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It didn’t take long for apprehension and anxiety over hurricane Irene to become an entertainment. Although the sky had brightened considerably, there were still stiff wind gusts and occasional showers from ragged clouds as hundreds gathered on Collinsville’s bridge over the Farmington River to watch flood waters pour over the mill dam and boil through the rapids past the old axe factory.
Continue reading "Goodnight Irene: A Storm Turns Into Entertainment" »
Most of us enjoy gazing out a window. But I like looking at windows just as much. Their location, casing shapes, sash designs, glazing patterns and sheer numbers tell stories about construction techniques, fashion, technology, wealth, and the interests of a building’s inhabitants. Often viewed as an analog to human eyes, windows are likewise expressive of a structure’s personality.
Not long ago I sat in Stafford Motor Speedway’s grandstand, a raging buzz vibrating in my chest as cars sped down the straightaway jockeying, bouncing, and squiggling for position. It was a full throated roar fading to angry bees or the whine of giant mosquitoes as the vehicles hit the curve and headed for the backstretch. Sound and movement were hypnotic, the smell of tire friction and exhaust like a pheromone.
Connecticut’s oldest operating racetrack, it was built in 1892 for horses. Weekly stock car races began in 1948 and the approximately half-mile banked oval enclosed by metal guardrails, concrete barriers, seventeen-foot-high tire walls, and chain link fence was paved in 1967.
At the East Hartland, Connecticut firefighters’ carnival there are eats money can’t buy. Yet for a fifty cent donation to the fire department anyone can purchase a chance to win a homemade dessert so good it usually comes only with a mothers’ love.
East Hartland is a tiny crossroads speck of a community with one commercial building, a colonial era structure that’s been a restaurant for decades but is now vacant. It’s a small town that got smaller when its general store burned to the ground over a decade ago. But crowds, bright lights, and lots of noise come each year with the carnival.
Continue reading "A FIreman's Carnival With Eats Money Can't Buy" »
I need some cooling visions to survive today’s heat and humidity. Though last winter seemed so endless that even skiers and lovers of snow globe landscapes grew weary, I know some staunch advocates of steamy weather who at last have begun to have a tinge of nostalgia for last January, though they’d never admit it publically.
To stave off the heat, I’m checking out some photos I took half a year ago when ice was as hard as concrete and winds pierced the armor of even the thickest coat. Remember those snows so deep that not only fire hydrants and small children, but full sized automobiles got lost? I think I feel a chill already.
