Passenger Seat

Work at the Carew St. water main break continues, with several old sections of pipe being removed and replaced with sturdy new sections...



I presume this section of water line, or one very similar, is the 24" culprit that had cracked open and raised all the havoc...



Clean water on tap is one of the greatest and one of the most taken for granted benefits of the developed world. I remember going to a concert a few years ago by the band Cake, who were fresh from a tour of the planet. In between songs, the lead singer stopped to talk about how just simply having clean water was so incredibly important and so incredibly rare in most of the world. Even rarer, was to have it at the turn of a faucet. He finished the short speech by leading the crowd with three hearty cheers...for the spigot. It came off like he meant it too; funny but thought provoking at the same time. I also remember reading in a book on modern warfare where one strategist said that any country no matter how great and powerful can be brought to it's knees in just three days by simply controlling or destroying it's water supplies, since no one can live more than three days without water.

So let's hear it for the mighty spigot.

My pro-photographer sister came by this week to take some pictures of the pea-pod for some baby announcement cards she's making to send out to friends and family.



Her website is on the blog-roll on the right, Carrington Creative Photography, should anyone need to avail themselves of her services...

We scooted north on Sunday looking for a mobile to suspend over the little girl's bassinet, and somehow ended up in the Greenfield/Montague section of the valley. I rode shotgun, and shot up the countryside en route...





We stopped for lunch in Greenfield and checked out a store called the Magical Child, before heading over the river into the old mill town village of Turners Falls, in the town of Montague...



We didn't find any children's stores there, but we did come across an odd little childrens' sculpture park.



On one corner are two old doors from a fire station adorned with painted styrofoam disks created by local elementary school kids, and there's an optomistic looking stryrofoam face watching over the park from a nearby rock.



The rest of the little park has sculptures created from old bicycle parts, perhaps in keeping with the new canal-side trail (pdf map here) that's just been completed right nearby. I think they are sculpted to resemble plants and animals, and maybe dinosaurs.





Some of the sculptures are looking pretty down and out, some having apparently been worn down by the past winter snows,



and some apparently by vandals.



It's an odd little park, in an odd little village; but it represents one of the seedlings being planted here as part of a slowly growing arts community replacing a long defunct mill-town environment. The new trail, a new performance theater, and a new contemporary photography museum are part of the small waves being quietly generated, hoping to create a new chapter in this village's long history. Here's a good Boson Globe article about the village's past and future...



We will be checking the village out more this summer, at the very least the canal-side trail again. For now it was time to head back, with great skyscape views from the passenger seat....