SEYMOUR — On first look, the guy in the shorts, sneakers and T-shirt leaning against the bar at Train Station Pizza could have been just another diner, joining the four others among the late-lunch crowd.
But U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy was visiting downtown in the middle of his 10th annual walk across the state, a listening tour at 20 miles a day that travels through Connecticut cities, suburbs and woods. This year his trek went from Colebrook to Bridgeport in four days.
One of the barstool celebrants, not recognizing the man with the gray flecks in his beard and the Williams College baseball cap, suggested that he join them.
In the oldest tradition of retail politics, the state's 53-year-old junior senator, blowing his cover introduced himself.
"I take a week every year to walk across the state going from one end of the state to another," he told them.
More For You
"Good for you, sir," exclaimed one of the patrons. The young female bartender, beaming, then turned to the kitchen window to grab the next pizza from the back. Murphy confided that 20 miles a day is about the maximum, what with advancing age and the titanium screw in his knee.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
"You know, I represent you in Washington," he told the group. "I should be out here meeting people where they are instead of waiting for them to call me."
Asked what the patrons were interested in, the consensus was the reckless, out-of-control motorists on nearby Route 8.
Murphy said that when he talks with school groups near his home in the South End of Hartford, the middle school students say the same thing.
"They do talk about gun violence but the first thing they talk about is the driving," Murphy said. "I think it's like part of a broader, kind of breakdown in civility a little bit. We don't treat each other as well as we used to and part of that is the way we drive because we're not looking out for other people. I think that's a big part of the story."
He passed around his U.S. Senate business cards.
From the back, wearing an apron, emerged Dino Bomova, whose son Ljuzime owns the place. A 37-year resident from Albania, he talked international politics with Murphy for a little while. Bomova appreciated the gesture of a well-known national figure asking regular people what interests and concerns them.
"He asked, 'Do we struggle?' You know," Bomova said.
CT Insider had just caught up to Murphy, around the corner in the Agave diner on Columbus Street, where the senator fueled up on lunch after a roundabout morning that started in Waterbury, then he wound his way through the state forest toward Beacon Falls and Seymour.
Down the block, between the guitar store and the gun shop, the marquee at the Strand Theater announced the upcoming Sept. 19 screening of "Pretty in Pink," the 1985 John Hughes take on high school class warfare and romance. Across from the theater, the Seymour train platform was behind a chain link fence as workers prepared the site for massive renovations that recently shut down the Waterbury train line to passengers for a 10-month project until about next April.
Murphy talked collector buttons — and rent — with Lynne Ladd, the proprietor of Flasbacks antique shop. In recent years, since the pandemic, soaring commercial and residential rents are a major impediment for state residents, Murphy said.
"That's basically what I've been talking about the whole walk," he said, continuing the sojourn down Main Street. "In Winsted and Torrington, those residential rents are through the roof. And vacancy rates are so low and it's driving people crazy."
He said the issue of housing scarcity has become a bigger issue every year he's done the walk.
"Very few people talked to me about it when I started the walk 10 years ago and now everybody talks to me about it," Murphy said.
Next stop was DR Cards & Gaming, where as a parent of young teens, Murphy gave the overview of his annual tours and admitted to Albert Abrams, behind the counter, that it's hard to get children off their phones. Twice a week, the shop sponsors in-store gaming events.
"One of the things I try to highlight is people bringing people together, right? In places where people gather," Murphy said to Abrams, handing out a couple more business cards.
Asked about other issues that have surfaced during his slow-moving survey, Murphy said that unlike some of the protests in Connecticut cities against U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he's encountered supporters of the seizures and deportations.
"Listen, I think there are people that have become convinced that immigrants are a safety threat and they listen to Fox News and they listen to Donald Trump and they believe that if there are immigrants in their community they are not safe," Murphy said. "Now that's a lie. That's fundamentally false, but there are people that believe that."
He said it's not the majority belief in the state but it's "not an infrequent sentiment" in places he's visited on the walk, like like Torrington and Winsted.
Soaring gasoline prices, he said, are not as big a focus on rent among constituents.
"I think people are very sensitive to overall prices right now," Murphy said. "People are just hitting their limits. I ran into a guy in Winsted who was working, but living out of his car because his rent became literally unaffordable. The owner of a diner in that town, part of Winchester, admitted to Murphy he's doing half the business compared to five years ago because rising rents have forced customers to stop eating breakfast out.
On civil liberties, Murphy related an event from the morning, in Beacon Falls, where business owners put up an electronic billboard warning passersby of a controversial Flock camera around the corner.
"I went in to talk to these guys, who are clearly Trump guys who own this auto repair shop, but they are furious about the surveillance state," Murphy said. "I've heard more about the conversation about technology, whether it's the Flock cameras or AI or data centers that it's no longer underground. It is very much on the surface. Beacon Falls has started to have some conversations around a data center but it almost feels like the town leaders are afraid to even mention it because they know it'll be shouted down."
Then it was down the little hill, underneath the train trestle, up past a surveying crew. The sidewalk disappeared on South Main Street, paralleling Route 8 on the other side of the Naugatuck River. He had miles to go before Ansonia, then Shelton.