In our first seminar session, we'll be introducing ourselves
and we'll also be introducing the places we grew up. My own experience tells me
that our early years shape the way we look at landscapes--what we like and
dislike, what makes us feel comfortable or uncomfortable, what we know and take
for granted and what we've never thought of, what we can understand and what
seems strange to us. So let me tell you about my home town, Wallingford,
Connecticut.
When I was growing up there, in the late 60s and early 70s, Wallingford was a town of 38,000 people. It had been founded by Puritans in 1670, who came twelve miles up the Quinnipiac River from New Haven.
Not that I knew all that at the time. I did
know that there were still some very old houses along North Main Street and
some very old gravestones in the cemetery on Center Street, and by the time we
celebrated the town's three hundredth anniversary, I must have been able to do
the math. But the town didn't feel particularly Puritan, or even Yankee. Most
everyone I knew had an Italian, Polish, Irish, Hungarian, Portuguese, or
Spanish last name. There were dairy farms in the eastern part of town, where
the "George Washington Trail" was, but 
Wallingford was a factory town, and had been
since the late1800s. In the 1960s, the town manufactured curtain rods and
rolled steel, but its main claim to fame was as "silverware capital of
America." I lived half a mile away from International Silver's Factory L
(now senior citizen housing), and a bit further away, was Wallace Silversmiths
(now an office park). Most of the factories were at the bottom of the hill,
near Holy Trinity Catholic Church, along the railroad tracks, parallel to Route
5, the commercial strip. Running along the top of the hill was a line of
beautiful Victorian mansions, 
where the silverware kings had lived. When you
went down the hill, the whole town changed.
Wallingford was not a suburb. Most people who lived there worked there and shopped there. The businesses along Main and Center streets included one chain store, W. T. Grant, a five and dime, but most everything was local--Moran's Pharmacy, Larryann's Luncheonette, Gordineer's Fashions, Caplan's Supermarket.
When I was growing up there, in the late 60s and early 70s, Wallingford was a town of 38,000 people. It had been founded by Puritans in 1670, who came twelve miles up the Quinnipiac River from New Haven.
Not that I knew all that at the time. I did
know that there were still some very old houses along North Main Street and
some very old gravestones in the cemetery on Center Street, and by the time we
celebrated the town's three hundredth anniversary, I must have been able to do
the math. But the town didn't feel particularly Puritan, or even Yankee. Most
everyone I knew had an Italian, Polish, Irish, Hungarian, Portuguese, or
Spanish last name. There were dairy farms in the eastern part of town, where
the "George Washington Trail" was, but Wallingford was a factory town, and had been
since the late1800s. In the 1960s, the town manufactured curtain rods and
rolled steel, but its main claim to fame was as "silverware capital of
America." I lived half a mile away from International Silver's Factory L
(now senior citizen housing), and a bit further away, was Wallace Silversmiths
(now an office park). Most of the factories were at the bottom of the hill,
near Holy Trinity Catholic Church, along the railroad tracks, parallel to Route
5, the commercial strip. Running along the top of the hill was a line of
beautiful Victorian mansions, where the silverware kings had lived. When you
went down the hill, the whole town changed. Wallingford was not a suburb. Most people who lived there worked there and shopped there. The businesses along Main and Center streets included one chain store, W. T. Grant, a five and dime, but most everything was local--Moran's Pharmacy, Larryann's Luncheonette, Gordineer's Fashions, Caplan's Supermarket.
There was a real Mr. Sprafke at Sprafke’s Shoe Store. Here is where my mother took us every year to buy new shoes for school.
