26 September—As America is being driven deeper and deeper into tyranny by a self-dealing, crazed, unstable dicktator and his unprincipled self-serving flunkies, Litchfield is facing a two-pronged invasion of undocumented intruders thanks to newspapers in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Just last week a puff piece by Allison Tibaldi in USA Today touted Litchfield as one of the “10 New England towns that glow with fall foliage magic.” Allison rated what’s really Litchfield County at number eight for leaf peeping, between Lenox, Massachusetts, and—wait for it—Hartford. At least leaf peepers clog Litchfield’s roads and parking spaces only for a week or two in the autumn. A small mercy, to be sure.

But in a 2 September enthusiastically pretentious destination story in what’s known in the United States as The Times of London, Megan Agnew, a Rotten Apple-based “senior features writer” (i.e., fluff specialist), had the gall to call Litchfield “the in-the-know alternative to the Hamptons.”

Megan’s not the first, though. About a half century ago, if my senescent memory serves, The Times of New York reported the selfsame Hamptons-Litchfield relationship with American spelling and rather less self-conscious enthusiasm.

Sadly, it’s fluff like that that attracts tourists and tourists screw up my town. Year-round, no respite, no surcease. The mostly high-end hoteliers, restaurateurs, and shmatte and tchotchke vendors certainly love tourists and may even depend on them for survival. But most Litchfielders eschew the intruders.

Resident weekenders are wonderful; they pay local taxes and patronize local businesses and—most important—don’t send their kids to local schools. But Litchfield would be better off without tourists. So Litchfield should not be a tourist destination. Ever.

It appears that Megan and her friend Meredith took a train from Grand Central Terminal (which she mistakenly and typically calls Grand Central Station) to Wassaic, New York, and thence a taxi for £75 ($100) over about 30 miles to the £370 ($500)-a-night hostelry (whose name she drops, among several other trendy and costly establishments) in Litchfield.

Wassaic, as if it matters, is a minuscule hamlet (population just over 200) in Amenia, just across the state line from Sharon, and is home to the northernmost station on Metro-North’s notorious Harlem Line. So it’s really a terminal, just like Grand Central, but smaller. Well, not quite; Wassaic (terminal) Station was moved out of the dorp 25 years ago. But it’s still called Wassaic Station.

Like Megan and Meredith, George Washington and his troops passed through Wassaic on their way to Connecticut.

Naturally, Megan enthused at the “stylish” hostelries and eateries in what she called “the market town, with its wide promenade and perfect [she means expensive] shops . . . [and] wooden signs and gas-style street lamps.” “It’s so quaint,” she gushed, “that you can hardly believe it’s real.” She lives in the Rotten Apple, after all. But where the hell did she find a wide promenade in Litchfield?

In all events, in her fluffy enthusiasm Megan Agnew probably failed to notice the historically inappropriate old aluminum muntinless storm windows on the town office building. But if she ever visits Litchfield again . . .