If there’s any place in this great country of ours that has always captured my heart it’s the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Way back in the early ’60s a co-worker told me about her family’s frequent trips to Kitty Hawk.

She described a sparsely populated nature lover’s paradise with an uncrowded beach where one could see dolphins frolicking close to shore and wild ponies running free.

Her wildlife photos captivated me so much that I started saving to take my family there for our summer vacation.

Actually it was far more affordable to stay for a week in a small cottage on that beach than it was to stay in a hotel for a weekend.

I believe at the time there were only two restaurants in Kitty Hawk but I’m not sure because we mostly cooked in. That meant buying fresh crab and seafood from a little shack in the next town.

The world had not yet discovered the joys of simple living on the Outer Banks. There were no amusement parks and no special attractions other than the high dunes marking the place of the Wright Brothers flight.

But who cared? We were content to stay on beach or enjoy the sound. We just inhaled deeply and enjoyed the glories of nature at its finest.

I got to know everyone on the beach because there were so few of us. Mostly everyone except us seemed to be from the South.

Does this sound like the Outer Banks of today when bumper to bumper traffic creeps along for miles and crowds are everywhere?

We loved it so much we went back every single year for 21 consecutive years. I thought it was worth working hard all year so we could enjoy two weeks in the Outer Banks.

Each year we went back we saw firsthand how the place was growing. Instead of being an undiscovered piece of paradise, cars all over the country displayed Outer Banks bumper stickers.

Some locals fretted about what was happening to their once quiet community.

Each morning I started the day walking to the small general store for newspapers and fresh doughnuts.

And each day the owner treated me with absolute contempt. She was vocal about being upset with her version of “foreigners” that were taking over her town.

She often said in my hearing, “Why don’t they stay home where there belong?”

I started driving to another store further away just to avoid her unpleasantness.

But I never forgot that store owner. She made a permanent impression and influences me to this day.

I think about her occasionally when I’m tempted to grumble about the traffic and crowded places from excessive growth going on all around me.

When it was time to retire I didn’t go to the Outer Banks as I had planned to for decades.

I didn’t want to live in a place with heavy traffic and crowds everywhere.

Instead I moved to Florida to a sleepy little fishing village named Englewood. My Realtor first took me to better known communities she said had more to offer. They did have more to offer, along with more traffic, more concrete and more parking lots.

When friends Franck and Jan first drove me to Englewood, on the way there we passed rural pastures then were treated to several wild piglets playing on the side of the road. Big sandhill cranes and colorful blue herons completed the pleasing picture.

Engelwood itself had a nice uncrowded beach along with plenty of tranquil water views in the community.

While the commercial fishermen had disappeared over the decades, the waterways have the pleasing sight of sailboats and people having fun on the water.

The Realtor took me to Rotonda West where I found just what I was looking for. That was 18 years ago and I have yet to stop saying thank you for the caring community and the surprise gift of my own swimming pool.

Best yet, it was an affordable place to live without much traffic. If there were five cars waiting at a traffic light I joked by calling it a traffic jam.

On two different occasions when friends came to visit they liked what they saw so much that each of them bought a home here before they left.

Now, multiply that by many thousands of new folks each year and you’ll see why we are one of fastest growing areas in the country.

According to our Realtor’s Association, many vacationers quickly turn into homeowners. I can understand that because we are still one of the rare places where someone can buy waterfront property at affordable prices.

We warmly welcome newcomers, just as we were warmly welcomed.

What we don’t welcome are the developers cramming in more high-rises and 10-story hotels that hide our water view. Our former views of sky and water are being replaced with ugly concrete. One building complex alone is adding 897 apartments and condos.

All around us, the concrete keeps growing.

In my head I keep hearing the lyrics to songs by Joni Mitchell:

“They paved Paradise. And put up a parking lot.”

While growth might be inevitable, why can’t it be responsible growth?

And why can’t that growth come without changing the character of the area?

Is there any acceptable answer to the question: When is growth too much?

Contact Pattie Mihalik at newsgirl@comcast.net