I sat on the school bus, midway to the back on the right hand side, and stared at the 3 students who were running a little late .

Rowayton Connecticut

If you imagined this place, it would not be more precisely replicated than the town that already exists. Garish flowers bloom everywhere; phlox, lilies, in brilliant shades of fushia, purple, snow white…colors that I don’t remember existing in my mother’s dusty begonia beds or in town shopkeepers planters. At each stop sign, at every traffic median or triangle over-the-top, “I Know-They just went Wild this year!” the fruits of garden club labor appear.
The Rowayton Market has set out cute bistro tables with umbrellas and a folding chalkboard with the day’s coffee and latte suggestions for customers lazing away their Connecticut weekend. Esso Gas station? Newsstand?? Bottle shop?? Forget it! Now, if you need a real estate agent, or an investment advisor, or a wine merchant, ok.…..Dogs are strictly leashed and tethered to the flimsy little tables, as if it were not possible that they, as dogs, could upend everything—table, lattes, the whole get-up-- Only the post office remains untouched. Untouched but tinier. Everything was as perfect as Speilburg himself could fashion it to be. No roaming dogs. No kids on black “English” bikes. Plenty, however, of adults in spandex, wired up to their vital signs and grooving to J-zee.
No longer is there a danger of your little kiddy being trapped while hiding out in the deteriorating and crumbling rubble of a three-story Victorian mansion, last lived in by an emaciated silent screen actress wearing 1940’s era bedroom slippers and two brilliant gashes of Max Factor Red lipstick. Twenty first century children won’t be mowed down by buzz-cut and pimpled teenage boys flying around the United Church curve and blasting through town going 80, or maybe holding out false hope to the town’s resident queer by groups of three or four stopping by his place in the early evening and joining him in a cocktail. No weird kids from the past will appear and terrorize the children of commuters, or wind up in the City Briefs in the “Hour” every Monday. All of these dangers are gone, the old houses, the jaded teenagers, the homo. Replaced by Martha’s Vineyard-issue homes, clear skinned, soccer playing 16 year olds ordering their own lattes, and family friendly gays. On Highland Avenue, a painted wooden sign preaches, “Neighborhood Kids Say “Slow Down!”
The streets of Rowayton and West Norwalk are so narrow that it isn’t possible to imagine the old days when we rode 2 or 3 abreast past stone walls in those summer pine needles or the times when I silently moved through the gray post-Thomas 5 pm air in thick falling snow. I’m certain there used to be grassy shoulders which we would gouge apart galloping our horses, or move onto if two cars going different directions happened to pass. As a matter of fact, when we became 16 and drove these suburban lanes, we poured it on, we flew. One time at the blind intersection of Fillow Street and Weed Avenue, Teri stalled her father’s new red Volkswagon in the snow and passed out, and though only 100 feet from my driveway, I threw up and fell asleep.
Two explanations, besides the obvious, explain the minute character of the streets. Maybe my town is dwarfed because I am in a vehicle at least 4 times bigger than the VWs and Saabs and Morris Minors of the 50s. Or it’s possible that, in a melodramatic cry to “Respect Our Privacy!” and boisterous anonymity, townsfolk have permitted shrubbery and trees to grow unchecked, and foliage that was newly-planted and strictly manicured in 1956 has gone feral, and engulfs the roads, driveways and property lines. Even the newest replacement houses on each block appear ancient, flaunting modest pea-gravel driveways, shutters and clapboard covered in humble blazingly colored annuals. “Us? Oh, We’ve lived here forever!!” Where there used to be 300 acres screening a stone house and barns, now there are 300 discretely positioned “homes”, which pretend to have been there for a century. Everything and nothing is new.
