Lifeline
He listened intently for as long as he could bear. But enough was enough, he finally let the inner torment loose. He wanted to listen, truly understand the other’s position, but the sheer audacity and arrogance he witnessed was far too much. His anger was already built to a level he only recalled possessing in his younger years, but he fought to control it. Rarely one to interrupt, he finally cut off the newcomer’s rant.
“Just stop.”
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a second and began.
“Why do you feel the need to change this?” he said sweeping his arm across the golden, sunbaked horizon. He hoped it drove home the point by illustrating the natural beauty of the land that surrounded the two men as they stood in the middle of the empty gravel road. He now pressed the unanswered question with his own rant. Making a simple point was no longer warranted because that would not illustrate the bigger issue. Now, it was personal.
“What makes you believe that needs to happen? Do you think we need to be saved? You came here to escape your own prison for freedom and liberties guaranteed here through culture, politics, living comforts, and physical space. Yet now you complain that it’s not like ‘back home’? There’s no sense to it. No logical reasoning!
“You said this place, my home, and the home of generations of my ancestors, held peace for you—an escape. But now you want to return to where you came from without actually leaving. I don’t understand, and it breaks my heart. Your choices are slowly dissolving the lives of people who happily resided here long before you even considered this as a possibility. In fact, those who came only a few years before you, changed and adjusted themselves, to better fit in to this place when they first arrived. And now you come here expecting all of us to cater to your expectations! Your selfish thoughts and notions are destroying the very thing you came to enjoy, and you clearly don’t even recognize that inconvenient truth. The fist of cash you threw on the table to overpay for this low-quality ground now impacts me, my children, and my grandchildren and I’m not alone. My neighbors, who have resided in that house a mile down the road throughout my lifetime,” he pointed without looking using his weathered hands, “have the same issue, but you can’t comprehend that with your out-of-state cash…
“If you continue down this path then this ‘exotic’ destination will be forever lost. There will be no way to recover what you helped extinguish. The land, the culture, and the lifestyle will all be extinct. All due to buying overpriced and sight-unseen, because of development, and the continued ineptitude. I wish I could do more to help you understand, but everything I have done to this point you have spit back into my face. And it ultimately all comes down to your attitude and that of others like you. I approached you with open arms and warm intentions when you first arrived, and you have since poisoned my vision, my expectations, of newcomers with your lack of basic decency and neighborliness.
“Suddenly, my people are no longer welcoming…and you wonder why. You are the cause. Until you open your eyes and listen with your ears, I fear we will never have a healthy solution. My neighbors and I have bent for you, and you have done nothing but exploit our goodwill. Our naiveté has made us all pay the price while you have only gained. You had an opportunity to bring us more culture, new experiences, outside insight. You had the chance to personally experience new things for yourself, but then decided it wasn’t ‘like home’ so it needed to be changed. What we see as a norm, and a good one at that, you saw as a barrier. Be careful to erase things you simply choose not to like because this will all be gone faster than you realize. You think in terms of years, we think in terms of generations…
“This concept that this land needs to be developed will be not only our undoing, but also that of generations to follow. We lose this land? We lose our lifeline. We lose food. We lose escape. We lose a non-renewable resource. You claim to be environmentally friendly, but then want to put everything under asphalt. Do you not see the contradiction? If you really want to support the environment and look out for the betterment of the world, leave the land as it is. Start growing cities up or down and stop making them go out like you are trying to do now.
“I’m done with today’s discussion so I’ll leave you with this one question before I go feed my cows: What will happen when the shoe is on the other foot? Consider that before you take your vacation destination or escape plan that has been our lifeline and destroy it. You will find those sharing legitimate fears with you now and providing well-thought solutions will no longer be around. Then, you will be too late and searching for yet another refuge.”
With that he took a few short, determined strides to his pickup and stepped into the driver’s seat with his newest neighbor standing baffled within the county road. Always the neighborly type, he threw a quick salute from the brim of his cowboy hat. He left and drove toward the furthest summer pasture to check on the herd and give the cattle mineral as they grazed away the opening days of fall before the snows arrived.
