Distanced

Last week I went to the Northampton Farmer's Market. It was very sparsely attended

This week I went by again, only to find there were still few customers and even fewer venders participating.

The failure of the Farmer's Market, which was generally crowded in past years, has all to do with anti-social distancing. Few people go to a farmer's market just to get food. They can get the same produce from the same farms at Big Y or Stop&Shop. The difference with getting your food at a farmer's market is the social experience. You get to meet the actual farmers, run into friends and neighbors, catch up on the local gossip.

Anti-social distancing makes that kind of lively, entertaining and informative interaction completely impossible, thereby robbing the market of its charms. If it's going to feel like a sterile, medically paranoid shopping chore, why bother going? The fact is that if downtown Northampton is ever going to recover enough to reclaim its title as the Valley's best loved downtown, this anti-social distancing foolishness has got to go. Sadly, the city government is only making it worse, with these threatening, hostile signs. Talk about unwelcoming!

So you mean if I buy a slice of pizza at one of the newly opened Hamp restaurants, where the government still won't let me eat inside, and therefore go over to Pulaski Park and remove my mask to take a bite, I would be in danger of being harassed by police and slapped with a $300 fine? However, if I were to leave Pulaski Park and walk just a few blocks over to this event:

There I would be able to not only eat my pizza in peace, but I could also participate in trying to burn the flag, smashing police cruiser windows and spray painting leftist slogans on the Police Station. Not only would I not receive a $300 fine, but the police would probably end up kneeling in front of me at some point.

The whole concept of mask wearing and anti-social distancing is an unconstitutional and arbitrarily enforced farce that needs to be abolished immediately just out of simple fairness. It is also the only way that downtown Northampton has any hope of revitalization. FREE NORTHAMPTON!

Meanwhile, here's sixty seconds of Hamp from the truck eating trestle. Few cars and fewer pedestrians.