Shokan NY to Littleton, MA
Feels like coming home, just to say MA, although we’ve been Floridians for 25 years. I guess you never really leave home. Perhaps they don’t call her MA for anything. Looking forward to the Minuteman Park in Littleton, because it’s charming, woodsy, a lot like camp, and I love the names: Revolutionary Ridge, Flintlock Road, Redcoat Lane, Minuteman Road, Tricorn Avenue and Musket Path. It’s quiet, very clean, heavily wooded, and so courteous to its patrons.
As we drive along and see work areas, I notice that here in MA there is lots of equipment and very few workers; in other states, I noticed very little equipment and lots of workers. Perhaps it’s only that I think MA does so many things well. We had our first daytime rain, not much more than a drizzle, but it did clean the windshields since the window washer spritzer is not working. Our baby, our RV, is asking for more attention.
We pass Lenox and I am reminded of our trip to Tanglewood when I was 16 and my oldest sister Mimi was 22. She took me there for a weekend where we met two brothers, our ages, and had a wonderful time together. Driving through the Berkshire Mountains is glorious, so lovely and so uncongested. Traffic moves smoothly, even on these mountainous roads and once again I marvel at Allie’s consistently good driving. If someone is lallygagging along he does tend to get a bit vexed, but as soon as there is an opening, he’s off to the next lane and all is well again. “She’s history,” I say. or preferably, “He’s history.”
We pass the sign to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, but much as we love the Celtics, we’d rather be tucked into our campground and have lunch and a nap. We pass Worcester with a shoutout to Judy and Bernie, and a shoutout to all my relatives, my mother’s brothers, who landed here just off the boat from Russia in the early twenties (1920’s, that is). Had they been friendly to one another, rather than antagonistic, they could have owned Worcester. But then…
And speaking of technology, a sign reassures us that even if we have “No transponder? No problem. We’ll just bill you.”
We wonder what they’re talking about and find out when we exit—no ticket takers, no tickets, no people, no jobs, just a magic eye taking pictures of our license plate which they will magically convert into an address and send us a bill. Wow!
Hopkinton and the beginning of the famous Boston Marathon. We watched it every year from the front window of our apartment on Beacon Street, leaning over the sewing machines and cheering. My mother’s favorites were the stragglers who came limping by at the end. She’d open the window and shout encouragement and clap.
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