My Town: Salem, Connecticut

Caleb Mardini posted a suggestion that we blog about our own towns, and I think it's a great idea!

Salem is in southeastern CT, just north of East Lyme, next to East Haddam on the west and Montville and Norwich on the east and south.  With 29 square miles, it's still got a rural character to it, even though it's only about half an hour to the state capital of Hartford, and less than that to New London and Groton, where the naval submarine base is.

With a population of about 4000 people and 1300 + residences, we're pretty small, but that's one of the things I love about living here.  If you like volunteering (and I do), this is a great place to get involved, because a small town like Salem lives and dies on their volunteers.  Sounds dramatic, but it's true!  We have a great story developing here right now, about the soccer fields.  What would have cost the taxpayers a lot of money, isn't going to cost much at all.  Why?  Because parents got involved and raised money and did a lot of work themselves, and now we're going to have soccer fields without having to add much to the budget because of our volunteers.  That's the power of small towns, really, and why I love living here.  Too many cooks really do spoil the pot.

Most of Salem is two-acre zoning, though there are a couple of neighborhoods like mine that have one-acre parcels.  Either way, there's lots of trees and like the typical New Englanders so many of us are here, we appreciate having the privacy of our own properties, and the choice to socialize or not because of all the space we have.  It's not that we're "cold" - not at all, in fact.  It's that we respect each other's privacy, and don't like to pry into each other's business, but are more than happy to help if needed to.  Too many people don't get that about the Northeast, I think.  I was brought up further south in the state, but with the understanding that it was rude to ask about other people's business - if they want you to know something, they'll tell you.  Here in Salem, I've made friends very quickly, partly because we keep running into each other all the time!  You know how it is - hold a town meeting, and the same core 25 people show up. 

We have a single school for grades K - 8, then the kids go to the neighboring town (East Lyme) for high school.  There's a highway that was started about 30 years ago - Route 11 - that was supposed to connect Hartford with Interstate 95, and it got as far as the northern end of Salem, and then stopped.  We need that road desperately, in my opinion, and many Salemites agree.  It's a big issue around here, and I hope it gets built - it's on the schedule but is still awaiting final approval. 

Salem is a great place to bring up kids, become part of a community, and feel like you're "home" pretty quickly.  That's worth a lot to most families, and I'm happy to say we have some pretty nice families in town.