The return of the prodigal writer

We left but didn’t go very far, and so dear reader, my voice will be heard once again in the fields and the woods and the streams of the Litchfield Hills.Where did we go, and why? I’m glad you asked.In a sense you might say I was a victim of not paying attention: I was getting old and didn’t want to believe that I was on the verge of becoming, as my son Jonathan was wont to put it, a geezer.Not very complimentary. But when maintaining seven acres of land in Goshen — mowing the lawn, raking the leaves, shoveling the snow, et al — became a chore, it was time to re-evaluate.During our 45-year stint in Goshen, we had raised four wonderful children, and commuted for 17 years to Hartford for gainful employment. Wow! There’s more — I wrote five children’s books, co-authored the first comprehensive guide to Connecticut in years and became a fun columnist for The Lakeville Journal.Then there’s that house: an 1810 two-story Garrison Colonial with a small kitchen and a basement comprised of a thin layer of stones atop a clay floor that became a bird bath whenever it rained. But we learned soon enough we didn’t have to pump it out; when the rain stopped, the water in the cellar just drained away into Goshen’s extraordinarily high water table.As is my wont, I digress. Just how old do you have to be to qualify as a geezer? Ten-year-old kids think that 40 is old; then when they reach 25, of course, 50 or 60 is old. Fact is, America’s population is aging fast and 70 is not an uncommon age to attain. So I checked my birth certificate and was shocked — shocked, I say — to discover I was 86 going on 87. And my dear wife, Dolores, the veteran journalist, is now 83.Not yet time for a nursing home, despite all my aches and pains. When someone makes the mistake of asking, “How are you?” I reply that the only specialist I haven’t seen in the past year is a gynecologist!Moving right along, son Jonathan lives in a nice house on 10 acres in West Simsbury. After a family caucus, it was agreed that it would be more than helpful if we left Goshen when we were still standing on our own two feet and moved close to him where we have reversed roles: He’s the daddy, we’re the children!The late Sen. George McLean of Simsbury provided the answer. He had acquired more than 4,000 acres in the Farmington Valley, only slightly less than the hectares of Litchfield’s White Memorial. McLean clipped off a nice chunk of his vast holdings and established a retirement village for the elderly in Simsbury.And that’s where we are now ensconced, McLean Village, in a nice cottage with no attic and no leaky cellar. The grass is cut, the snow is plowed and meals that Bobby Flay would be proud of are served in a beautiful dining room.But this is not wonderland. It has some unique problems. Stay tuned. Freelance writer Barnett Laschever, late of Goshen and now in Simsbury, has almost finished a play about Joshua and the Walls of Jericho. Goshen players, pay attention.