If the way to a man's heart is through his stomach then women up and down the Valley will have an easy time reminding their loved ones they are still appreciated this Fathers Day with a fun, convenient, cost effective jaunt to town center for the 20th anniversary "Taste of Amherst".The culinary event overtakes Amherst center June 16th through 19th, with over twenty restaurants already signed up for the annual community fest.
Yes, the Taste of Amherst has withstood the test of time--precisely because because it never gets old or stale. Other towns, most notably Northampton the Holy Land of restaurants, succumbed to apathy and no longer stage such an event.
Because Amherst is such a transient community with thousand of college students coming and going annually, us townies set a high benchmark for folks who move into town and wish to be taken seriously. Twenty years is the minimum cutoff. As a fifth generation resident, I now declare the Taste of Amherst something to be taken seriously...in a fun sort of way.
Hours for the Taste of Amherst are Thursday, June 16, 5-9 pm; Friday, June 17, 5 -10 pm; Saturday, June 18, 12-10 pm; and Sunday, June 19, 12 – 4 pm.
Northampton made the mistake of putting the beer tent in along with the food tasting. Drunks would weave their way around, yelling, spilling their drinks on people who were just there to taste the food. It no longer was a fun event as only the drunks thought they were funny; no one else did.
ReplyDeleteI have yet to even find where the beer tasting is held for the Taste of Amherst; I like the fact that the two areas seem to be kept separate.
What Northampton DOES do right is Restaurant Week.
It's not on the common. The beer tasting is in a separate tent across the street just down from the Lord Jeff.
ReplyDeleteLarry -- NOW is your time to be a journalist. No one else is in Amherst, I have a story on Drudge referencing pictures of a high tension tower shorting out references storms that went through *
ReplyDeleteAMHERST* today.
I have no doubt that both I-90 and I-91 (let alone Amtrak) are closed. Hence no one in Amherst but you. And your bicycle (or 2 feet).
Don't do anything stupid, remember that the WEMCO primary lines are 8700 volts to ground, 13,600 between each other (has to do with sine curves and the nature of 3 phase power -- and no, it isn't a full 13,600 between any two of them, but it is far more than the 8,700 to ground -- and I once saw that chew through a Grade 10 backhoe tooth like it was butter.
But now is your time to report.
I am in DC -- Cleared the Spfd twister less than an hour before it happened -- and what happened to Amherst -- I know that the radar can't pick up twisters in the northeast due to the hills and the curvature of the earth...
could someone explain what the heck Ed is talking about?
ReplyDeleteAfter two scotches, Ed realized that he didn't know what was happening in Amherst. (And he wanted us to know he was in DC.)
ReplyDeleteUm, Ed, here's the news. Amherst gets rain. Spingfield gets tornado. End of story. Turn off the defcon-4 alarm. Go back to your bunker.
ReplyDeleteP.S. You made a fool of yourself.
You can blame the Boston Globe -- which had a picture of a falling, arcing high voltage transmission tower with a caption indicating that this was in Amherst -- and it physically resembled WMECO towers that I know to be in Amherst - and heading East across the Quabbin and onward, which is probably where the tower in question was located.
ReplyDeleteThis was in the same story that had pictures and details of storm damage in Springfield, and the so-called "reasonable man" might logically conclude that perhaps the Globe was actually accurate, that this really was what it appeared to be and where they said it was.
And it would be reasonable to conclude that perhaps there was more than one tornado (NWS is now saying there were five) and that one might have tracked to the north going through Amherst (which, in fact, it appears to have done -- just setting down 15 miles to the East of here -- nothing in terms of distance when you realize that the storm clouds themselves are 5 miles high).
And UMass had gone to DEF-CON ONE with a "SEEK SHELTER" warning at 4:04 PM, upgrading from a 3:35 PM alert, and UM HAD NOT GIVEN THE "ALL CLEAR" standdown -- the last I had from them was a 5:35 email indicating that while the NWS warning had been discontinued, I should still "proceed with caution."
And I could not get through to the 413 Area Code.
What would you conclude, my dear C.A.N.? You have a credible news source stating a major transmission line in Amherst went down, you have an allegedly responsible university giving a "take cover" order and only downgrading it to a "proceed with caution" order -- neither giving an all-clear nor putting anything on the UM website saying that everything is OK on campus, and the entire area code is ringing busy due to traffic volume.
What would you conclude?
Three other things -- worthy of note. First, I had taken what was probably the last train out of Springfield and AMTRAK in DC knew nothing -- nothing -- and this is an organization not known for contingency planning.
ReplyDeleteAMTRAK neither knew that their tracks (which go through the middle of the worst of the damage) were not affected nor had any contingency plans -- so the reasonable Ed was trying to figure out how he was going to get back to the Brave New People's Republic.
Second, DEF-CON Four corresponds to Terrorism Alert Color Blue -- "Guarded" which is one step above nothing. UMass had gone all the way to Red with a "Take Cover" warning -- and when you do this, you need to issue an "all clear" order which they never did.
Exactly why shouldn't I have "gone to DEF-CON Four" as another C.A.N. sarcastically mentioned my having done?
Third, and I think this is why some of the vitriol is coming at me, exactly where were the students residing in the 240 North Village Apartments supposed to "take cover"? Those are all modular units -- the absolutely WORST place to be in a tornado.
UMass has been spending lots and lots of money worrying about something that will never happen (active shooter) when the things that really might -- severe weather -- are being ignored.
UMass, of course, doesn't care about students -- which is part of why this is as it is...
This is the second real-life use of the EAS speakers -- and the second time it involved severe weather. Yet what protections/plans/etc does UMass have for this? NONE!
So we attack Ed instead. Welcome to UMass....
Wow, Ed. That was your ultimate Dewey beats Truma moment.
ReplyDelete