Happy Fourth of July. Happy birthday to the United States. I will miss the fireworks and band concert at UMass. I will miss the parade around Fiddler’s Green, the South Amherst Common, that has been held for over a century. Some people may gather Saturday in South Amherst, at a safe distance, to read the Declaration of Independence.
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Mark the date — June 29. I ate my first tomato from my garden. What a treat. The straw flower and yarrow have bloomed. The rain was so welcome. No only did it help the garden, but cleaned the dust from my car.
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Bob Romer sent an email about being mentioned in my column.
He wrote he was “honored to appear in the same sentence with Jim Smith, who made so many important contributions to Amherst history — his “Black Population” book being just one (but a very important one). His work was essential to me in my work on recognizing the 20 Black men from Amherst who fought for the United States in the Civil War and my efforts that resulted in the new stone we erected in West Cemetery in 2017 honoring the five members of the Thompson family who fought. And Cliff McCarthy (Belchertown) is another distinguished contributor to Amherst history.”
He also made a plug for Amherst business.
“In spite of appearances, we have a functioning bookstore in town. Amherst Books is not open for browsing, but you can buy books there and pick them up or get them delivered. And they are happy to order books that they do not have in stock. Let’s patronize our local bookstore! Just go to amherstbooks.com,” he wrote.
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Amy Crawley spent me an email that Amherst Arts Night Plus, the Town’s monthly art walk, will be aired live July 2 from 5 to 8 p.m. on Amherst Media, Ch. 15. It can be streamed at http://161.77.57.225/CablecastPublicSite/watch/2?channel=2.
The program includes The Burnett Gallery (artists: Ricky Barton and Robert Croll), Gallery A3 (artists in discussion: Laura Holland, Sue Katz, and Val Gilman), The Amherst Town Hall Gallery (artist: Jaime Forsythe) and UMCA (artists respond to W.E.Du Bois). (413) Art presents an interview with metal sculptor Kamil Peters. Music features Duly Noted (UMass), The Zumbyes and The DQ (both from Amherst College), she wrote.
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Seeing the barriers in the road downtown for the curbside tables reminds me of the original Taste of Amherst. (Another event missed this year). The first year restaurants served food in front of their businesses. People sat on the curb to eat or on the stone platform in front of CVS since there were no chairs or tables outdoors.
I think the blue tents are left over from an art festival that was held awhile back.
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