The Sherin’s place next door looked the same, smaller of course than the panoramic and holy stables, corral, and colonial house from my 12 year old memory, but stone walls, pasture, the brook-- they were all there. Missing only was Bonnie in the driveway where her date was already gunning his engine, shouting up to Susie or Debbie in a second floor window, “Twinnie, get me my blue cardigan, the one in the bottom drawer!” It was turning into the Jennings’ driveway that finally brought me tears, as you suddenly realize a fondly remembered old friend has been gone for decades.
The Jennings’ house, the first house I fell in love with- looked over the 100 Jennings acres from a flat knoll…the house and terrace and pool basked in light all day until the sun went down behind the stable and woods. I loved, I wanted to be the resident daughter of it! The brick-floored kitchen leading off the mud room, where we’d toss our riding boots and gloves and run up the front stairs to get in our suits and swim in the pool right outside the French doors. Mr. and Mrs. Jennings had 4 stair step sons Robbie Chris Jeff and Peter, so I recall her as often in a fog, and Mr. Jennings travelled as a VP for Bigelow Carpets, frequently to Paris for some reason. They always had a nameless cook or a maid, I don’t know which, and once Mr. Jennings brought 16 year old Teri a black bustier back from France. Even to me back then it seemed dirty, except I didn’t know the word.
I drive into the former driveway, now a paved street. My house looked over nothing now, the yards of the new-olds hidden by fast growing maples trees. In 1965 there were overgrown flowering trees and tall meadow grass on either side of the driveway near the mailbox. I hid there ,smoking, while I waited for my mother to leave the house for work on mornings I didn’t go to school. Susan Andrus and I waited there for Robbie’s mother’s station wagon to swing in and drop Robbie off before she drove on with the other three and the groceries to the house I loved. We would walk and laugh slowly up the quarter mile driveway.
Five houses now line each side, softened by the ubiquitous landscaping, where in 1960 there were acres of meadow grass, a clear brook running down the hill into a pond where I soaked Missy’s swollen ankle for hours one summer, and the remains of an ancient orchard. Mr. Jennings would sit on the slate patio near the pool with a martini in his huge fist and watch Robbie, the twins, Teri, and me playing spit-tag on horseback. White jump standards and rails had littered the treeless grass riding field, and the “homes” and lots made from this riding field were clearly grander. Designers had rearranged stone walls to respect the new settlers’ current boundary lines. In the parking area in front of the side entrance to my beloved house’s mud room, bordered by a fenced kitchen garden and a lane leading up to the barn and kennel, I see a huge contemporary style gray house, angled and vertical. The ancient rock wall marking the Ferndale cemetery behind this mess looked as though Mexicans had just come and pressure washed it. Robbie, Teri, Debby, Susie and me camped once in the woods behind Fox Run, tying the horses to trees holding hay bags for the night, like in the movies.
I drove down the driveway street and watched two 12 or 13 year olds jogging slowly uphill in the June heat. The remaining ferns and the moss and hemlock smelled like ancient forest. I wished for the girls to notice the scent of the old days. Piles of horse manure on the driveway. Ignored until they disappeared from rain or the dozens of cars cramming the parking area for a Bigelow Carpet cocktail party…The Learned girls painting the emptied pool with tropical flowers for their sister’s wedding. But the girls were on Ipods and it was hot.
Toward New Canaan on west Norwalk Road I approach the Merritt Parkway and slow down to locate the narrow entrance of the bridle path, but overgrown grass weeds hid any sign that a beckoning place of solitude once existed. I drive back but it’s not there.
Here are some other crazy things I saw on my trip:
The Ronald McDonald House ads featuring sick Mexican kids
The Men, Women, and Other restroom on the Connecticut Turnpike

