The Land of Steady Habits

Some may wonder about the title of my blog, “The Land of Steady Habits.” It’s a phrase that everyone from Connecticut knows. It originated sometime in the early 1800’s to refer to Connecticut’s steady political views and stable economy. Nowadays, when people quote it it’s with their tongue in cheek, with a chuckle.

Connecticut isn’t what it used to be. The Gold Coast (Fairfield County) is still pretty prosperous, and is still one of the wealthiest counties in the country.

I come from the middle-class part of Connecticut. My hometown, Meriden, has definitely seen better days. In the early 70’s International Silver was broken up and sold, and the city lost its largest private employer. When I read posts on the Facebook page “You know you’re from Meriden if.....” many of the posts are nostalgic in nature. Who remembers Dave Clayton’s Army and Navy on West Main Street. Who went to Les’s soft serve ice cream. Who had a family member who worked at International. You can tell someone whose family has been in Meriden for a long time because if they see a piece of silverplate in a thrift store or antiques mall they turn the piece over to see who made it. Was it International or Reed and Barton?

Connecticut has taken a beating economically. General Electric left. Aetna has partly left. There seems to be a revolving door on the Massachusetts and New York borders, and mostly they’re leaving. For some, Connecticut is the state wedged between New York and Massachusetts that you blow through on I-84 and if you're unlucky you hit rush hour traffic in Hartford. It's like the northernmost county of New Jersey except the fall foliage is better. Connecticut? Is that really part of New England?

When Anita and I moved here almost four years ago I knew what I was coming back to. Really bad driving, economic stratification, and relatively mild winters. She had not lived in New England before we were in New Hampshire. The winters there, except for the minus 0 temperatures, are more like what I remember growing up here. She says the winters here sometimes resemble the winters in Delaware where she grew up. If it snows it's gone in a day or two. There are wineries here now. Wineries? Nobody had wineries when I was a kid. It was too cold in the winter.

I really struggled with looking for a church in Connecticut. I wasn't sure I wanted to move back to my home state. Having visited my parents and brother many times I knew full well what state my hometown was in. It’s my home state. My family has been here for nearly four centuries. My ancestors are buried here. Our blood is in the soil.

Prior to the Civil War people often referred to their home state as their "country." There wasn't yet as clear an identity as "American" as opposed to being from Connecticut, Virginia, or New York. In this sense, Connecticut is my country.

Yet, our state government seems inept no matter what party is running it. I have hopes for our current governor but we'll see. Meanwhile, the residents of Hartford suffer with expensive yet inadequate rental housing, and a city government that is more interested in building a stadium than meeting the needs of the immigrants who now call Hartford and Connecticut, this ancient place, their home.

Our illusions of grandeur can be summed up in the map that I have as a banner on my blog. It shows Connecticut’s pretensions to grandeur. Our colonial charter did not specify a western border. So, a cartographer named Abel Buell made a map in 1784 that showed the state with its rightful claim to a strip of territory straight across to the Mississippi River. What’s in-between? Notice that the northern border of Pennsylvania is in line with the border between Connecticut and Massachusetts. That part of Pennsylvania was settled by Connecticut people after the Revolutionary War, people who were looking for more land. Ayuh. This magical belt of land would now encompass parts of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Those areas were also settled by Connecticut people.

Despite our grand nostalgia, our collective memory of times past, and our present economic doldrums, Connecticut is still a great place and I am happy to be here. No, I don’t like the way people drive, but there are treasures here. Yale University. The Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford. UConn. Many others, too numerous to name. All treasures handed down from previous generations of people who worked their butts off to make the state what it was. Now it's up to us to decide what Connecticut will be in the near future. There are people who see our state as an economic outpost, a place to stake a claim and make a living. God bless them. I'll patronize them in a New York minute.

I sit here in my ca. 1794 house full of books, an outpost of learning in a sea of inanity. Don’t diss Connecticut or you’ll get my thumb in your eye. It’s my state. An ancestor of mine founded it in the 1630's. My people are buried here. Our blood is in the soil. My children have moved to different parts of the country, to Massachusetts, Virginia, and California, but their ancestors came from here. They know that.