Posters

 

Smart truck driver in downtown Northampton. 

 

 

A totally sober lifestyle has never really worked for me. I suppose that means I'm some sorta weakling, but at least thanks to jails, mental institutions and the grace of God I've managed to whittle my vices down to just marijuana - the only drug that never bit me. 

Anyway, I was standing in a doorway on Pleasant Street one morning waiting for Resinate to open so I could buy some gummies (in my health-conscious old age I don't want to hurt my lungs by smoking) when I happened to notice this posted on the doorway to the office of U.S. Representative James P. McGovern.  

 

 

Surely they jest! I wouldn't vote for Jim McGovern for dogcatcher. In fairness, he is occasionally in the right on some civil liberties issues, but I mostly chalk that up to a stopped clock being right twice a day. McGovern also has at least a little personal charisma, something that south valley Congressman Richie Neal never had. In any case, it is impossible to forgive McGovern's years as a Fidel Castro fanboy. 

Later I stumbled upon this poster in the front window of the legendary downtown bar Packard's.

 

 

Picture Main Street is some kind of government economic development project to allegedly improve downtown Hamp. That alone is grounds for concern if like me you are old enough to recall how "city planners" with their "urban renewal" projects turned the once vibrant central business districts in Holyoke and Springfield into ghost towns. I hope now is not Northampton's turn to kill their downtown, at least not any worse than the local liberals already did with their asinine policies during the so-called pandemic. 

Meanwhile, over on King Street, hanging on the wall of the Dunkin Donuts is this old picture of the joint as it was back in the late 1960's.

Here is what it looks like today. 

Personally I think its original appearance with the flower power logos had more charm. And what happened to those big trees that once towered behind it? 

Nothing lasts. 

Except, of course, for the immortal Miss Florence Diner, where stepping inside is like traveling through a time tunnel into the 1950's.

 

Their jukeboxes are exactly the same as the ones that used to be in the long gone Russell's restaurant in Springfield. 

The town hall in Mount Washington, Massachusetts looks like a remodeled garage.