Scene Here
Scene Here: Sweet Expectations
If Willy Wonka took Turkish baths, his house would smell like this. In the evaporating room at Gould’s Sugarhouse Sunday morning, clear liquid sap is boiling down into concentrated gooey goodness. The thick steam it lets off is warm and silky, with a slightly sweet...
Scene Here: Shamrock in the Wind
I’m at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and there are more plastic cups whipping down High Street in the wind than there are people waiting for the parade to turn the corner. I’m beginning to think the parade has been delayed by the 30-plus mph wind gusts, when I spy some...
Scene Here: Spring Steed
I pull my mud-splattered sedan onto the side of Hill Road in Ashfield, parking it at the metal gate of the cow pen at Taylor Farm. My snow tires crunch on gravel, and a dozen cows turn their heads and stare at me. Their pen is connected to the back of an enormous red...
Scene Here: Breakfast pie
Hunter Styles photo
Scene Here: A Spot for Tea
Kevin Gutting Photo
Scene Here: Locked Away
I have only one recurring nightmare. I find myself in prison. Charged with a crime I cannot discern, I’m locked away from family and friends by thick plastic walls. The clear walls are smeared with a thousand fingerprints obscuring my view of the sweet blue sky. Jack...
Scene Here: Pre-Blizzy Tizzy
Amanda drane photo
Scene Here: Catching Cold
Wind whips across the ice on the Oxbow in Northampton. Under a bright, cold sun, shadowy figures stand against a stark panorama of frozen river, snow-decked mountains, and frosted gray sky. It’s 25 degrees. Viktor Biley, 17, is rubbing his bare hands together. It’s...
Scene Here: Big Easy Brunch
Remember that first wash of Technicolor in The Wizard of Oz? That’s what it’s like to step off the grayscale street and into Chef Wayne’s Big Mamou in Springfield. This little New Orleans-style restaurant is stranded on a run-down industrial block of Liberty Street,...
Scene Here: 8-Bit Wonderland
Tonight’s soundtrack — a bright string of poppy club songs — has many of the bar-goers at The Quarters in Hadley nodding their heads. Those who aren’t bopping along to the beat have their eyes fixed on whatever vintage arcade game they’ve decided to drop a few coins...
Scene Here: Birdy It’s Cold Outside
It’s never cold at Deerfield’s Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory. No matter the chill of winter, it’s always hot and humid inside, a high-latitude rain forest. The conservatory houses creatures that would hardly appear on a bobsled team recruitment...
Scene Here: Dinner with Friends
It’s a cold evening on Worthington Street in Springfield, but the Resource Center has filled with warmth. In the last minutes before dinner, visitors keep busy by playing cards, writing, reading, braiding hair, and swapping stories. The Resource Center is run by...E-Edition
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