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How Can One Disagree?

I live on Nut Plains Road, a small, winding road, filled with old stone walls, historical homes, and ancient trees. I invite you to take a walk on this road. Start at State Street and travel to Goose Lane, or just beyond to visit the charming Nut Plains Cemetery and Guilford’s new dog park. About one-quarter of a mile before Goose Lane, Old Nut Plains Road bears off slightly to the right, just for three houses, and then merges again with the main road. Do you know why we have this tiny side road? Because town administrators wisely determined decades ago that they wanted to save the lives of two splendid old trees—a white oak and a hickory, both of which stand proudly today. When I heard this story, I knew Guilford was the town I wanted to call home.

Now we’re faced with a dilemma. Some wish to develop Nut Plains Road to create a pathway so children can walk or ride bikes to school and folk can freely walk in safety. They want to develop this rural section of our town. At first blush, one might think: “How can one disagree with such a goal?” But we need to ask ourselves: “At what expense?” The answer is: Development would sacrifice the country nature of this historical, winding road, jeopardizing the survival of old stone walls and stately, ancient trees.

While Guilford naturally contains developed sections of town, we can also boast that we have sections that remain rural and deeply steeped in early history. These undeveloped sections possess so much character and yet are so vulnerable to development. I encourage your readers to consider what we’d lose should we choose to build this pathway. Once the country character of Guilford is lost, it’s lost for good.

Lorrie S. Verplaetse

Guilford