April Fool In August

To the Editor:

Only April Fool! in August can explain your front page story “Wendover Road Residents Challenge Farmer’s Blueberry Proposal.” And apparently The Bee fell for the elaborate hoax concocted by the merry pranksters of Wendover Road.

Here’s the joke: A young, hardworking couple of organic farmers committed to growing healthy food –– and admired by all in Newtown who buy their produce –– request permission to grow an acre of blueberries on four acres they own on Wendover Road. Residents protest, citing “the unknown,” which hints at crop dusters buzzing the neighborhood with lethal chemicals, noisy combines trucked in to harvest the crop, and terrorists lurking among an army of migrant workers. They hire a lawyer from Bridgeport. This denizen of a grim industrial city where most attorneys have plenty of work prosecuting and defending officials charged with corruption raises the specter of the organic farmer laying waste to trees and birds.

Up until that point I can understand how The Bee’s staff, who work so hard at putting out an excellent newspaper, were taken in. But when one of the pranksters alludes, darkly, to having “small children” the joke is revealed. What loving, caring parent would deny small children the opportunity of growing up nearby an actual farm where they could observe the interaction of people and nature? For that matter who would prefer that the acreage be consumed by a new house whose owner could dump on his lawn every chemical he could get his hands on at the Home Depot.

It is possible that your hard-working reporter deserves a rest cure on a nice Caribbean Island?

Justin Scott

Parmalee Hill Road, Newtown                             September 4, 2003