The Twister of 2011

 

All was calm reflection when I crossed the mighty Connecticut today at dawn.

That was certainly not the case when a twister blew through the Valley. Springfield's South End really suffered a lot of damage, as captured in this S.P. Sullivan photo.

At least the damage was natural, rather than political. Nothing in nature ever devastated the South End like the idiotic decision to build the highway on the Springfield side of the river - where it wiped out a huge section of the neighborhood, destroyed the Barney Estate and isolated the city from the riverfront. This was done instead of building the highway on the other side of the river, where there was mostly just woods. But then the politicians and their friends would not have been able to make a lot of money on the dirty real estate deals surrounding the land takings for the road.

I was in Amherst during the storm, where the sky got really dark and it poured rain like crazy, but we never saw the heavy winds up here like they did in the South Valley. In fact before the storm it was an unusually warm spring day, as evidenced by this thermometer on the Greenfield Savings Bank.

I was in Greenfield with my friend Damon who was doing his civic duty by paying his parking fine at the Franklin County Courthouse. 

Only it turns out you don't pay parking fines at the courthouse, instead you have to go to City Hall. Inside is this wall painting of the pilgrims discovering Greenfield.

Meanwhile at Amherst College they were having a reunion, and it looks like the class of 1999 has been busy in the bedroom!

This week while riding down the woodland way into downtown Northampton I swerved to avoid what looked at first to be a large stone in the road!

Getting off my bike to check it out I went, "Whoa, that's no rock!"

 



Messages in the window of Broadside Books in downtown Northampton.

This guy must be a joy to know.

Don't forget, tornadoes are not the only ones to cause trouble.