Alexandersmap

    Category: Lifestyle

    • Clusters

      I read a great book called Geography of Genius that focuses on the tendency of communities of like-minded people to form and thrive, often changing the course of history.  Essentially people feed off each other, and are inspired by the geniuses around them to do more in their own lives.  Rome, Athens, Vienna, Edinburgh and other places are covered in the book.

      It got me thinking about the clusters of geniuses in the northeast.  Maybe we didn’t have Beethoven, Mozart and Freud running around Boston as Vienna had, but we sure had Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott and Nathanial Hawthorne roaming around Concord, Massachusetts at roughly the same time, and all are buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.

      Down in New York in another Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, you have the titans of industry Carnegie, Rockefeller, Chrysler all clustered in their final resting place after building empires just down the river from Tarrytown.  The New York Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is where Washington Irving, writer of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, is buried.

      In Boston, you can visit the graves of Sam Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere and other notable figures from the Revolutionary War at the Granary Burying Grounds.  They fed off each other in life, building on each other’s ideas, one-upping each other.  In death, they’re still neighbors.

      Down in Hartford, Connecticut you had Mark Twain living right next door to Harriet Beecher Stowe.  Talk about a literary one-two punch.  While the neighborhood has changed significantly, becoming grittier, the homes of these two literary giants remain much as they were when they lived there.  I’ve toured the Twain house, and will carve out time for Stowe another time.

      As the weather gets warmer, I’m going to spend a little more time visiting the homes of notable people.  Walking around the homes of Robert Frost and Mark Twain reinforce that they were just regular people with extraordinary talent and the grit necessary to produce.  Visiting their graves reminds you that their time was brief, and so too is ours.

    • Blackbirds

      They’re back.  The rebel bike gang of the skies have come back to New Hampshire.  Where I once filled my bird feeders once or twice a week, I have to fill them daily when these swarms of Red Winged Blackbirds and Common Grackles come to town.  They swarm the feeders and you can almost watch them empty in moments.  There’s no taking your fair share and moving on with these thugs – it’s all or nothing.

      I’ve read up on changing up the feed, putting chicken wire around the feeders, or buying new feeders that they don’t like to go to.  But I’m not spending money or time on that.  With a snow storm coming in tonight, I’m not taking down the feeders either.  I’m going to fill them up and let them run out – quickly mind you, but unnaturally natural.  Maybe the desirable birds will get their fill too, maybe not.  But sometimes you need to let nature decide.  The feeders come down in a month.  I’ll continue to feed the bluebirds, which has been a pleasant success in the yard.  Maybe even the finches, depending on how quickly they blow through the thistle.  But the cardinals, jays and other birds are going to have to live off the land once the snow melts.  For now it’s ever bird for itself.

    • Walking in Circles

      In my attempt to keep some frail momentum going in my 21 day challenge to work out every day, I got up early and walked the circular driveway that rings the front of the Sheraton Mahwah.  I’m not a runner.  Walking is my thing and I managed to get about 2 1/2 miles or 5000 steps in before I had to come back in to get ready for the day.

      The show at 5 AM is unique, the darkness is different from the evening walks I take with Bodhi as you start to see a gradual brightening of the sky to the east (obviously) and the celestial show has shifted completely.  This March 6th sky in Mahwah brought the march of the planets, as Jupiter, the star Antares, Mars, Saturn and Pluto followed the moon from right to left across the Southeastern sky.  I’ve been guilty of geeking out over stars before, and this morning was no exception.

      Thankfully there were no witnesses in the cold dark circle.  Well, except for three wild rabbits who glanced at my warily as I marched past them every ten minutes.  The Mahwah Sheraton sits in a bowl rings by hills, with I-287 cutting through the valley on one side and the Ramapo River doing it for a lot longer on the other side.  The hotel sits prominently in the valley, pointing towards the sky.  It’s a classic 1980’s hotel style; bold glass and steel that looks out of place in this beautiful valley.

      Back on my walk, I run through my checklists of things to do today, take stock of a few aches and listen to the constant rumble of trucks and cars grunting along I-287.  The highlight was the march of the planets, gradually fading in the coming day.

       

    • Trolley Parks

      Canobie Lake Park is dormant now, this first day of March.  But spring is in the air, and we’re close to turning the corner on another winter.  Soon the gates will open for another season for this salty veteran.  Canobie Lake Park is a survivor, one of a baker’s dozen trolley parks still in existence today.

