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Ken at Ashland Town Clock, Ashland, Massachusetts, 21 July 2012
On my way back home from my Dad’s birthday gathering in Upton where we visited Northbridge, I had a little bit of daylight left and thought that I had enough time to actually visit another town before it got dark. In looking at my route home and figuring out which towns I hadn’t visited yet, I set my sights to go through Hopkinton and visit Ashland.
I managed to find the town center, as it’s not on a numbered route, and found a really cool town clock/sculpture that was in the middle of town. Just as I was about to take my picture with it, the railroad crossing signs started flashing and ringing, and a huge train came through town. You can see it in my picture behind me. It wasn’t a commuter train, but an long haul working train. There was a cool little train station that had been converted to doctor’s offices, so I can image a time when the trains came through and stopped for people. I don’t know if you can still get a commuter train into Boston from here, but I’m pretty sure that somewhere in Ashland the MBTA has a stop.
It was a nice downtown, with a lot of while buildings. Not terribly busy on a lazy summer evening at dusk, but you had your standard pizza shop and municipal buildings. There were kids riding there bikes, and while there was a decent amount of traffic, it didn’t seem that busy. Again, this was a town center that was not on the main route to somewhere else. Next to the library, there was a cannon and a monument to a time capsule that they had buried at the town’s 150th anniversary in 1996. It was to be reopened on the 200th anniversary in 2046.
So, when have you planned for the future that you don’t think you’ll see?
Time Capsule, Ashland, Massachusetts, 21 July 2012
Ken at Whitinsville Social Library, Northbridge, Massachusetts, 21 July 2012
On a beautiful summer’s day, I went over to my brother’s house in Upton to gather for my father’s 80th birthday. It was a very nice day and we went out for ice cream with the family at a local ice cream stand. My nephew, who’s six, really enjoyed it. Now, I got to Upton fairly frequently for family events, and as we were all there and already in the car, I said that it might be nice for us all to go and see the place where my father’s mother was born in the village of Whitinsville, which is not far from there in the town of Northbridge. It was also another opportunity to check off one more town on my list.
I had been to Northbridge before, at another time, and found the address of the house where my grandmother was born and lived as a young girl. Her family had moved to Maynard, Massachusetts (my home town) from Newfoundland around 1890, and her two brother’s were born there, but they moved to Whitinsville just before my grandmother was born, and then moved back to Maynard where she met and married my grandfather.
Whitinsville is the biggest of the many villages of Northbridge, and it’s where most of the town offices are. It’s not on a main route (you have to take the Main Street off Route 146 to get there), so it’s not really on the way to anywhere in particular. The mill there used to be very large and supplied spindles to other mills. It’s another one of the places that used to be quite prosperous when the mills where in full swing, but now is looking to reinvent itself. It’s in the Blackstone Valley National Historic Corridor, and you can see many sites from the start of the Industrial Revolution in the area.
So, have you ever visited where your family came from?
Eating Ice Cream, Upton, Massachusetts, 21 July 2012
Ken at Beach Point Landing, Truro, Massachusetts, 15 July 2012
After the busy hustle and bustle of Provincetown, I wanted to get some exercise and a bike ride in before it got too hot, and as Provincetown is at the end of Cape Cod, the only place to go was to the next town of Truro.
North Truro, actually. Truro is very long and skinny, and it was about a 12 mile round trip to North Truro, and given that this would be the longest I had biked in many years, I didn’t want to over do it. It’s beach are and mostly flat and exposed to the sun, so I didn’t want to burn too badly, so I figured I’d take it easy. There were many cottages and complexes along Route 6A, and I could feel a much different pace from Provincetown. I was thinking that this is the Cape that most people think about when they come here. It’s quiet, non-rushed, and nothing to do but sit on the beach. I stopped at Beach Point and just sat and watched the waves and seagulls. As I’m really working on being more present and to slow down, this was a great practice for me. I’ve found that I need to be in vacation mind more, where there’s nothing much to do, and I don’t feel like I’m on the way to anything. This was where I was then, although I know I had to bike back.
I think that we all need those places where we don’t have to do anything.
So, where do you get vacation mind?
Cottages on Route 6A, Truro, Massachusetts, 15 July 2012
Beach looking toward Provincetown, Truro, Massachusetts, 15 July 2012
A video blog of my trip this summer to Provincetown!
