Enchantment

If you name something The Enchanted Trail Boardwalk, it had better be freaking enchanting. That's what I was thinking as I searched for the entrance to this Bethel Land Trust property. When I found it, I knew the experience could go either way. Enchantment was hiding, apparently, beyond the shrubbery next to a barely noticeable unpaved pull-off beside Walnut Hill Road. I found a sign with an arrow pointing into the woods and I slipped between the trees, eager to see whether this 1/4 mile segment of the longer Enchanted Trail lived up to its fairy-tale name.

What I found was a surprising landscape of ferns, bamboo-like stalks, and twisted trees. It wasn't the prettiest path, or the most interesting, nor did it have the best views. But as I made my way along the slightly tilting walkway between walls of dense foliage that seemed to be slowly encroaching on me from both sides, I felt like I was in a totally new and strange environment. Connecticut's familiar salt marshes, imposing gneiss outcrops, and peaceful forests seemed very far away.

When I came to the boardwalk's end, the trail narrowed and the leaves closed in. It would, perhaps, have been possible to continue on if I was really determined (and had a machete on me.) But I had seen the boardwalk as I'd planned, and I wasn't really dressed for bushwhacking, so I turned and walked back the way I came till I emerged from the jungle to the roadside where my car was parked.

So is this boardwalk enchanting? I'm still not really sure. Some would find it overgrown and too short to be worth the effort anyway. But it is unusual, and unexpected, and unlike any other nature walk I've seen in Connecticut. And because it's basically concealed behind some bushes as if someone doesn't want you to know it's there, if you go, you'll probably get it all to yourself.

Wags and Eccentricities

Once, when I was a teenager, I went to see a movie at Bethel's little indy theatre. I don't remember what movie was so important that we had to drive all the way (all the way = 35 minutes) to Bethel, or why a movie would be playing in Bethel but not anywhere in lower Fairfield County. Maybe it wasn't about the movie at all, maybe it was just boredom. Probably it was that.

I do remember Bethel seemed very rural, and everyone there had swivel-y heads. That's not some freaky thing like the Melon Heads, it's just when you go to a place and it's as if you have a sticker on your face that says NOT FROM HERE and everybody's head spins around so they can stare. Did Westport kids really look that different from Bethel kids? I can't imagine we did, but we were marked as "other" somehow, and Bethel's residents looked at us like owls look at at sounds in the trees behind them.

These days, Bethel doesn't seem all that rural, and when I walked down the main street recently no one seemed to care.

Bethel, of course, is the birthplace of P.T. Barnum. He's more associated with Bridgeport today, but Bethel has a small green called P.T. Barnum Square, as well as this statue. A plaque on the base reads:

"I was born and reared in an atmosphere of merriment. My natural bias was developed and strengthened by the associations of my youth; and I feel myself entitled to record the sayings and doings of the wags and eccentricities of Bethel because they partly explain the causes which have made me what I am."

Maybe they stared at us, all those years ago, because they were wags, and one of their eccentricities was to swivel their heads at strangers.