Now that the Town Council has denied approving an application for a quarry at the corner of Nash Road and Route 302, what will the disposition of this land be? Could it be more house lots, yet another subdivision adding a whole lot of traffic to say nothing of demands for municipal services like school classrooms, buses, police and road upkeep. Wouldn’t all those wells and septic systems have an effect on the groundwater about which so many were concerned?

Will Windham continue in its evolvement from a once-rural community to a true suburb? We are well on our way with sidewalks in subdivisions, streetlights and all the trappings of the suburbia many moved here to avoid.

If this area was developed into housing (as one of the quarry protesters thought was a good idea) would there be a small parcel of “open space,” unattainable by the general public or would a parking lot be planned? There’s a lot to think about. Much has changed in that area since there was a handful of houses on the road, Jim Pratt had a big poultry business and the Nash sisters (who owned the land on Route 302 which now includes the state rest area) sold eggs and berries and fudge at a roadside stand and where there also was a quarry.

I know I’m in the minority. I was, after all, born here, almost 70 years ago on the same farm where my mother was born. And I know what rural is and my perspective differs from someone who considers a view of a field to mean they’re in the country. Yet, I’d rather see the development of a business which actually produces something which is of vital use and using a product native to the town, than I would see another big chunk of land cleared for 60 or 70 houses and the little shrubs and sidewalks, or a retail establishment selling goods made somewhere else, settle down on dozens of acres of pavement.

It’s not just this corner that is changing. For a distance of about a mile in the area in which I grew up, there are (at last count) five subdivisions planned with upwards of at least 100 house lots. Of course this little chunk of land is now country land. Brooks and streams abound. Still quite a few trees can be seen and maybe one more season of fields filled with wildflowers. Kids of the future who live in these houses won’t be walking through a field to go fishing in the Calley Wright Brook. And they won’t be walking through the woods.

Windham has been changing since its beginning, and I guess since I’ve seen so much of it over the years it’s easier to accept. Where once the majority of the population was involved in farming, 32 percent are now in professional fields, 20 percent in education/health or social service and only a little over 1 percent in farming/agriculture/forestry. In a town where (in 1950) 50 percent of the population was 18 or younger, in the year 2000 according to the census, 35 percent are in that age group.

More change is indicated from those 2000 Census figures. At that time only 11 percent of the houses were built before 1940, and a third of the population at that time, some 5,000 people, had moved into Windham from 1995 to 2000.

See you next week.