A Horse Is A Horse

 Unless of course that horse's name is Ms. Jada.  Central Fire Station 

With two fires in Amherst quickly stopped by AFD and an unstoppable one in Hadley over the weekend, along with an overflowing number of "college aged youth"  transported to the hospital for intoxication there was, refreshingly, at least one family oriented event that attracted a major crowd to Amherst town center early Sunday afternoon: the annual Halloween Fest.  

 Parade through town center down Kellogg Street to the Bangs Community Center

Even a downtown Bar got into the spirit

Twenty downtown businesses participated, giving out candy to the kids (and occasional parent).  Customers at busy locations like Rao's Coffee, Bart's Ice Cream or Antonio's Pizza seemed amused by the sudden influx of ghosts, goblins, robots, and my little horse. 

 

No fun Amherst event is complete without Representative Ellen Story

Yes Virginia, there is a Halloween

Jada and Kira at the Durnakowski's

Okay fine, half the town is without power because so many lines came down in the storm and yes, some of them could be live and yeah, the roads and sidewalks still resemble a maze made from twisted tree debris...but don't tell me--more importantly my children--that Halloween is cancelled.

The town of Amherst can control roads, schools and liquor licenses, but not a major holiday. Halloween is bigger than that. It's a happy, sugar induced state of mind; and right about now folks could use a little distraction, even if it means dressing up to visit only one or two revered neighbors escorted by a vigilant parent.

And so we did.

Don't mess with an angry angel

So Amherst's annual Halloween Fest attracted hundreds of family folks to the downtown this afternoon for some trick or treating around the downtown businesses (well, except maybe for the bars) and the big parade from Sweetser Park to the Bangs Community Center for more games and activities. My little angel had a ball.


Even though it was a Sunday afternoon, the Gazette managed to assign veteran ace photographer Gordon Daniels to cover the festivities (and when you have a photographer like him, who needs a reporter for a 1,000 words or so?) so watch for his artwork in an upcoming ink and paper edition.

As an old school legacy entity the Daily Hampshire Gazette is really good covering weekend events as long as you give them a few months notice. Breaking stories is another story altogether.

As in, if 9/11 happened on a Friday/Saturday/Sunday, we would read it in print on Tuesday.

Downtown fright fest

A hundred or more families turned out for Halloween Kids Parade March last night.



Heaven must be missing an angel.

Boo!