I took off my watch and left my cellphone at home yesterday. After all, I was traveling back in time, to the Middle ages, where a festival was taking place in a clearing in the woods of Turner’s Falls. It was the Mutton and Mead Medieval Festival, and more than […]
Sitting around a dinner table with a group of close friends, wine flowing freely, someone throws out that Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, must be intending to use WMDs. It’s 2003, and the US is just about to launch the Shock and Awe campaign of missiles based on intelligence that proved […]
I”m riding a Greyhound bus heading north out of New York City. I must give the bus line and Peter Pan a little credit, since I think bus travel has markedly improved over the past few years. I wrote in this space about Megabus, so I’m giving the other more […]
A column by Richard Clarke in the WSJ posed a challenging question: What would the US do if the Chinese government planted explosives along our electricity grid? Most of us would be alarmed, and we would expect that a military response would be the next step. Wouldn’t we? Today, the […]
Tomorrow I’ll join photographer and fellow GoNOMAD staffer Paul Shoul and take an early train into New York City. We will get there early enough to scout out our Brooklyn digs for the night and then proceed to a luncheon hosted by Maine and New Brunswick Tourism in Manhattan. The […]
I posted a note on Facebook about new opportunities to travel to Cuba, at least if you can claim to be a part of an educational tour or study group. A bunch of friends commented on how much they too want to go there. Tonight I read a column about […]
As the ten members of Bella’s Bartok milled around the back of the Rendezvous, getting ready for their Saturday night gig, I thought about how hard it must be to keep all of them on the same musical page. What a diverse ensemble, so many instruments–trumpet, trombone, violin, accordion, guitars, […]
The battleship USS Iowa, mothballed off the coast of California. Now LA and Long Beach are battling to be the city where it will be turned into a museum. photo by Scott Haeffner.[/caption] Scott Haeffner is a daring man who could not resist exploring a forbidden part of the California […]
Our lives plunge forward through hills of fear and loneliness and through great valleys of joy. There is hardship, and suffering and sadness and then there is Sofie, outside playing on the neighbor’s new swingset, cries of joy emanating from her as she watches Magnus climb up little toy ropes. […]
Today Governor Patrick saluted Ann Hamilton, the longtime director of the Franklin County Chamber, by calling her “The Phenom.” He was in town to officially open the newly renovated Greenfield Visitor’s center that’s been combined in one state-owned building with the Registry of Motor Vehicles. The governor called it a […]
I can’t remember a book that I more look forward to picking up than this history of the Cape and Islands by Paul Schneider. Maybe because he delves into so many topics in the same book…the Pilgrim’s early foray into settling in the area, and then the details about the […]
This year is the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy’s many different states into one country. One of these states is Umbria, located in the middle of the country. Tonight we met Stefano Cimicchi, Umbria’s director of tourism, who told us what has made this province a favorite destination […]