sometimes i wish i could be more like david brown

living more simply. living with a root cellar and a little stucco home. doing more crafts and living off of the land (at least a bit more than i do).

yesterday, my ex-boss took me out to dinner. we went to a restaurant in west hartford center. we met at 5:30. the center wasn't bad then. not too too crowded. plenty of parking spots in the big lots. we had a lovely conversation and lovely dinner. (she was my BEST boss ever and we are absolute TOTAL opposites in EVERY way). she remarked how she really liked west hartford center and was looking forward to blue back. i remarked how i HATED the center, it's status-seeking people with their suvs (we were sitting by a big window and i noticed an suv pull up in front of the restaurant. it contained ONE young woman. ONE. too young to have a family and too old for it to be her parent's car. i was LIVID) and how i had voted AGAINST blue back TWICE. by the time we left the restaurant, the sidewalks were CHUCK FULL of people in their finery showing off. that's exactly what they were doing. they were there to see and to be seen. i parted from my ex-boss and went to my car. the entire lot i was in (it's huge) was FULL. i really don't like what my center has become. we've lost something in the process of gaining nothing but crowds with too-big cars.

Artist chooses a life without running water or electricity

Artist chooses a life without running water or electricity
By Steve Grant, The Hartford Courant June 15, 2006
OLD SAYBROOK, Conn. --But for his beat-up 16-year-old pickup truck, David Brown of Old Saybrook might be oblivious to today's rising oil and gas prices, even impervious to them.
He's lived for 20 years in a tiny house made of hay and stucco without electricity or central heating. He grows much of his own food organically, so he doesn't need fertilizers or pesticides derived from petroleum products.
A highly efficient wood stove heats his home. He keeps his food chilled in a root cellar. Tiny amounts of propane power a reading lamp and a stove. He once had running water, but his well became silted, and he now fills jugs with water when visiting friends.
At a time when it has become almost fashionable to measure one's carbon footprint -- the amount of carbon dioxide produced from one's lifestyle -- that of David Brown is all but undetectable, as if he could walk in sand without leaving a trace.
He could be smug right now. He's not.
He just goes about his life, a life he has chosen, not a life he must endure, keeping things simple, though he seems almost saddened by some of the things he sees. A woman arriving at the supermarket alone in a mammoth SUV to pick up a few groceries left him with a mental image of excess.
Small is beautiful.........