Dear Girls,
You'd better go quick. It isn't going to be there forever, I'm afraid.
It's a nice thought to think that the roads we travel and the countryside we bask in will be around for your daughters and their daughters, but it's not looking very likely.
We live in a rich and affluent country, but what does that mean? When you look in the eyes of a woman buying clothes for her kids at a small town Wal-Mart in east Tennessee, you wonder what other crap we're being fed. The only thing she can see (the only thing any of us can see, for that matter) are the choices that are put in front of her.
When the powers that be choose to promote the homogenization of our lifestyles and our lives, all people are left with are the choices that someone in some big office building far far away makes for them. Sure, we all have options, and everyone can shop and buy and do what they want, but when the big box comes to your town and six months later the corner store that's been there since your mom was a little girl has to close up, all the sudden your choices aren't what they used to be.
And the mega-stores are only one part of the problem. The hillside above Kate's house where we used to play when we were little is now blighted with fashionable new homes on 3 acre lots with a view. The vistas are gone, girls, and they won't be back.
So, sure, be happy for your good job. Be glad for that new sports utility thing in your driveway. Be tickled over those new curtains you just put up in the guestroom. But, please, don't let yourself get too damn comfy. Look around at what it is in your life that gives you meaning. And do something, anything, whatever you can possibly think of to support and protect the little things that everyone's been taking for granted...
-Alice, Athens, Tennessee