Quiet Desperation

The township of Concord faces one of the great modern dilemmas. To the south, Walden Pond, hallowed sanctuary, symbolic tract of man's nature and of Nature's man. To the north, a new high school, clarion of the New Learning, expression of the finest in the Modern Temper. Over the entire scene hangs a dark cloud of necessity, the Antithesis of the twentieth century Synthesis, the bane of the American Spirit--Concord is without a garbage dump.

The great Gygian load, the excrescence of the social organism of Concord, will be there and it certainly can't be wished away. The dilemma arises: should the citizens unload their perpetual clutter within the sight and smell of their progeny, making them conscious early of the great and ineluctable junk that fills the world? Or should the youth be saved, and instead men's trash fill smooth the rugged face of old New England tradition?

In making their decision, the citizens must remember that Walden is not what it once was. For years the eastern shore has been a rather shabby public bathing beach, and the spirit of Thoreau in the glades of the western shore has been supplanted by a land speculator named Kavacas, who throws parties at his summer house there. And, in the summer months at least, the woods now are more full of frolicking couples than of the furred or feathered wild-life.

But Walden Pond is a national shrine, as renowned as Mt. Rushmore or Buffalo Bill's Grave, and it should be kept free from the stench of the local refuse, if for no other reason, simply to preserve its attractiveness for the tourists of America who must have some place to drive to during vacation-time. Besides, modern techniques require big yellow bulldozers to ply dump areas throughout the day, and the continual pilgrimage of trucks and trailers, with the bulldozers snorting through the pines like prehistoric beasts, would be a grotesque way to shatter the placid hours of this venerable landmark.

Let the students have the junk, let them look out on it from their study windows. Let them see it and know it, for soon they must make a world of it themselves.