Christ it's hot this afternoon. Only the 6th day of April but Jesus.

When I feel this way I'm reminded of elementary school, the high ceilings and air blowing in from outside which smelled so good. Like grass or rotting leaves or burning leaves or low tide. All good things.

I read through all the deliriously happy pages of the Rowayton website thinking, i was really a differnet kind of child. I saw things so much differently than the 1950s happy circles of friends.

One clear memory is the day Stacy Bissell returned from a trip to Europe or California or some place she went with her father and had to miss three months of school. Or maybe three weeks. Anyhow, we were in Mrs. Lies' 3rd grade housed in a temporary classroom in the gym.

All the girls were lined up on the left side of the temporary classroom door and all the boys on the right side , along the inside wall of the gym. Through the main gym doors come stacy and her father, Richard Bissell. EEEk shout all the girls eeeek! Its Stay-ceeeeee! All the girls ran over to her and threw their arms around her, eeek eeek Stacy!. But wait! There were Renee and I, staring and holding our hands behind our backs and gawking. I cannot speak for her, but I know sure as shit I was not going over there to act like a retard over someone who I didn't care was gone and didn't care had come back.

Book review: Carolyn See reviews 'Model Home,' by Eric Puchner
By Carolyn SeeFriday, March 12, 2010; C04
MODEL HOME
By Eric Puchner
Scribner. 360 pp. $26
We all operate under the spell of a convenient set of delusions: that women can be "made over" to look prettier than they actually are, for example; or that with enough diet and exercise we can live to 100. Our favorite delusion, the one on which this great country was built, is that with enough hard work, Americans can become anything -- and have anything -- that they want. A fair amount of good literature has been written about the failure of this American dream, but the failure part usually comes at the end of the story. Eric Puchner's first novel, "Model Home," puts that dismaying fate at the very beginning and proceeds from there.
Warren Ziller, who previously lived a pleasant enough life with his family on the shore of a lake in Wisconsin, becomes entranced by a bright idea that could make him a fortune: He develops a piece of land out in the Mojave Desert, about 100 miles from downtown Los Angeles. The place where he builds his handful of houses is a most unappetizing patch of sand and scrub, but he isn't a mad man. After World War II, hundreds of developers perceived their futures to be in desert land, and until a few years ago that land was a gold mine.
So Warren isn't a maniac to invest in desert property and build tacky affordable housing, just unlucky. No one has told him about the toxic waste dump someone else is locating just a few miles away. But Warren has already moved across the country and settled his family in a gated community south of L.A. overlooking the ocean. Herradura Estates (actually Palos Verdes Estates) features teenage girls trotting along bridle paths and peacocks wandering scenically across owners' front lawns. But it's too good to be true, and far too expensive. Warren begins to borrow from his children's college accounts. It's a nightmare, but he can't get up the nerve to tell his family what's happening.
His family: a sweet wife named Camille, who makes terrible educational films for a middle school audience; the eldest son, Dustin, impossibly handsome, a surfer who's been going out with beautiful Kira, who's planning to yield up her virginity to him on the first anniversary of their romance; Lyle, a cranky, impossibly pale high school girl who hates everyone and refuses to fit into Southern California culture; and Jonas, 11, nobody's favorite.
Part 1 of this novel tells the story of "before" -- before anyone except Warren knows anything about their financial crisis. Dustin, star of his own life drama, develops a sexual obsession with Kira's emotionally disturbed little sister, who worries her earlobes into hideous scabs, samples any amount of recreational drugs and eats glass as an attention-getting device. Lyle, who drips with shame for herself and everybody else, begins to have sex with a Mexican kid who opens and shuts the gate in their gated community. Jonas mopes along. Camille finally makes a film so bad that her family can't even joke about it. When their car gets repossessed, Warren pretends it's been stolen. Then their leased furniture gets taken away. Warren is increasingly entangled in his lies, but he can't seem to come clean about their situation.
Then, just before Part 2, all hell breaks lose. One of the minor screw-ups that accrue around the Zillers magnifies into tragedy. Until this point, the family has believed that they will get ahead because everybody else in America is getting ahead. All the way along, it's possible to see things that Warren ought to have done to avoid his fate. But then we readers should consider all the evenings we may have had too much to drink, or didn't have the courage to make the important phone call, or the plain fact that most of America is probably made up of people who aren't as bright as they should be, and that might include the person who's writing this review, or maybe even someone who's reading it. The American promise of success is often just what it says: a dream. "In truth there was not much time, a blip, and most of what you did was a mistake," a chastened Warren thinks toward the end of this narrative. "You were lucky to find a safe and proper home." And that, the author suggests, is what it really comes down to: decent meals, a roof over your head and, with luck, relatives or friends who will gather to help you when your life smashes to bits.
The Ziller family is utterly believable here. Little Jonas, the kid whom nobody loves, is the perfect example. It's left absolutely up in the air what's to become of him -- or his brother, or sister or parents. Sure, if you work hard and don't screw up, you could succeed, except for the fact that everyone screws up mightily sometime. It's actually a miracle that any one of us stays alive from breakfast to lunch. There's a terrible shame involved if you fail in America. But that shame is universal. It clings to us like an invisible, sticky veil. That's what this estimable book is about.

Its only another day but everything has stopped and silence ...no birds, planes, traffic...nothing can be heard except machines slogging away at heating, communicating, reproducing. We really don't need to be here. Back then, you had to speak, or move to another place and speak or perform an action then wait to recieve a response. Now, nothing. They sit in bed and type and the wrld is fine.

America

America, To Me

I lived in a place where life was always happening somewhere else. Anyway, I left-- not seeking old pals, or better times or peace of mind--- I was not looking to get anywhere.

I am fine with being nowhere. But I need to be trying for something better. I need to stay in motion.

Although I am now only an observer of what I’ve seen, I regularly assault myself with questions and harsh accusations that I can seldom respond to. A fog of old missteps shudders, and then emerges like Venus from the cold depths of old love. I can't see the answers through this mess.

Years ago I bumped into an old lover who still seemed fond of me. I offer him a sofa but he coolly blows me off. Later, I dreamed that he turns back around, accepts his old flame’s kindness, and finds himself reduced to tears by her pure and undiminished loyalty.

In real life he wakes up early and slides away. Nowadays, he appears far too estranged and exhausted to respond.

I no longer play Benedict Arnold to my younger self, denying my own identity or ducking the hard times which happened twenty-five or thirty-five or forty years ago. I find intimacy with the long-ago inhabitants of another place.

My lack of health complicates everything. Our --mine and America’s-- failing memory is unable to look the chaos that we have failed to keep under control in the eye.

In a sad land like America, fantasies beat out cruel facts. They organize my life in the manner of a good vacation—departing, enjoying, happily returning home-- while the truth is eternally unknowable and pulls me up short and back to square one every time.