Category Archives: Massachusetts

Dump Couture, and Other Stuff

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I love going to the dump.  Even when I don’t want to go the dump – when it’s 4 degrees out and I can’t feel my fingers or it’s blazing hot and the stench is enough to knock me over – the journey is always instructive, and often hilarious.  People who have their trash picked up never understand the appeal of a dump run, never know the fun of being accosted by some intrepid soul running for electric light commissioner trying to scare up a few votes, the satisfaction of getting to push the button on the corrugated box crusher, the friendly waves of the dump guys in their orange tee shirts, or – best of all – the sweet voyeurism of viewing the outfits that people wear to get rid of their trash.

Most  folks seem to go straight from bed to the garage to the dump, maybe stopping at Dunkin’ Donuts on the way.  PJs, slippers, flip flops, and sweats that are way too big or too small are the uniform, unless of course it’s Saturday morning and everyone is in soccer stuff (watch out for the cleats).  No shaving before going to the dump.  It’s a rule.

There are  a few people who come to socialize (they stand right in front of wherever it is I want to go and talk forever) but the standard rules of Main Street etiquette do not apply – if someone doesn’t make eye contact with you, they have the right to remain invisible.  People I invite to our Christmas party might get only a nod at the dump, if that.  It is a unique kind of personal space where you are practically required to be surly – it is the narcotic effect of the scent of rancid milk, stale beer, and wet cardboard.

But it’s not just the parade of fashion or the need to get rid of our trash that keeps me going back.  I think I began loving Groton when I learned that the deposits that we don’t collect on the bottles and cans we bring to the dump are redeemed by the town and put toward the 4th of July fireworks display (they don’t do this every year, but they’ve done it several times).  I learned this from the dump guys, and they are as happy in their work as anyone I have ever seen.  And they are pretty enlightened for dump guys, too, not hesitating to correct you on your recycling habits and even going a bit farther.  Today one of them greeted a man who pulled up in a pickup with his daughter in the front seat, and yelled in half mock horror “Is that a cigarette is see?!  What’s the matter with you, smoking with your little girl in the truck! Don’t you know the dangers of second-hand smoke?”  Unfazed, the Dad smiled and said “I have the window open – Jeez!”  That wasn’t good enough.  “Put it out, man, put it out now!”  The guy got out of the truck, flicked the cigarette and came round the bed of the truck – to shake his friend’s hand.  Then the little girl hopped out to go help push the button on the box crusher.

And of course there’s the trash itself.  Is that a week’s or a year’s worth of Bud Light cans?  Is this a throw each glass bottle as hard as you can day or a dump it all at once day?  My boy takes a wine bottle and uses it as a bat to hit the seltzer cans into the bin (someone else is probably blogging about that).  Do they really think they can put an entire gas grill in the tin can bin?  If you can’t read the number of the bottom can you just guess?  What do they do to people who don’t use the designated Town of Groton orange trash bags?  Throw them in?  And who made that airplane out of Pepsi cans?

Finally, the drive back and forth is a kind of barometer of how my week has gone.  Am I going to the dump to people watch or because I absolutely must get out of the house?  Is this the highlight of my day or an errand to run before moving on to better things?  It is a sad testament to my spiritual life that I visit the dump more regularly than I do the Church, but the conversations I have with God on either pilgrimage is the same:  I am thankful for my life, I pray for more patience and focus, and then I get rid of all my garbage and go home, lighter and better for having made the trip.

Angry Garage

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When I asked my daughter what she thought of this photo she said, “It’s yelling at me.”  I think so, too.  Like a cranky old man:  “Hey you kids, get off of my lawn!”  Maybe it’s the door that needs paint.  Or the quality of the junk inside.  Or maybe that it has to face the street instead of the rolling hills out back.  Whatever it is, I love the expression, and the toy horse loitering around the side, too.

A Love of Bricks and Ivy

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The stucco house I grew up in had ivy all around one side and I admit to being less charmed by it then because pigeons were always flying in and out of the ivy and dancing on the air conditioner in my window.  But once I moved south to St. Louis and then out east I fell in love with the red right angles and the fluttering greens vying for attention, and there is nothing like the solid, cool  interiors and dappled light of a brick house on a sunny day.

I drive by this house situated behind a wall on what was once a vast estate (now merely a large one) all the time but there is no safe place to stop and take the photo, so on this stunning May morning I parked the car in town and walked a mile to get this and many shots I have been meaning to take.  More to come.

