Your great grandfather spent the last years of his life on a property he bought in Desencano, in northern Italy, at the southern end of the lake of Garda - Lago di Garda - when he returned from South Africa to Europe. We, Mims and Pips and Lulu and I, went there to visit on traditional Easter trips before WWII. After the war, Opa Wilhelm had passed away, we went for vacation trips to the Lago di Garda and camped wherever we were. The most favorite site was a private property, without buildings but many olive trees, shut off from the shore road by stone walls and an iron gate. This was a beautiful site I know I have written to you before. Life down there was restful. There were vast expanses of open land, cultivated and uncultivated, with romantic farmsteads and beautiful old villages and towns and lots of traditional architecture and residents without pretensions playing Boggia with river stones in the cobbled streets of their villages on Saturdays.
Now, I was prompted to revisit the area on Google earth and I was led to click on an icon that led me to a site called Gardaland, the most popular site of entertainment in Europe. Another Busch Gardens or Dolly Parton Land.
When we were visiting down there, the lake was pronounced the cleanest in Europe. We used to use its waters to cook, wash our dishes at the shore, and bathe, brush our teeth and shave . . . we were only four of us, for a week or so . . .
This was opposed on the other end of the scale by the lake of Zurich, the most polluted of all. In our time, when we lived in that area, lake Zurich's shores were the most populated of all. If it had not been for the signs on the road sides, you would not have known when you left Zurich and got into Rüschlikon and on into Kilchberg and farther into Thalwil etc where we spent our post-war years. All the way up to the upper end of the lake it was just one long stretch of territory densely occupied by man to live and industry to work. You get the picture traveling fro VA-Beach to Norfolk and Chesapeake and on.
Things have turned around. Laws developed and forced each community along the lake of Zurich to build waste management plants and defined the quality of effluent permitted to leave those collection sites. And the laws were enforced!
Around the same time people discovered Lago di Garda.
The following years, decades maybe, reversed the view: lake Zurich is the cleanest of Europe, Lago di Garda the most polluted.
The way this was measured at my time was to meter the amount of light penetrating to defined depth under the surface of the lake.
That was our time.
What will 'civilization' do to make such differences too small to report?
You inherit the earth. I hope we've learned our lessons and were able to transfer some of our experiences to you.
Just thinking out loud . . .
Love you, Isa
Now, I was prompted to revisit the area on Google earth and I was led to click on an icon that led me to a site called Gardaland, the most popular site of entertainment in Europe. Another Busch Gardens or Dolly Parton Land.
When we were visiting down there, the lake was pronounced the cleanest in Europe. We used to use its waters to cook, wash our dishes at the shore, and bathe, brush our teeth and shave . . . we were only four of us, for a week or so . . .
This was opposed on the other end of the scale by the lake of Zurich, the most polluted of all. In our time, when we lived in that area, lake Zurich's shores were the most populated of all. If it had not been for the signs on the road sides, you would not have known when you left Zurich and got into Rüschlikon and on into Kilchberg and farther into Thalwil etc where we spent our post-war years. All the way up to the upper end of the lake it was just one long stretch of territory densely occupied by man to live and industry to work. You get the picture traveling fro VA-Beach to Norfolk and Chesapeake and on.
Things have turned around. Laws developed and forced each community along the lake of Zurich to build waste management plants and defined the quality of effluent permitted to leave those collection sites. And the laws were enforced!
Around the same time people discovered Lago di Garda.
The following years, decades maybe, reversed the view: lake Zurich is the cleanest of Europe, Lago di Garda the most polluted.
The way this was measured at my time was to meter the amount of light penetrating to defined depth under the surface of the lake.
That was our time.
What will 'civilization' do to make such differences too small to report?
You inherit the earth. I hope we've learned our lessons and were able to transfer some of our experiences to you.
Just thinking out loud . . .
Love you, Isa
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