That didn't take long

10:30 AM
The 29 Commemorative flags come down the morning after the Amherst 250th Parade (until Veterans Day). Of course, if some people in the People's Republic had their way the flags would only fly once every 250 years.

A triumphant Amherst Anniversary Parade

Glad they did not try to put 250 candles on her
Legion and VFW Color Guard leads off
Parade Co-Grand Marshals Barry Roberts, Stephen Puffer, Stan Ziomek
Amherst Animal Control officer Carol Hepburn
Congressman John Olver (serving almost all 250 years now)
There's still time to hit the Big-E
A dancing bear (gotta wonder if it was Cinda Jones)
Old fashioned Undertaker
Dickinson Museum has back to back PR success
Blogging Guru Tommy Devine and friends from the Amherst Survival Center
Gotta have clowns

The Amherst 250th Parade Committee must have channelled Moses as the steady rains parted and gloomy grey skies cleared just long enough for almost the entire 1.5 hour Parade to amble thru town center with all the pomp and circumstance of a Big City parade but that unmistakable feel of a good old fashioned Rockwell small town affair.
Umass Marching Band with Superstar conductor George Parks
Caballos de Paso the dancing horses of Puerto Rico
Those funny men and their flying little machines

Dickinson Homestead renewal

About 100 folks attended the ribbon cutting ceremony yesterday morning on a gorgeous day (much like the day of her funeral) to celebrate the historically accurate grounds makeover for Amherst's deservedly most famous resident, Emily Dickinson.


The $275,000 project paid for by 17 private donors (one of them kicking in a "challenge grant" of $125,000) with a little town seed money to start the planning process ($15,000 in CPA funds which I supported in Town Meeting back in 2005) the entire project required less than a year.

Since Emily Dickinson confined herself to an upstairs room or beloved garden, the Homestead grounds comprised a significant part of her physical world--tended to by Irish servants who later honored Miss Emily's final written request that her white "coffin [was] not driven but carried through fields of buttercups" out the back to a final resting place in West Cemetery.

A view from the top

A view from the bottom

Make way for the wagon

So as predicted the wondrously beautiful Clydesdale's brought the downtown to a momentary halt as they delivered a case of Bud to business accounts in the downtown.

A Valley with a view

Artwork in progress by Christine Labich

Free at last, free at last!

Thursday 9:00 AM (car from Umass passes across Fearing unfettered on Lincoln Avenue.)

Thank God almighty the "experiment" has ended. The barricades are coming down today although some will be left in place to aid the 250Th Parade on Sunday, but by Monday all traces of the stupidest thing this town has done (since purchasing a Golf Course over 20 years ago for $2.2 million that they could have had for free) will be a distant--malevolent--memory.

Lincoln Avenue: Umass is at your service!
Thursday 9:05 AM (no wonder it will not take long to move them.)

#############################
From: amherstac@aol.com

Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 2:19 PM
To: Mooring, Guilford
Subject: Lincoln Avenue blockade (yikes)

Hey Guilford,

Are they still coming down (or should I say out) on Wednesday? If so about what time (and about how long does it take?)

Larry

Larry,

Yes. They will start coming down on Thursday AM and finish up on Monday. We are leaving the barriers that are blocking access to the UMass Lots until Monday to support the Parade on Sunday.

Once they start coming out it will be quick.

Guilford