The Face Of Connecticut (Bell, 1985)

Where Hartford County intrudes into Litchfield County, that’s where I’m from. Just into the intrusion actually. Like, if we gave it to New Hartford as part of a grand rectification to repatriate the Southwick Jog, it’s difficult to say if we’d be part of the deal or not without squinting. We lived high on a hill in the region of Connecticut’s Western Uplands, our yard rising to an outcrop of the Rowe Schist bedrock of Ratlum Mountain.1 Rocks there sparkle with mica, which is hard to capture on a camera but produces a dazzling effect in person. That bedrock was a jungle gym for us kids. Though it looks rough, I mastered running straight across it, front to back. From there, especially in winter when the foliage thinned, there was a clear view out of the mountains, across to the mighty Traprock Ridges that split the central valley. It was there, but also digging through rocky topsoil (“rock farming”), driving through winding hill roads and up the mighty Avon Mountain that set me up to…