Amherst College Museum

Hadley had a big parade this weekend for its 350th birthday. Amherst writer Mary Carey took this video of a truck called the Hatfield Hellion doing tricks in the middle of Route Nine.

 

The Challenger

Mike Franco sends along this photo of Northampton's Dr. Jay Fleitman speaking at a Flag Day event in Belchertown. Fleitman is challenging incumbent Congressman Richard Neal in 2010. 

By all accounts the good Doctor came across as very impressive. 

Land of the Lost

Yesterday I was cutting across Amherst College when I noticed some filming going on of some kids dressed as detectives. 

Of course I had to check it out. Turns out they were PBS cameramen filming for a future episode of Fetch! Here's the cartoon host and the actors.

I'm completely out of touch with kid-TV, but I'm told there are young fans who would kill to meet these child stars, whose names I don't even know.

The filming was going on in front of Amherst College's new Natural History Museum. Since it was open and free of charge, I decided to pop in, although I've visited many times including back when it was in its funky old location. It's full of ancient bones of extinct creatures.

Good grief, this place has more skeletons than a politician's closet.

With skulls the size of Volkswagons, Tyranasaurus Rex and a Triceratops are displayed side by side.

In real life the only way those two monsters would have gotten that close together was if they were engaged in a battle to the death.

The real gems of the collection however, are these dinosaur tracks discovered right here in the Pioneer Valley, most of them in the Hadley area. How strange to think that dinosaurs once walked where humans now roam through malls.

Those footprints are the oldest known artifacts of local history. If you are a Pioneer Valley history buff, that room is the holy grail of antiquity - you can't go back any further.

Here is a giant painting of our Valley with a display of the various types of stones to be found beneath our feet.

 



Nostalgic Visit

Darth Vader guards the porch of this Fearing Street partyhouse in Amherst.

Nearby is this house where I attended a few parties when I was a UMass student. I think it was a frathouse in my day. 

Anyway, a friend of mine has the job of cleaning it out now that the students have left for the summer, and he let me come in for a few minutes and poke around. I was pleased to see that it hasn't changed much, and the old antique fireplace is still more or less intact. 

Some of the students moved out leaving their wall posters behind, as you can see from this photo of a UMass party animal, now retired.

Springfield Dead

Someone sent me this pic of drummer Bill Kreutzmann mixing with the crowd before a Grateful Dead concert in Springfield. 

Today's Video

Amherst's Dinosaur Jr. has a new album coming out June 23 called "Farm." Here's the video of the first single, and it sounds like it has real hit potential. It's a song telling you to do whatever you want to do no matter how old you are and to ignore the evil assholes who tell you to conform to the so-called "proper" ways to behave. Greg Saulmon dug up this quote from the video's director: "At what point are you supposed to be over doing stuff that you enjoy-- like skating or playing ear-splitting music -- just because society says it's uncool to do it? My answer: Never."

A tune after my own heart.

 The best sermons are lived, not preached.