It could be Lake Wobegone -- but that is just a fiction. But Megunticook is for real, and it has been the one place in the whole world that I have always come back to. Ungrammatical as usual. But none-the-less, Megunticook is a beautiful Maine lake, just 2 miles from the Bay, and close to the small village of Camden. We have lived here (in the summers) for 50 years. My toys are still in the closets. As are the toys of my children and grandchildren. The place has history. 15,000 years ago, ice almost a mile high sat on top of us, as the glaciers moved south, carrying large boulders, smoothing mountains, bringing pulverized rock South to create Cape Cod and Long Island. As I say the place has some history, at least in the short time frame that us humanoids understand. And over night it changed -- one more time.
When I was a child, what you noticed most was the silence. No cars. No people. No --- nothing. You could hear the Loons calling at night . An Owl or two. But mostly silence. And then in the 60's we had the first Jets. Camden is on the main route for transatlantic traffic coming into and going out of the US. Starting at about 10 in the morning, the con trails appeared in the sky as the first jets from Europe came over on their way to JFK, Dulles, and beyond. And in the afternoon, it all started again as the Jets went North to ride the Great Circle Routes to Europe. And underneath it all was the dull rumble of distant thunder -- 1000's of hp and gallons of jet fuel denoting the "modern age." When we had a Cold War -- the commercial jets would give way to the B-52s flying high. silent -- almost. White Bellys to protect the crew (supposedly) from the Atomic Blasts they might be called upon to set loose upon the world. Gave you Goose bumps every time they went by. 'Cause it could be the last time. But somehow we escaped. And the B-52s went to wherever such birds went... and the Jets came as always. South in the morning. North in the evening. Silent con trails, but with a distant rumble. The modern world, I guess. 9/11 or was it 911? -- the world changed. Again. And for two days, as I sit by the lake in the warm Sun of a mild September -- it is Silence once again. No con-trails. No rumble. Silence... And in that silence, I can hear the gentle lap of the lake, talking to the shore as it has for 15000 years since things thawed out. I can also hear the screech of an American Eagle (Bald Eagle) chick -- sitting in a tree and begging for dinner. The parents are looking on, wondering how they raised such a teenager. But mostly it is the silence... ho Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, MD 20854 USA phone 301-469-9269 fax 301-983-9314 Summer Phone 207-763-3261 Summer Address 189 Beaucaire Ave. Camden, ME 04843 Personal website www.mindspring.com/~owenhh Open Space Institute website www.openspaceworld.org Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com
