Column: Taking the road less traveled not so easy any more

My husband and I are nearing the end of a five-week, 6,000 mile vacation. The trip stirred a few memories and thoughts.

While a portion of the time was spent enjoying the quiet and beauty of our small piece of heaven in south central Montana, we also drove across the country to my hometown in western Massachusetts.

I have lost track of the number of times I've driven across the United States since heading to my first teaching position in 1963. Glenwood Springs, Colo., was 2,000 miles from my home and I had never been further west than New York state.

The interstate system was in its infancy. With a pile of maps in the seat beside me, one for each state I would cross, I apprehensively began the first of those journeys.

Getting around Chicago and Cleveland were major causes of panic for this rookie traveler. I saw a number of interesting side streets and neighborhoods as I missed a turn or two. Motel chains were limited and some areas simply had no accommodations, making some days a little longer than planned.

Today there are neat and efficient Road Atlas books. Or, you can map your route out on the computer, with times, distances and costs projected for you. Room reservations may be made at any number of sites along the way. For those in a hurry and not averse to considerable truck traffic, the interstate highway system covers the entire country and guides you quickly (comparatively speaking) through the major cities.

However, I still find myself looking for some of those quaint little places along the old two-lane roads across Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska I found 35 years ago. And when we now find a need to cover 600-700 miles per day, I miss those time consuming, but fascinating small town main streets.

Living 3,000 miles away, I look forward to attending my high school reunions and have missed very few. Until this year, however, I had never had the opportunity to attend a reunion of all graduates of the now closed school. I'm sure this special day was not too different from smalltown reunions throughout the country.

With cars and floats decorated in the old school colors, 400 graduates from as far back as 1921 participated in the alumni parade. It wound through the town and neighborhoods to the campus of the school my grandfather, father and siblings graduated from. The ivy covered brick building with its distinctive bell tower is now the town historical museum.

Needing new facilities and with each town facing economic reality, it and two other small high schools closed in 1967 to become part of a 12-town regional high school district.

In Massachusetts, as in many other states, each town is incorporated and must rely on their own tax base to meet infrastructure needs. Just as Nevada's tax structure attempts to help out cities and counties unable to bear the full fiscal burden of their responsibilities, Massachusetts has state assistance formulas to help out those towns unable to stand on their own. That does not mean each town can meet mandated educational requirements, teachers raises and other budget needs without tax increases or cutbacks.

Trying to attend to each town's fiscal concerns while getting a 12 member school board to agree on anything can be an intriguing challenge. While the Nevada Legislature needs to look at some pressing educational needs, by comparison, this state's county administered school district system seems like a winner.

Those residing in Nevada, with its 110,000 square miles (87 per cent owned by the federal government, of course) and population of 2 million, might think a state 13 times smaller with a population of 6.1 million people would consist of one giant housing tract.

Not so. Rural areas and wildlife abound.

Camped on my sister's densely wooded property you would have thought we were in the middle of nowhere. And we were serenaded each evening with a howling chorus of ever present bear. Her bird feeders are a popular food source for more than birds!

Yankee Atomic nuclear power plant is also located in this beautiful area. It was one of the country's earliest nuclear plants. Faced with increasingly restrictive guidelines and excessive relicensing costs, the plant stopped generating electricity in 1991 after 30 years of operations.

The decommissioning process is almost completed. The used fuel rods were supposed to be shipped to a permanent federal repository, but we in Nevada know the status of that situation.

The highly radioactive rods of uranium currently lie in an indoor pool of water. To save $1 million annually, Yankee will soon move the rods into huge concrete and steel casks and store them on plant property.

Shut down in 1996, active decommissioning has just begun on a nuclear plant in Connecticut. The list is growing.

Think about it.