A new decade starts tomorrow? Gosh, that went by quick. When me sainted grandmother was 92 she told me that the passage of a year at her age felt to her like only a month had gone by. That's the cosmic joke - when we are young and have decades before us, time seems to crawl and we wish it would go faster. Then when we are older, and are anxious for time to pass slowly lest it rush us towards the grave, it speeds up! God may be great, but he also has a sick sense of humor.
What is not humorous is the flurry of fires in Northampton which have already resulted in two deaths. The news media is going hysterical over it.
The public however is staying cool. I mean what the hell else can you do?
I made this video today while walking through snow flurries to the Haymarket Cafe on the last morning of the decade.
Changes such as a new decade are often a time for a backward glance. Here are some odds and ends from my most reason expedition through my legendary vaults.
I found this Nixon for President button among my father's things after he died. My father was not a Nixon fan, but customers were always giving him campaign stuff at the bar, some of which he would save.
Nixon's campaign slogan was "Nixon's the One." The one for what was never explained. Anyway, what worked for Tricky Dick was good enough for Springfield Mayor Mary Hurley, who adapted the slogan to suit her 1989 campaign.
I also found among my father's things these old postal stamps from the days when they only cost five cents. I believe these date back to the 1960's.
Remember Camel Cash? Both Joe Camel and his cash were ultimately banned.
Jeff reading my Zine in 1992.
Me and Jay Libardi in 1981
The photo from my spare drivers license in 1991.
My 1988 W-2 receipt from when I worked at the Springfield Newspapers.
A button commemorating the 360th birthday of Springfield in 1996, given to me by Kateri Walsh.
My receipt for working at the polls in Springfield in 1998.
Promotional photo from an appearance by Hot Tuna with Paul Kantner at Pearl Street in Northampton in 1988.
Still Riding
The funniest publication in Massachusetts is Boston's Weekly Dig. It can be hard to find out here in the boonies, but they usually have it at Newbury's Comix in downtown Amherst. I like this blurb they had to promote this week's appearance of the New Riders of the Purple Sage:
"America's premiere psychedelic cowboy band" has long since outgrown their humble origins as a Grateful Dead side project, easing into their dusty, patchouli's-for-sissies niche. Whereas the Dead evoke images of that acid-casualty uncle that sheds hemp bracelets and takes an hour to make coffee, The New Riders are more like that grizzled old guy at the corner of every bar that has a beard like a scab and only trips on peyote, because that's what God intended us to trip on, dammit.
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