Foliage

The autumn colors came in perfectly this year in time for the three-day Columbus Holiday weekend. Reports came in about the 'bang-up' business, and resorts being very happy and busy. The gas prices are making people who come from the NY and NJ areas stay closer to home, come to the Poconos, and enjoy the warm, beautiful weather we had this year.

I truly hope people took the time and rode around to view our foliage. There are places even on the major interstate highways where you drive around a bend and are literally awe-struck with the beauty. The colors intertwine before you like a patchwork quilt; a heavy, sturdy quilt that is full and warm and bright. The evergreen trees serve as the counterpoint to the reds, golds and oranges perfectly stitched by Mother Nature. I take pictures, but something about the here-and-now, real-time sense cannot be captured by film or digital images. There is a feeling, a smell, a grandeur that can only be experienced in person.

The people who live here all year do seem to appreciate this time. Locals remark to each other that they try to find the time in everyday life to enjoy our leaves. But there is a time limit on the beauty, a profound concept. Today, many of the leaves have fallen off the trees, still pretty on the ground, but not as grand. We had our warm spell of 70 degree weather - a short burst of steam, if you will - but now the crispness is coming back (okay, crisp is another way of saying cold!). The leaves crunch under the feet and probably need to be raked. I am going to wait; after all, the winds we will be getting soon usually take care of that. Not sure where the leaves end up, but I imagine there is one family who feels as if with all the leaves landed on their lawn. They are probably not too wrong.

Crime is Relative

It is inherently peaceful in the Poconos, at least our part in the northern tier, but we are seeing an increase in crime in the more tourist-oriented areas. Still, the amount of crime is relative, based on the reporting we see and hear on the local news. In the "If it bleeds, It leads" journalism, murders and fires lead the newscasts. However, in comparison the sheer number of reports, we still are feeling pretty safe.

Our local cable allows us access to the New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia broadcasts; and we still watch those in order to maintain our perspective. Which leads me to a recent couple of crimes lately that hit too close to home. There was a murder in one of the towns on the other side of the lake and the murderer has not been found yet. And there was the child pornography ring that was found working out of our town. This says to me that there are many places to hide up here and we live out in those woods!

Being a large place with a relatively small full-time population, differences are noted immediately. After all, not to make a characterisation, but there is a large contingent of hunters up here; in other words, people who make it a point to notice the things around them. I believe that is why the fugitives who try to 'hide' up here in plain sight tend to be noticed and reported, such as the terrorists who were in training up here to attack Ft Dix in NJ. However, a source of concern is the increase in gang activity. The gang graffiti symbols are prevalent in the areas young people congregate, marking territory. It scares me that kids still think it is a cool thing - to be in a gang - when their parents moved to the Poconos to get their kids away from the violence. Pity.

So do we feel safe? Relatively, as we still have our defences up from all the years we spend in the metropolitan area. We still lock our doors whenever we walk outside, still look immediately whenever one of our motion-sensor lights go on (just the fact that we felt we needed to add those on the house is a clue to our mentality), still eyeball the parking lot when we bring our purchases to the car. We still behave defensively, but it is getting relaxed and we are becoming more open. I still want to hold on to some of the defensiveness, but I feel safe leaving stuff outside that would have gotten lifted where we lived in NJ.