Some enterprising person should start right now working on a product to replace sand, stone, gravel and those beautiful granite countertops and anything else made from quarried products.

Maybe we can come up with another synthetic product that will look like brick, granite or marble and will have the strength of concrete.

In Windham and neighboring Gorham, all manner of issues have been brought to the fore regarding proposed quarries. The scripts are the same: “I have nothing against quarries, but….”; “We moved here because of the rural area….”; “Trucks make a lot of noise….”; “Quarries should be somewhere else.”

The ironic thing about the need for expansion of quarries is that the need is fueled by housing development. More housing equals more foundations, paving blocks for walkways and concrete for walls. More housing means more roads, which obviously aren’t going to be pathways through fields. They’ll need gravel and other quarried materials.

Some buildings are made from brick and concrete – both products of the earth. Does this mean that in the future we’ll need to cut more trees for building products?

Quarries, unlike hardware stores, can’t be “somewhere else,” since their location depends on where the raw material is. Mother Nature rules supreme in this case. A basic misunderstanding by most people is that “you can put a quarry anywhere.” Not true, folks.

Since it’s unlikely population will slow down, and as jobs pay more, people feel compelled to upgrade their dwelling, the need for construction materials like quarry products will increase.

Therefore, it’s time for some enterprising soul to invent something else. Or, we can do what we’ve done in other situations in America – we can import materials from other countries. Are there quarries in Canada? How about Mexico? Isn’t that where they made those really tall, pyramid structures thousands of years ago? Maybe we can persuade the Mexican government to recycle those enormous building blocks.

Seriously, it’s so easy to understand the concerns of neighbors. Their home turf is changing. My home turf has already changed 100 percent and continues to change, thanks to a population that has tripled since I got out of high school.

Back then, I don’t recall anyone complaining about quarries or gravel pits. No one complained about the noise of children, barking dogs or mooing cows, either. Of course it really was a farming community back then, truly rural and didn’t just look that way.

There were two gravel pits within walking distance of the house where I grew up. One was on Chute Road and another one on Hemon Cobb Road. “The town” hauled gravel and sand from both of them.

It probably made a lot of noise, but I don’t remember it. It sure didn’t have a lasting effect on anyone I knew.

In fact, a whole lot of people made their living in the excavation business – and still do.