People being themselves on Commercial Street, Provincetown, Massachusetts, 14 July 2012
Ken in Saugus Center Rotary, Saugus, Massachusetts, 3 July 2012
I was on my way up to New Brunswick to do some family research, and because of dentist appointments and other things, I didn’t get to leave until 5 p.m. on the day before the July 4th holiday. As you can imagine, the roads were very crowded with people heading up to New Hampshire and Maine to vacation. I knew that the highways would be a parking lot in the Greater Boston area, so I figured I’d try to go the back roads to get around them. I went through Medford, Melrose, and then finally snaked my way up to Saugus. I’ve passed through there on Route 1, which is another of your typical big box store type highways, but I’d never been to any other part of the town. As I was just driving part of the way to get to my hotel, I wasn’t in a hurry and figured that I’d stop to get a feel what the town is like.
I stopped in the center of Saugus, and had a long conversation with a friend who needed to discuss a family issue. After that, I got out and walked around. In the center of town, there’s a big monument with streets going around every side of it. There are your typical churches and other municiple buildings, in addition to the ubiquitous pizza places and other non-chain store fast food places. It was actually pretty busy as far as traffic, and I don’t know if that is because of the day or if it’s normally like this. It was a beautiful sunny day and the pace seemed to be both busy and laid back at the same time.
I left the center and found my way out to Route 1, which was surprisingly close with the Square One Mall right there. It was back to the hustle of the drive!
So, Where have you found yourself both busy and laid back?
Ken at the Saugus Iron Works Sign, Saugus, Massachusetts, 3 July 2012
Ken at Alford Town Hall, Alford, Massachusetts – 3 June 2012
On the way out of West Stockbridge to get back on the highway, I noticed a sign for West Center Road and Alford Center. I had never even heard of Alford. Since there was a road here, I figured it wasn’t too far off. When I came back after my reunion weekend, I decided to take a side trip to Alford.
It was a little further than I though, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when you’re in that rural area of the state. It was a very pretty area, and it seemed like the type of place that’s a destination, as you wouldn’t go through it to get anywhere else. When I finally got to the center of town, it was just about as quiet as the roads I had been driving. In fact, in the 10 minutes that I hung around and walked the town center, there were only about 5-10 cars that passed through. It’s sort of what my father would call “a wide place in the road”. On one side, there’s the church and the cemetary, and a small building that I think is the town offices. On the other side is a building that houses the library (I think it said that it’s open from Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.) with a function room. There was a sign outside announcing a monthly community pot luck.
Upon looking at the website for the town (and the Wikipedia site), I see that it’s the third smallest town in the Commonwealth in terms of population (with 300 or so people) and only Monroe and Gosnold are smaller). The town has its own police, fire and public works departments, but does not have its own post office, and there isn’t cable service in town. They are right next to some bigger towns (notably Great Barrington) so they can get what they need from working with other municipalities.
So, do you know what skills you don’t posess and where to get them?
Alford Center, Massachusetts – 3 June 2012
Intersection in Alford Center, Massachusetts – 3 June 2012
Ken at Mural, Amesbury, Massachusetts, 26 May 2012
After leaving the cute town square of Merrimac, I continued eastward on Route 110. I managed to have a phone call with a prospective client (I have a hands free phone system in my car, don’t worry!) and managed to follow the signs on Route 150 until I found myself in the “Town of Amesbury“. (I mention this as Amesbury is officially a city, but it is one of about 15 municipalities in the Commonwealth that have city government but wish to be officially called “The Town of”.
I’ve heard of Amesbury before, but have never had the occasion to visit, and was pleasantly surprised. It has a nice center with your standard New England style white churches, but it doesn’t have a common, but a downtown intersection. Upon walking around, I could see that Amesbury was also proud to be a carriage manufacturing town (which shouldn’t surprise me as Merrimac was a part of Amesbury before becoming its own town.) There were murals of some of its famous ciitzens (Abolitionist and author John Greenleaf Whittier and Cartoonist Al Capp), and they had a really cool reconstructed mill complex with an amphitheater next to the Powwow River. It wasn’t really busy, but not many towns were very busy on this Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.
I was getting hungry, and as a vegetarian celiac looking for food to buy, I’m a little leary of getting glutenized by contaminated food. I managed to find the Maggie Sundae Ice Cream Parlor next to Amesbury Town Hall, and got a really good blackberry chocolate chip frozen yogurt. Highly recommended.
Ken with ice cream at Amesbury Town Hall, Amesbury,Massachusetts, 26 May 2012
Powwow River Falls, Amesbury, Massachusetts, 26 May 2012
It was a beautiful sunny day, and I just tried to take it all in. It was to be a big change from the calmness of Amesbury to my next destination of Salisbury.
