My personal perspective on our time in paradise.
by Brian T. Lynch
My earlier ancestors came and settled in this region of the New Jersery Highlands 400 years ago. It was a pristine wilderness filled with every living plant, fish, and animal they could ever need to sustain themselves, just as it sustained the people who had lived here for 10,000 years before them. It was a garden of Eden… a fresh start for these disposable Europeans. It was creation as God intended. That was just twelve generations ago.
Two generations ago, my grandfather delivered milk by horse and cart. He also dug water wells by hand, finding the best groundwater with a divining rod taken from an apple tree branch. Charlie Taylor was known in Morris County for this gift. Roxbury Township once hired him to find a well for the town when all their efforts failed. He did his thing and found the water.
I was five when I watched him use a divining rod for his last and my first time. It was awesome to see bark peel off the stick in his massively strong hands as he tried to stop the pointer from turning down to the spot where our well would soon be. It was magical!
I know now that the divining rod worked for him not because it was magic or voodoo but because it was a prayer. It was an act of faith. Why has it taken me sixty years to understand this? And why has it taken me seven decades to see what we have done so quickly to our garden since?
HT: Leo for the graphic and Ted for encouraging me to write my grandfather's story
This governor in NJ is allowing unchecked development of condo and townhouse developments. Also apartment developments. Why??? Woods and open space are being destroyed every day. It’s a shame how this state is destroying the environment.
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