Signs from the Road: Chapter 7

 Chapter 7

Greenfield MA

 We head out the next morning with big goodbyes and waves from our Rav. We’re headed to Western Massachusetts, two hours away. Before we lived in Provincetown, we lived there for ten years, in Florence, a section of Northampton, home to Smith College, and five other colleges and universities nearby. This conglomeration creates a unique culture pocket: academia surrounded by farmland.

            It was a huge deal when we sold our 1950s ranch house and moved to Provincetown full time, and a huge reason for my reluctance was leaving the farms. Even our half acre yard felt like a farm. Every spring and summer I bought hostas and perennials at dozens of local plant sales and I planted and worked the soil to my heart’s content. Our house was an executive ranch–six rooms plus a backyard enclosed porch, all on one level and faithful to the style of the fifties. We painted the kitchen/dining room/den walls salmon orange on the top of the chair line and lime green on the bottom–a choice that could have looked like Crayola City, but it didn’t. Everyone (except Jess!) loved the colors and commented on the comfort of the whole house.

*****

It’s the first official night of our road trip, and we’re staying in Greenfield--a small city on the Connecticut River, about thirty minutes up Route 91from Northampton and populated by gardeners and activists and old-ish hippies. 

Greenfield is home to our friends, Marsha and Norm. Both are officially retired, although Marsha is a part-time LPN, Chair of the Building Department at her temple, Co-chair of the local Garden Club, member of a local chorus, Assistant Manager of the Farmer’s Market, and self-proclaimed leader of her improvisation group. And Norm is a city counselor, a board member of the Greenfield Food Co-operative, a gardener, and an extraordinaire bird watcher. It took them seven years of looking in the area before they finally bought a ranch house on a street with well manicured homes and all muted whites and gray shingled houses. Marsha and Norm painted their own house avocado green. Marsha claims she’s colorblind and Norm prides himself on his talent to choose good colors. I can’t speak for the neighbors’ reaction to this ‘unusual’ color addition on their street, but Janet and I sweetly confine our responses to complementing the painting job.

These two are friends as family. Sometimes we snip at one another, usually involving our sometimes disparity in food preferences, but we don’t hold grudges and we all know when to back off and let complaints go. We get together a few times a year, rotating between Provincetown and Greenfield. These are friends who would rescue us from a burning barn, if they could, and it’s reciprocal. 

On our first night, we four meet our mutual friends Kevin and Ginger for dinner at the four-star rated Hope & Olives, a local farm-to-table favorite restaurant. In their seventies, Kevin and Ginger are just beyond the newlywed threshold, but it’s not their first rodeo. During dinner they are over-the-moon excited because they’ll soon be performing a reading of A.R Guirney’s Love Letters at a local theater. We won’t be around, but I make a note to remind Marsha to be sure to buy tickets. As if she needs my advice.

*****

This is our first official night on the road. Mattie’s comfortable on Marsha and Norm’s couch and Janet and I are with friends, eating and sharing locally-grown and freshly-made food. We’ll stay in the area two nights in all, revisiting our former town and neighborhood, soaking up and holding tight so many memories.