February 3, 2013

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  Sandy Hook

   

  I am deviating from my usual style to present an account of my familiarity with the area where the terrible tragedy occurred. I am sure most of you have been saturated with the overwhelming coverage the media devoted and still devotes to what happened in that small province of the town of Newtown, Connecticut.

   

  Newtown is comprised of five villages that were once independent entities. Dodgingtown,

  Botsford, Hattertown, Hawleyville and Sandy Hook. I think it is the largest town in

  Connecticut area-wise. My family and I lived in Sandy Hook for more than ten years. In

  1959 we purchased a house in a small colony of German immigrant families who, in the

  1930’s bought about 150 acres bordering a state park and built vacation cottages

  which they used in the summertime. Some of them I’m sure were Bund members and all

  lived in the Yorkville section of Manhattan. After WW2, they expanded the cottages into

  houses and garages where they eventually retired and formed a trust which stated that all

  nine families would have to approve any sale in their community. When one of them

  moved to Florida, the property remained vacant for a year until we were vetted and okayed.

  I think our little one year-old Maria, and the fact that my wife was pregnant with our

  second daughter Melissa, had something to do with it, as only a teen-age daughter

  belonged to the youngest couple in the group. She became our wonderful baby-sitter.

   

  A couple of years later I bought a large vacant 2-story building which once was a supermarket, renovated it and moved my business from Bridgeport to Sandy Hook. It is located in the center of the old village close to the bridge which crosses the Pootatuck River. Since the tragedy, I have seen it a number of times on television as on the corner next to it, all manner of mementos have been placed in memory of the lives of those children and adults taken by that deranged young man.*

   

  In 1967 a new super-highway (Interstate 84) bisected the town of Newtown. It became possible to drive up from New York City in less than 2 hours. Many well-to-do New Yorkers, celebrities and others built second homes in the surrounding hills and around Lake Zoar. An airport in the adjoining city of Danbury allowed international pilots from Kennedy and Logan who were very well paid, to spend the mandatory rest time between flights flying their little Cesnas and Piper Cubs to Danbury and be home in Newtown in less than an hour. The sons and daughters of these newcomers were enrolled in Newtown High and drove expensive cars. School-buses would arrive with empty seats while the parking lots were full. Every other week or so, a fatal accident reported by the Newtown Bee, involved teen-agers using the new highway to race their sports cars after midnight. The part-time first selectman who sold office supplies and was a good friend of mine, told me the State Police broke into the high school lockers one weekend and found enough drugs to rival a junkie pad in East Harlem as he put it.

         

  In 1964 we bought an old house on an island near the small fishing village of Friendship Maine as a summer retreat for a couple of thousand dollars. It was built by a fisherman in the 1880’s, a wedding present for his bride. It was neglected by its previous owners and was in very poor condition. A new roof and plenty of work on the inside with great help from my brother-in-law made it quite livable and for the next few years we spent a couple of weeks there each summer.

   

  Both my daughters were enrolled at Sandy Hook Elementary and soon would be eligible for high school. Without saying anything to my wife until the week before we left, I shut down my business, (we produced Industrial Catalogs), laid off my employees with a year’s severance, called a moving company and had them drive everything up to Rockland, Maine where it was stored. We said good-by to neighbors, relatives and friends. With my wife Lucy driving our big Plymouth station wagon with Melissa and 5-month old Melanie tucked in the back, she followed me in my Toyota Land Cruiser with Maria and our dog and cat asleep in the rear. We drove all night and arrived in the little fishing village of Friendship in the early morning of July 4th. George and Sharon Hayes, a young couple we met and became friends with, helped load our gear and us into his lobster boat and towing our 14-foot skiff, deposited us on the gravel beach in front of our island house. We lived there that summer while I looked for a house in the village and found a small well-maintained two-bedroom cape with an attached garage. A few weeks later we registered our kids into the local school system. We lived there for almost forty years.

   

  I write this because I think about the incredible series of events that occurred and I am constantly reminded by today’s voracious media, of the once-quiet little hamlet of Sandy Hook and my own and my family’s proximity to the events. Except for the gift of time, my own children could have been part of that massacre. Today it would be possible for me to walk up a little hill from our former home (a matter of 3 or 4 minutes) and stand before the house where that disturbed boy murdered his mother and then a few minutes later, twenty-six innocent human beings before killing himself…

   

   

  *It is possible to Google a satellite view of Sandy Hook Center to view my building that was sold to a fashion

   designer. If you follow Rt 34 past the high school to Bennetts Bridge Road and turn left, then take the first

   right at Osborne Hill Road to Yogananda Drive, you will find the killer’s home. It is in a development of

   expensive homes that was built many years after we moved to Maine.

   

   

   

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  • 11:27 am
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