Summer often seems to arrive in the Valley through sneak attack—one day it’s gloomy and chilly, the next, Bedouins clomp through the back yard on camels.
This year, that drought-plagued day arrived during a visit from my parents. Though they’ve seen the Valley many a time by now, they wanted to sally forth in search of a taste of that New England charm we residents can regularly soak in. As residents of Texas, they hardly noticed the heat, but for me, the Valley had changed its clothes overnight.
We wound our way between hills gone lush with new growth, down streets turned suddenly to green corridors. We ended up on Routes 5 and 10 between South Deerfield and Greenfield, that road that holds the Valley’s highest concentration of tourist bait, from little shops, stores and museums to the sprawling Yankee Candle store now dubbed “Flagship.”
Air conditioner blasting, we sailed right past the Flagship, past even the tantalizing sign for Pekarski’s smokehouse, up toward attractions of a more traditional New England variety. We wheeled up Historic Deerfield’s staid Main Street, punctuating that short trip with slow rolls for my mother to snap shots of things seldom seen in the dustbowl of West Texas, things like ornately carved doors and porches sagging with the weight of many years.
It reminded me of some of the reasons I stayed in the Valley after arriving here for grad school. There’s something about peering up at dark attic windows in old farmhouses, something about rooms where the corners fill with the dust of all those years, that graces New England with a sense of undiscovered stories. Even in the heat of a summery midday, this place feels lived-in, comfortable. Deerfield’s sleepy main drag was almost empty that day, and that sense of the past felt as close-in as the bright leaves of the overhanging trees.
From there, we headed to another oft-cited draw for Valley tourism, Shelburne Falls. I hadn’t seen that modest little burg in quite some time. Maybe it was that, or maybe the unfamiliar heat, but I felt like a tourist myself as we wandered over the bridge and looked down at the huge stones beneath the green of the river. The town seemed strangely compact, its Bridge of Flowers quaint.
I marvelled at the smalltown feel when we ordered sandwiches from McCusker’s—the sandwich makers happily cobbled together stacks of meat and cheese for a stream of people they knew by first name. My status as a stranger in town was ratified, however, when my two “Reubenesques” got nabbed by some other drifter whose name was apparently also James, a blow softened by the incredibly accommodating sandwich crew, who offered newly chilled drinks and, I’m convinced, extra large piles of sauerkraut.
Shelburne Falls’ glacial potholes offered more small-scale charm, even if their natural beauty is surrounded by rather industrial trappings. It was the walk to them that somehow stuck with me even more than the pleasant falling of water and the strangeness of the potholes themselves.
We passed art galleries and shops, even a woodworker paying very close attention to a plank in the open air. At the potholes, a few artists sat working watercolor into their paper renderings of the view. The scrawl of bright, Asian-inspired fonts, the dreadlocked neo-hippies and friendly townies, the dusty middle-of-nowhere feel combined to create something uniquely Valley.
Our corner of the world brings old and new together in often surprising ways. I was happy for the convergence of freshly arrived sun, day trip, and unfamiliar surroundings that teased a little of the Valley’s charm out for closer inspection. It felt like summer had truly made its entrance, and it is in the summer that things really get hopping here—theaters gear up for their best productions, music festivals spring to life, and getting in the car to seek out those thrills feels good in the long daylight. Maybe it took years of living here for it to happen because I grew up doing my best to ignore the blasting Southern sun. But for the first time in a long time, I am glad summer is here.