Trees in the Calm Before the Storm

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I posted a photo from the Crane Estate last weekend, and since then, like many places in the world this winter, nature chose to rearrange the landscape.  A fierce storm with high winds took down all the pines at the top of this scene - the ones near the green boxes near the mansion.  You can see here (above) that those white pines are top heavy, and torrential rain thawed the earth beneath the shallow root system and they toppled like toothpicks in hurricane-force winds.   The view below is the what you see when your back is the mansion – those trees sustained little damage, according to the news – when you are at the top of the hill closer to the house you can see the Atlantic.  Hundreds of trees were toppled on this unique property – the grand allee is the only vista of its kind in the U.S. -  that we traverse several times a year and have come to think of as part of our own family history.  We have photos here of our children at every age, and I carried each of them, summer and winter, in backpacks, on my shoulders and on my hip, miles and miles on its trails back and forth to the beach.  The land will heal, new trees will be planted (a restoration was already underway), and we will keep going back, and take more photos.  But we never know when that mighty wind will return.

Winter Moon Over Gibbet Hill

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This is one of my favorite spots in Groton, Massachusetts.  Whenever the sky is unusual, there are beautiful views from every angle, and when it is windy and bitterly cold, as it was last night, you can take great photos without even getting out of the car.  This full moon is purported to be the brightest of the year, but I don’t understand how they can know that, unless it’s just because it is so cold in January that the atmosphere is extra clear.

More Than Freedom

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As we write this, a ship carrying 2,000 U.S. Marines is on it way to Haiti to assist vicitms of the earthquake.  America may be mired in conflicts that some deem questionable, but there is no mistaking that when disaster strikes, the world expects us to help, and we always do.  The freedom to do the right thing is worth preserving, even if it’s not always clear how.

Photo taken at the Fort Devens, Devens, Massachusetts.  Although most of the base has been converted to civilian use, it is still serves the Army and Marine Corps reserves.

Signs of the times

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This section of Ayer, Massachusetts, abuts the former Fort Devens.  The area has been struggling ever since the U.S. Government closed the base in the 1990s.  While the Devens Redevelopment Authority (it still has an Army Reserve Unit which houses lots of desert camo hardware – trucks and tanks and the like) has had some success in drawing businesses and a charter school to relocate or build there (with major tax incentives and subsidies from the state) the recession has nonetheless taken a continuing toll on the surrounding communities, which built their infrastructure throughout the 20th century on the population of soldiers and their families who lived near or on post.

If You Can’t Stop, Wave

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There’s nothing better than when people make a little extra effort to do the right thing.  This is the sign in front of the new Police HQ in Littleton, Massachusetts, and it stands on the site of a former farm stand, Stan’s Big Acres.  Owned by the late John “Stan” Paskiewicz, the stand – a small red shack with a screen porch and a hand painted white sign with red writing - had a greeting painted on it  “If You Can’t Stop, Wave.”  Whenever we gave people directions to our house when we moved from the city, Stan’s sign was the landmark that reassured them they were not indeed lost and were , in fact, close to their destination (the other site was Bob’s Bait & Tackle).  Guests often arrived with cider or apples from Stan’s (no one ever arrived with bait - go figure) and even when I driving past alone I found myself raising a hand to Stan as I drove by.  When Stan’s closed it stood empty for a number of years, falling into disrepair, the sign still outside.  We kept waving anyway.  When Littleton decided to use the site for the station (and a beautiful one at that) some civic-minded person or group preserved Stan’s greeting on the new sign.

So, Stan’s is a Police station and Bob’s is a yarn shop.  There are still signs of the agricultural life along the way home - farm stands, horse farms, fields of sheep and produce – but nothing quite like Stan’s, save for the red house directly across the street (below) that echoes his stand in it’s waning days; the future on one side the road, the past on the other.  If you can’t stop, wave.   Okay, then.

Past watches Present talk on cell phone

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It just occurred to me that I have a penchant of taking photos of people talking on cell phones in places where it seems a little incongruous (see Can You Hear Me Now).  The Cemetery is on Main Street in Concord, MA - and the two empty parking spaces just might be the most unusual things in the picture.

Early American window and door, just because

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This window is at the top corner of the Haines House in Concord, Massachusetts.  Built in 1813, it has shutters are made to work and most likely has layers of paint thicker than the walls of most modern houses.  Below is the front door to the same house (currently an academic administration building at Concord Academy), where the wiring for the light had to be routed on the outside.  The way all the exterior lines and shapes in these old structures can fit together into a coherent whole fascinates me – in modern times that approach doesn’t seem to work nearly as well, and yet here, it does.  Are we more forgiving of older architecture just because it’s old or did they get something right that we don’t?  I admit that I am more enamored of such places from the outside looking in – once inside, they tend to be dark and cramped and have a kind of slanted fun house quality because everything has settled unevenly over the centuries (and that funky wiring goes from quaint to dangerous).