just fill in the bay and become one with Bishopville, Ocean Pines and Berlin. I think I’ll stay in Delaware – compared to Ocean City – even eastern Sussex County is the wilderness! Photo credits - Jim Whaley’s “A Bird’s Eye View” DVD and the GatewayGrand.com