(The former General Store at Lake Wyloa, MA.)
You are going to just have to bear with me as I sort out the events of the last few days. I cannot believe it is the beginning of the working week again, and so many miles have fled under the wheels of the piece-of-crap rental Camry, and so many events sublime and other have occurred.
I do vividly recall checking my Rolex on Saturday around the time for the dawn of the day of Rapture on Guam, where America’s day begins, to seek reports of people being seized by The Rapture, and floating up to glory.
It did not appear to happen, or if it did, in such small numbers that the rest of us did not notice. So, I am not discounting the possibility that the next five months are going to be filled with increasing pandemonium, but what the hell.
The End of the World was just one of the complicating factors in attending the 135th Commencement exercise at Mt. Holyoke College in south Hadley, MA, to honor my associate.
Mt Holyoke is the premier Women’s college of the Ivy League (sorry, Smith!). This weekend marked the culmination of four years of hard work for a very good friend of mine.
Wait, not four years. That covers just the course work. I remember what we had to go through in building the resumes for all the kids to get them into institutions they eventually were admitted to, the places we had to live and all the activities. Commencement is the culmination of a whole lifetime of preparation and execution.
Anyway, that is why I had to be there to celebrate the event, though there were some minor complications. Rooms at a premium, was going to stay with Bonds and Donna at their lovely home in Springfield, MA, but they were committed to opening the Wyloa Lake cottage, which is pristine in it’s state of innocence: no internet and no cell phone coverage.
Donna was working, and consequently, I turned up to be underfoot and allegedly help open the cottage with Bonds, hauling boats and grills and hammocks out of the Florida room and out onto the lake, and then rolling back south to have a meeting with my associate.
In between, Bonds took me touring around the lake, past the mysterious stone cottage with the enigmatic motto carved into a stone on the fireplace: “Hello, Bill.”
“It used to be the general store,” said Bonds. “Dunno what it means. Donna might, since she used to come here. Her Dad built the cabin himself.”
Then we rolled on south to the coolest bookstore in the world, or at least one of them, the Montague Book Mill, a literary and restaurant complex housed in an 1842 gristmill with a roaring stream, fed by the recent rains, in the back.
Their motto is as sublime as the sun that burst out for the first time in weeks: “Books you don’t need in a place you can’t find.”
People have been around these parts since the early 1700’s, and you can see their history in the little burial plots in the woods along the twisting roads and the little crossroads villages. When the sun is out, the effervescent lime of the new foliage is glorious.
When we got back to the lake we had a cocktail outside and looked at the water and listened to the cherry tree buzz with an astonishing accumulation of bees.
I took my leave as he got out salmon to grill outside.
I was headed for South Hadley and Northhampton, respectively, for dinner at Osaka, the sushi place right next door to Lucky’s tattoo parlor where I got myself inked the afternoon that my younger son went into the Navy.
Actually, I saw the artist smoking out on the street in front of the parlor- he did the magnificent horse that adorns my associate’s flank.
Then the Tunnel Bar a fabulous martini-oriented facility for stupid drinks (a tradition between the kid since we discovered the Molotov Cocktail bar in Berlin’s Kruezburg district)
And there is no place better for stupid alcohol than a bomb-proof tunnel.
(Tunnel Bar, Northampton).
The linear curved space currently occupied by the bar were used to allow travelers to exit and enter the station from street level and the tracks that lead to Canada and New York. The area behind the bar to the left in this photo was once a stairwell used to access the station platform for boarding the trains.
As I looked around, I noted the tile and granite stone, both original construction. Magnificent architecture and craftsmanship in this century-old building, the old Depot piled on upstairs.
Then the windy roads back to South Hadley, and the trusty GPS to drive the 24 miles back up to Lake Wyola, and adventures galore in the piece-of-crap-rental-Camry as the coverage faded and the little phone died in the pitch blackness. One wrong fork on the old Colonial-era roads and a dead phone (forgot the car charger and I was the dumb guy connected to the available power outlets in a series of convenience stores and motels along the way) made for rising panic in the darkness as I fell off the cell universe.
But all was well that ended well, including the next morning’s adventures at the Co-op store in the village (rich coffee and thick bacon) and then blackberry pancakes back at the Lake.
Bond’s put together his custom recipe, fluffy egg whites being the key and only some minor difficulties in the cooking process.
Oh, I didn’t mention that the cabin had the usual early-season glitches. The water was out at the lake. And the new septic system? (“Yellow is mellow, but brown must go down”) so as I pushed the piece-of-crap rental Camry down the two lane towards Holyoke, I was looking for showers and power outlets and a restroom where things flushed without having to worry about color-coding like the TSA. But that is a story that will have to wait till the ‘morrow.
It has everything, no kidding, including a version of The Rapture, and some sublime remarks on what is up with the world, and the state of Liberal Arts higher education.
What a weekend. Let the summer begin.
Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com