Al Capp Amphitheather, Amesbury, Massachusetts, 26 May 2012
So, what is it you’ve found special joy in lately?
Ken in front of Merrimac Town Hall, Merrimac, Massachusetts, 26 May 2012
In my further adventures of the Meditate Mass 351 Challenge, after visiting Newbury and West Newbury, I set off to visit the third of the six towns I planned on visiting on this day. I crossed over the Merrimack River and soon found myself in the town of Merrimac (I don’t know where the “k” went between the naming of the town and the river!)
What I was most surprised about was that when I came into the town center, almost all the buildings were brick and at least four stories tall. Whereas most towns have a town common or a rotary or something in the middle, this was sort of an open square where cars from four different roads all raced through. It was a quiet Saturday afternoon, so there wasn’t much happening here. There was a bank and a pizza shop (there always seems to be one in every town!) as well as a couple convenience stores. On walking around town, I found out that Merrimac was known for carriage making in its early history, but for the most part manufacturing died out here when most factories moved to the South and Midwest somewhere around the late 1800′s. Since then, the town has gone from agricultural to a bedroom community.
I walked around a few streets in the center trying to drink in the essence if the place (hence the meditation part if what I’m trying to do here!) and I ran into a pottery shop in a side street. I thought that this is like the small scale manufacturing that used to be here. People were craftsmen (trying to think of the non-sexist way to say this here, but failing!) back then, and it seems that in many ways those that remain still are.
After this brief stop, I was on to Amesbury.
Buildings in Town Square, Merrimac, Massachusetts – 26 May 2012
So, where have you found remnants of former glory still living today?
Ken at Post Office, West Newbury, Massachusetts – 26 May 2012
After visiting Newbury, I decided to head west into West Newbury as the next on the marathon of towns that I would visit before I headed up the New Hampshire coast. After leaving Newbury, I used my handy map feature on my iPhone to find the back roads to make my way to West Newbury Center. It a pretty rural area and I found myself soon driving through the Crane Pond Wildlife Management Area, and I was delightfully surprised that there was a section of the road that was unpaved. It certainly wasn’t that they couldn’t afford to pave it, but that it would help the ecology of the marshland. I liked it!
Houses on Route 113, West Newbury, Massachusetts, 26 May 2012
Upon finally reaching the center at Route 113, I stopped and got out to take a walk. Whereas Byfield felt more like an out of the way village, West Newbury was a wide place in the road. There were a lot of really nice houses in the colonial style, and a few other business such as a gift shop, a barber shop, and a pizza place but for the most part it was just a more filled in part of the rest of the road. From what I’ve read and what I experienced, the people of West Newbury have been trying to keep the town from being too built up, and that they way they like it. There are other bigger towns (notably Newburyport) in the area, and they didn’t have a need to make it more that it is.
I saw people working on their houses and gardens, but there wasn’t a lot of foot traffic!
It was a nice stop, but I had more places to visit. Onto Merrimac.
So, when do you know when to accept things as they are?
Ken in Byfield village, Newbury, Massachusetts, 26 May 2012
I was hoping to go to New York City for Memorial Day weekend, but as I had been hit with this terrible spring flu that was going around, I decided that I better not do anything too strenuous and stay at home for the weekend. That being said, I didn’t want to just stay in the house the whole time, so I decided to think of places that weren’t too far away that I’ve never been to and wanted to experience. What came to mind was that I had never driven up the New Hampshire Seacoast (it’s only 18 miles!) so I figured that I’d also try to hit a whole bunch of towns off the Meditate Mass 351 Challenge while I was up in that area. It was a beautiful warm late spring (more like early Summer) day, so I thought that I could visit a whole bunch of towns in the northeastern corner of Massachusetts, as I don’t make it up there too often. This would be a marathon day, as I had plans to make it to six (yes six!) different towns. I packed my lunch and headed up I-95 and got off at Newbury.
While that’s technically true, I actually got off the exit for the village of Byfield. Newbury was one of the first towns in the area, and many of the more populated parts of it broke off and became other towns (such as Newburyport and West Newbury), so Newbury is really a bunch of small villages without a discernable center. I was there before in Byfield a number of years ago when the New England Sacred Harp Singing Convention was held there in 2009, and I stopped at the same venue this time. Byfield is basically an intersection with some official building (post office, churches, a few stores, etc.) but it’s really pretty quiet. It’s only 1/4 mile off the highway, but it’s not on a numbered route and it’s not on the route to any major destination.
After staying for a bit, I looked at my map and started heading off to West Newbury.
So, when have you been in a quiet place just around the corner from a busy place?
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