Where I Live and Why I Stay in Charlotte
Commentary by Martha Perkins
May 5, 2011, page 16.....

The Planning Commission’s meeting last week (with good pizza and desserts) at which we expressed our observations and ideas for changes/additions, etc. for the 2013 Town Plan was excellent: lots of participation and succinct observations. This is a very valuable process to go through for the future of the community we choose to live in.
It was curious to me that the very next day a good friend from afar wrote to say hello and, among other things, asked me, “Where do you live now, Martha, and are you happy?” Also, it was curious to me that this is the first thing I chose to write to her.
(I thought I would share it with Charlotte News readers, hoping that you might share with us what you might say to someone from afar about the place where you live.)
“Well, where I live is on Lake Champlain, a body of water that lies between New York and Vermont. I love living near a ferry that goes from my small town to another small town in New York, called Essex. It feels like an expedition every time I take the ferry to Essex. There’s always some sort of activity at the ferry dock – cars waiting for the next ferry, a person in the ticket booth, people fishing off the dock, and an aura of expectation and adventure is always in the air. This form of transportation is as old as those people who needed to get from one place to another and found a body of water in the way.
This body of water was once an ocean, a venue in the Revolutionary War, a way to bring goods to and from Vermont and New York. I love living where the geography and natural world stand out as guardians of my life and sources of my spirituality.”