One especially interesting natural phenomenon was an insect that the locals called harvester ants. You spotted their nests – generally only a single hole drilled into the hard, pinkish dried clay ground – by a circle about six feet in diameter around the hole, absolutely stripped of vegetation. The ants, almost exclusively seedeaters, carried their provender from the dry grass across the barren circle and disappeared down the hole. Other ants popped out from it and set off in search of more.

I discovered the ants’ most fascinating feature one day when I stood just within the circle. I wore an old pair of cheap work boots that had come apart between the welt and the upper, leaving an opening about three inches long. I didn’t wear socks in my work boots in those days. As I stood there, I suddenly felt an amazing stab of pain in my foot beside the rent in my boot. Than another. I ran as fast as I could to the nearby pickup, sat on the tailgate, and pulled my boot off. Two ants were still attached to my little toe. The rancher, El Maestro to the Mexicans, was clearly amused; the Mexicans were practically doubled over in laughter. It was an unforgettable lesson; I remember it well seventy years later. My mother used to recite a little jingle to go with it: Here’s a bit of sound advice for those who like to roam: Don’t sit on an anthill when all the ants are home.

All of which may seem utterly malapropos here in New England all these decades later. But in the last couple of years, thanks to the revival of an old friendship, I’ve been driving fairly often to the northern suburbs of Boston, and gave thought as I do of that barren circle around the hole of the fiery insects below.

Leaving the bosky environs of the Green Mountain State, I travel from the wooded hillsides and valleys to the opening vistas of New Hampshire. Approaching the city of Concord, the traffic thickens and the roadsides begin to lose their natural beauty. We turn south there on I-93, and any attempt to preserve it disappears. The “visitors’ center,” liquor store, washrooms, and gas pumps are convenient, as is the E-ZPass just beyond. Soon after, the interchanges Lowell, Lawrence, and I-495 add their excitement, and the metroplex has begun. Hang on! And don’t stand on antholes!

This is not to knock cities. They’re essential to our life style. There aren’t many museums of fine arts in the boondocks, or distinguished universities, or Fenway Park. But my life has been a slow progression from capital-district Albany to the green edges of Syracuse (green no more today) to small villages to (finally, I think) the second-smallest state by population. It was the only one to favor Nikki Haley over Donald Trump in the Republican primary; the least religious, according to polls, and yet one of the politest in public behavior; and the only one that I know of in which you can cross a downtown street on foot without peril to your life. Boston has its charms (including the fact that, as in Texas, I’m in love again), but they pall somewhat in the never-ending rush to be first to the next traffic light.

Manhattan has its Central Park and Boston its Emerald Necklace. But everywhere I look in either city, the earth has been paved over, built upon, and honeycombed with utility infrastructure. And the problem – which it is – is metastasizing. James Kunstler, in his excellent book The Geography of Nowhere, described it thirty years ago. The cities’ inevitable sprawl has led to lethal interactions with forest fires, black bear, deer, and the deep sense of wonder that rises from a oneness with nature. That oneness is now threatened by the hordes escaping the cities to national parks, the mountains (where you often can’t park within half a mile of a trailhead), and the seashore. I may still walk past the antholes in the middle of barren ground, but I just can’t stop there long anymore. Even in shoes without leaky seams.