Since then, I've seen my three beautiful children come into this world, grow into fine young adults and leave the nest to go see what's out there. I suspect, and hope, that they'll be back, as this is their home, too. And it is special -- very special.

Recently, I've seen the anguish in their eyes when they come home and find the forest trails that they walked to school on -- gone. Granted, the bark beetles had much to do with that, but for a large part, land development is changing the face of our town. Such is progress.

I'm all too familiar with progress and development. Having grown up within sight of Boston back in the 1950s and 1960s, urban sprawl was a wildfire. The pockets of fields and woods where we sought haven from that wildfire were slowly engulfed over the years.

Many of those places are gone now, replaced by bigger freeways, more tract homes and shopping malls, where consumption seems to have become a pastime, a way of life.

Some people choose to live in those areas for the convenience of those services. Most of us here in Homer didn't come here for convenience, but for other reasons.

We have a unique opportunity at this time to plan ahead and decide what we'd like this town to look like in the future. We owe this to our children and our grandchildren.

So please, attend our planning and council meetings and share your opinions and visions. Let's not forget what attracted us here in the first place.

Fred Pfeil