Northampton, Massachusetts

is without a doubt one of my absolute favorite places to hang out. We spent most of Sunday there, and I just love it!

There are things I want to write about, but I can't do it coherently at 2:00 in the morning. I will say, however, that nobody I know has better luck finding good places to park than Jackie. As we were driving up Main Street looking for a space, someone started backing out of one on the opposite side. She stopped, signaled her intent to make a left turn even though there was no street to turn onto, and waited about three seconds. The car backed out, the driver of the car behind us laid on the horn, and she whipped across in front of all kinds of oncoming traffic and pulled into a perfect spot about halfway between CVS and Thorne's Marketplace. It was great.

I wondered if any of the oncoming cars would have parked there.

Northampton II: The Bench Guys

Jackie bought some things in a couple of shops in Thorne's Marketplace and then wanted to sit on the bench outside while I looked at books and records. People-watching is one of her favorite pastimes. I went and put the stuff into the car and when I returned to the bench only moments later there was a guy sitting next to her, not at the opposite end of the bench but really next to her, just talking away. At first I thought they'd just struck up a conversation, but he was the only one talking, and not really to her. He was naming a bunch of movie stars as I approached. I heard him say "Would you follow Dennis Hopper or Diane Keaton around? How about Julia Roberts or Richard Dreyfuss or Jack Nicholson or (more names)? Then why are you doing THIS for?" It didn't make a lot of sense but that's what he said. Then, after a short pause he said, "Sorry. I just had to get that out." Jackie said, "I can tell!" Then he started up all over again.

I asked her if she was ok, and she said "yeah" so I went to the book store in Thorne's and looked around for a while. I almost bought something by Franz Kafka but then I thought about the size of my unread book pile, so I restrained myself. I went back to look outside. He was still there yakking. She was still ok. I went to the record shop downstairs and looked at just about everything in the whole place but didn't see anything I wanted to buy. When I went back out, he was gone and there was a different guy there whom Jackie was talking with about Providence and Buddy Cianci. This guy was from then on referred to as the normal guy. We talked for a few minutes, then his wife arrived with shopping bags and they left.

as we were about to leave, two more guys showed up, eating something. One sat down just before two really attractive young women walked by holding hands. He stared at them with a real WTF look on his face and I wanted to say, sort of jokingly, "Helloooooooo! Northampton!" But I didn't. He wouldn't have gotten it anyway, I suspect.