Velociworld

I THINK I'M A LUDDITE

Acidman has a good post about how children can still go door to door in his neighborhood, hawking their gimcracks and gewgaws. I can relate to that. It's a quality of life issue. And I agree. Of course, when I moved to Effingham County in the mid-sixties the city was safe; Effingham was a nice bucolic region that turned into James Dickey's worst nightmare if you turned down the wrong tobacco road. But that's all changed now. Those cretins died off or were imprisoned or moved away, and Effingham is truly a nice bucolic place now, and a great place to raise your kids. Hell, Acidman almost lives in a bedroom community!

That's what's happening to me. I moved to Jacksonville six years ago and immediately selected St. Johns County, because it's one of the top 3 school districts in the state, thanks to the property tax base of Ponte Vedra Beach and St. Augustine, combined with a tiny populace. The teachers make the kids read Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman. They study supply-side economics. I don't live in Ponte Vedra, though. Lived there for six months while my house was being built, and it was great, but too crowded. I live in the Northwest area of the county, hard by the St. Johns River. It was rustic and feral when I moved in. I was the 5th house in my neighborhood. Surrounded by woods. Had a gray fox hanging out in my driveway every night. When we sat on the lanai in the evening the only sounds were owls and whippoorwills. You could hear a pin drop. The field mice would eat out of your hand (so would the moccasins, given the choice).

Now it's growing fast. The new high school my older daughter attends was built for 1500 and now has 2500 students 3 years after opening. They're throwing up neighborhoods faster than my brother-in-law gets Grateful Dead tattoos. The field mice are gone (my bad: what mice didn't drown in my pool were lunch for my cat. That's why I got him. Mice carry vermin, and plague. You can't be too careful).

Do I stay? Probably. I can make a handsome profit selling, but what the hell will I be able to afford then? I'm thinking of moving to the tater country south of here, near Hastings. Tater country? You bet. The next hamlet over from Hastings is called Spuds. That's its fucking name. So I might get about 15 acres in Spuds, put in a cement pond, and grin like my daddy when my girls tell me I've ruined their lives by moving them to Hooterville.

Maybe I'll just stay here.