Today in the CBO
Settlements Today
by Nat Wright-Kowalski
20 October 2301 - Walden Pond
It is a lazy Sunday morning stroll around the pond. I stand outside the Thoreau House, in which I rented for the evening for a hefty 500 caps. It is the tourist attraction of the Walden Pond settlement. Well, it was; now baseball brings in additional jobs and funds.
The light fog, or "strange smoke" as the locals call it, serves as a blanket over the serene part of the Commonwealth. We can feel the history of this natural place, yet the hope of a future where we can return to places like this one without the fear of the brutal wastes. I am standing looking down on the pond. While it is serene, there are several water pumps in the lake. It was once another of the many irradiated no-go zones of the Commonwealth, but serious efforts to clean it up to make the water filters provide some of the purest water in the area.
Just to my west stands the Gift Shop. It is not full of merchandise, but the settlers here have been producing some merchandise to match it. While the original transcendentalist texts of the tourist attraction are not here, the Boston Public Library did provide me with some reading materials before coming. For now, the only real history indicator at Walden Pond is General Atomics still functioning robotic audio tour boxes. For the complete history, keep reading.
“Hello, and welcome to Walden Pond,” the box beeps. “You are now standing in front of the cabin inhabited by transcendentalist writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau starting in the summer of 1845. For two years, two months, and two days, Thoreau lived in this cabin, hoping to gain a more objective understanding of society. This experiment was influenced by Thoreau's interest in transcendentalist philosophy, which believed that people were at their best when truly self-reliant. By living off the land with few material possessions, Thoreau proved it skeptical to think that any outward improvement of life could bring inner peace and contentment.” It then goes on to advertise merchandise in the Gift Shop and gives General Atomics credit for the tour. For an additional fee, Buddy Goodwater at the Gift Shop will give you a walking tour with more information about Thoreau’s time at the cabin.
The Thoreau House as they call it is a humble abode. The small cabin has a comfortable bed, a table with a chair, a desk with another chair, and a fireplace. Right now, the Goodwaters are preparing breakfast as part of the experience: scrambled mirelurk eggs, roasted tatos, and bourbon-baked cram.
I look out west in the general direction of the somewhat larger Sunshine Tidings settlement lies several miles away. In that direction, I see where the Walden Pond settlers have made their tiny town. There are several rows of wooden and metal shacks as well as the chain-linked field for the Walden Pond poets.
I head out to The Field of Walden where the coaching staff—manager Lou Churchman, PC Kevin Hollow, and HC Money Caceres—are doing some general maintenance. They are happy to see me out there and show where they have improved the stadium. They explain that they love the peacefulness of the area where the baseball players can concentrate only on the game. While no players are at the field this early in the morning, Churchman tells me that several players are spending their offseason at Walden Pond to get in extra work. He tells me that all of the youngest players stayed, except for one of the rookies (not named) that wanted to return to work on his parents’ homestead for the winter. A quick check tells me that player is SP Joe Broomstick, a 4th-round pick of the Nordhagen Beach Party Boys, the Poets’ parent team. Otherwise, all of the other rookies stayed. Churchman points out players like RF Snake Walton and SP Cory Clone, the Boy’s 8th and 9th-round picks, who were making huge strides already.
After my tour of the baseball facility, I head back to Thoreau House where my steaming breakfast is waiting for me on the table. I dig in with a glass of ice-cold brahmin milk from Sunshine Tidings Co-op and write down my notes. I think what it must have been like in the 1840s when Thoreau sat down here to compose his
Walden; or, Life in the Woods book. The Boston Public Library had a copy intact, and I read it before coming, trying to see the pond through Thoreau’s eyes. I check the notes that I scribbled when visiting the library.
Some of the lines of poetry I try to live in this experience. Of course, it is all relative. Thoreau was in solitude. I am in a tourist attraction of a settlement of people living their lives. Slowly, quietly, but populated.
"I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."
"I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well."
"Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify."
"I have a room all to myself; it is Nature."
"I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
“An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day."
I think of my apartment in Hangman’s Alley in the new portion of Diamond City. It is urban and loud and bright. There are people available to fulfill my every need. Just like the hot (and delicious!) breakfast that I am consuming, my needs are met without self-sufficiency. Life in the wastes is sometimes awful and almost always dangerous. Yet, as a person who grew up in Diamond City, I realize that my life has been set for me. Out here, for the people of Walden Pond, they are making their own life. Like Thoreau writes, "All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself." I believe that to be true at this moment. In two hours, I must check out and return to Diamond City where I will publish this article for BNN. I will rejoin the steel and concrete of my reality, but I will forever remember this experience, this closeness to nature.
And I will return.
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