Thoughts for the waning moon

Once upon a time a man who spent most of his life looking at the night sky decided he'd build something really special to honor his friend the moon.

His neighbors didn't want him too. After all, he was building on valuable farmland and what he was building didn't conform to their ideas of the local character. They liked things to be like barns and made of wood. This was going to be made of stone. They liked cows and fluffy sheep to be in the field, and this didn't plan for either. Also no one could figure out from the plans the style of it at all. Would it be rustic like their homes or whatever this was - post-modern-apocalyptic? The style didn't matter for, as Mrs. Saxon said, it was just plain Plain Ugly. The people complained and tore out their hair in protest.

The starry eyed man nodded and pretended to listen to the people, but secretly thought they were fools. He told them he'd make it smaller and they wouldn't even notice it. It would fit into their local landscape quite nicely.

And some of the people were foolish and trusted him and never asked for details.  They liked the pretty colors on his map, so they told him yes, he could build it. 

But then midway through constructions as the stones rose high into the sky from the fields, they had some doubts about his intentions.

What exactly is this strange building for? What kind of people would come? What would happen to traffic? Would there be enough water?  Is this what we want in the neighborhood?  They went to the Planning Board to try to stop it.

But the Planning Board just shook their heads and told them it was too late to protest. Details of the 'local character' weren't written in stone anywhere, and besides ground had been broken already. 

The day of the opening ceremony the farmers saw what was built.

It was huge. There were donkey jams everywhere as people drove from far and near to gawk at the new structure.  Strange people in white robes swarmed across the landscape. At least one member of the Walton clan was seen lurking around the edges.

To this day on the full moon in every pub in faraway England the controversy continues.  Was this the work of a Man of Vision or a monumental Planning Failure?


Moral:  Any strange thing can be built in a community with no clearly defined or enforceable character and/or a druidistical building code.



The Stafford Character is not yet defined and so can't be used as a guide or conversation for new construction. Should that be part of our current discussions?