After almost thirty years of buying fruits and vegetables from Glen Hawthorne on East Pleasant Street, I cant drive there without looking with expectation for him, standing beside his roadside stand, often reading the paper while waiting for customers. We used to chat about town politics, the state of my garden, the trees and wildlife on the Mt. Holyoke Range, the condition of the crops, the weather patterns, his beloved aged horses, and UMass, among other things. One fall I introduced him to leeks; unfortunately, the next spring when he offered leek plants for sale along with flowers, tomatoes and other vegetables, they didn't catch on. He grew wonderful herbs and vegetables, and presented a wonderful selection. When I bought a quart of strawberries from Glen, they were all ripe, not just the ones on top. Those things he didn't grow himself, he chose from the wholesale market with a knowing eye and, I suppose, other senses. The Georgia peaches I bought there were tasty and juicy, not mealy; this summer, as I tried to choose some in the grocery store, I acutely felt my lack of expertise.
Last fall, his busiest season, his business was stymied by weeks of repaving work on East Pleasant Street. Now he and his produce are gone – I don't know where. It is losing a friend, and worrying about him. Its hard to imagine anyone being able to start over in that kind of business, in a new place, and on whose land? Apparently a family dispute about land and (I assume) its financial value has led to this. It sounds like a good script for a movie, but it is a horrible situation in real life.
As for the food, by necessity I'm checking out the quality and variety of other convenient roadside stands. We are blessed in this area to have so many to choose from. Given where I live and work part time, Northeast Street is looking good.
Another change I'm finding difficult is the new “Campus Landscape Improvement Plan” (CLIP) at the University. The first “improvements” are now visible: all the shrubs and some of the trees around some campus buildings have been removed, so now we have brown grass and lots of visible brick on a row of buildings: Munson, Curry Hicks, Bartlett and Goodell.
Because I was on the Arboretum Committee, I knew that consultants had been hired to do a Plan; the Arboretum Committee met with them a couple of years ago to tell them about some of our concerns, ncluding the lack of care for existing trees, and plans to take down several significant trees to building new facilities. Since then I hadn't heard anything more about it, which I guess is to be expected since I'm not on the faculty and the Arboretum Committee seems to have withered away.
According to an article in “In The Loop,” the online campus newspaper for faculty and staff,
Some trees and plants are also being removed to highlight historic buildings, such as Munson Hall and Curry Hicks, and their distinctive architectural details. In other cases, such as Bartlett Hall, the proximity of trees to structures promoted mold and rot on the buildings’ exterior surfaces.
Elsewhere, the article states: Trees that are part of the Waugh Arboretum are being preserved along with other plantings used for teaching and research. When new plants are chosen in the future, planners will focus on robust, native varieties that support the campus’ teaching mission, says Cahill. New plants and trees will also be used to enhance architecture across campus and delineate important open spaces.
Well, I understand about reducing rot and mold from dampness, and I have nothing against removing old overgrown junipers as long as they are replaced with other shrubs (even new junipers). But the change at Curry Hicks can hardly be called an improvement. I suppose “architectural details” are in the eye of the beholder, since the building is not distinguished and some of the windows have grillwork on them so they look rather like prison windows. Some of the shrubs that were removed were witch hazel; a faculty member I know has admired them for years and always resisted the urge to pick some because he didn't want to damage the University's plants or deprive other people of the pleasure of seeing them. Now they are gone, even though they are exactly the kind of ‘robust, native varieties” that the CLIP proposed to plant.
Other aspects of the plan, including more signs to help people find their way, are all to the good. But are they really going to leave the ground so bare around buildings? And how many more are they going to “improve”? I hate to think.