One of my sisters, a paralegal, works for a Washington, D.C. law firm which is now at a trial in New York City. She’s staying at a hotel in the financial district and writes e-mails about being able to see the ferry boats and the Statue of Liberty from the hotel. There is so much to see, visit and enjoy in Manhattan. But if you live there, you might never do much sight-seeing.

Back in the 1960s, I lived in Manhattan and Brooklyn for five or six years but never went to the Statue of Liberty. In fact, I worked right across from the Empire State Building and never went there either! I did go to the office supply store on street level in the same block. I knew it was there, and if I ever wanted to go I could.

We have a lot of interesting places in Windham and the Lakes Region, which thousands come to visit each summer. Many of these summer folks are here now and advertisements entice them to enjoy what we who live here year-round may take for granted.

I cannot remember the last time I visited Sebago Lake State Park, but it was probably 40 or 50 years ago, yet there it is, just up the road. Dundee Park in Windham is another wonderful place, especially for older people or for children, as it is clean, small and well-maintained. Almost every year, I buy a season ticket, but haven’t been there a long time.

It’s always a surprise to me when people visit the Historical Society museums for the first time and exclaim how surprised they are to see so many unique and historic items. In August this year, a two-day Windham Heritage Days event is being planned and there will be many who attend the program who will be pleasantly surprised.

It wasn’t until I was living on the tree-less plains of South Dakota that I truly appreciated all the pine trees and forests of Maine. To be able to see literally miles across the horizon, with not even one tree in sight, was just amazing. Beautiful, but in a totally different way than my home state.

As Windham evolves from a rural to a suburban area, which is what’s happening, it’s always sad to see that all the trees are cut before anything else happens. The foreign shrubbery which is planted never takes the place of the poplar, birch and pine trees, which were native.

I’m worrying these days about development further down Route 302 near what was the ending of Windham Center Road. It may look “open” now, but it wouldn’t take much for the little pockets of development roadside, to be filled in and voila, North Windham commercial district all over again. Those who decry the commercial district’s traffic and busy-ness need only wait a few years and it will be repeated a little further along the road.

The stretch of Route 302 from Fogg’s Corner (intersection with Pope Road) to the Westbrook line is already nearly all filled in with commercial operations. I can remember this used to be all residential houses and I could name almost every family who lived along here. How subtly the town changes. Of course, I can also remember when Nash Road was a dirt road and there were only five or six houses the whole length of it!

The strange thing is that no matter how many people move into one of these old road neighborhoods, and build new houses and garages and cut the trees and plant the shrubs, they continue to refer to the area as the way it was when they moved there!

As long as there are people, change will continue. We will still have summer visitors and they will continue to see much about our Lakes Region area that we who live here don’t truly appreciate.

See you next week.