      Trolley parks were built in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s as a destination at the end of the trolley line to give people a reason to use the trolleys on the weekend.  After a long week of commuting to the mills, you needed a good reason to jump back on the trolley on a Sunday afternoon after church.  Trolley parks were a destination.  Set out in the countryside, next to a lake or along the river, it gave families a fun place to picnic and play together.  Adding rides, a midway and a dance hall expanded the appeal.  With more people came more money.  And these people were coming in cars.

      The 1920’s saw the rapid decline of the trolley.  And over the next few centuries the decline of the original trolley parks followed.  I remember going to Whalom Park in Lunenburg, which closed in 2000 after a 107 year run.  It was once celebrated as one of the oldest trolley parks in the world.  The site is now condominiums and most of the rides were scrapped or sold off.  I’m sure the condos are lovely but I don’t ever want to see them.

      Back at Canobie Lake Park, you enter a time warp when you walk in and stroll past the original Looff-Dentzel Carousel from 1903, past the Yankee Cannonball, bought from another dying trolley park and installed here since 1936.  According to Wikipedia the roller coast was named to commemorate the Civil War, and was painted in blue and gray, united on the red, white and blue superstructure.  That color scheme is long gone, but the Yankee Cannonball survives.  And walking through the park you can see the old charm in the picnic grounds, midway, Dancehall Theater and the old pine trees that have seen a lot of thrill seekers over the years.

      There were another 15 or so trolley parks that have faded into history over the years, just as the trolleys that spurred their construction faded.  Time marches on, and with cars and relatively cheap flights going to Six Flags or the parks in Orlando are within reach of most families.  I’m glad that Canobie survives and thrives.  Right down the road from Canobie are the grounds of Rockingham Park, opened just a few years after Canobie, but closed permanently and bulldozed into history for condos, retail and restaurants.  Time passed Rockingham by while the old trolley park up the road marches on.

    • Dunes

      Separating the surf from the mainland, dunes are a critical protective barrier.  When storm surge threatens inland areas, it’s often the only thing standing in the way.  Dunes aren’t just piles of sand, they’re an ecosystem of dune grass, small shrubs and other plants adapted to survive this hostile environment.  Birds and other animals live in this buffer zone, protected from the waves and wind.

      The MVP tenant in the dune is dune grass.  Its deep roots literally hold the dune together, creating a more resilient barrier when the winds and waves kick up.  Wind blows the sand against the dune, where it is trapped by the grass and helps to build the dune up, grain by grain.  Wave action erodes the sand, and the cycle continues.

      Complicating this endless dance are humans.  People walking in the dunes trample the grass, creating paths that erode in the wind.  The other contributor to erosion of the dunes in some areas is the jetty.  Jetties are constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and serve to stop erosion of the beach while also trapping sand between each.  Jetties are essentially piles of boulders stacked in a pyramid and running perpendicular to the beach.  Trapping sand, they serve their desired purpose when engineered properly.
      When jetties are constructed without regard for the downward drift the can destroy the protective dunes and dramatically change the beach.  In Quogue, New York, a part of the Hamptons on Long Island, jetties built in 1992 stopped the natural drift of sand from Shinnecock Inlet and wiped out the dunes.  This exposed the homes that line the coast in this area to storm surge.  Visiting the beach in Quoque ten years after the construction of the jetties, I was shocked at how much the beach had changed.  The double dune was gone, and so was the pristine sloping sandy beach.  It was a great lesson in responsible civil engineering.
      The dunes on Plum Island have faced similar threats over the years.  The jetties built on either side of the Merrimack River serve to stabilize the drift of sand, hopefully keeping the channel wider and deeper than it might otherwise be.  Sand that would otherwise clog the channel is better served as a barrier beach.  Were it only so simple.  Jetties, while built with good intentions, can be a blessing or a curse, depending on where you are on the beach.  While the wind and waves are far more powerful over time than the jetties, the impact they’ve had is transformative here and now.  Dunes, while appearing timeless, are fragile ecosystems that need protection from people.

       

    • The Buzzard in the Bay

      Buzzards Bay is a 28 mile long body of water lined on one side by the mainland of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and on the other by Cape Cod, the Elizabeth Islands and Martha’s Vineyard.  Buzzards Bay is named after the osprey’s that thrived along the bay.  Osprey are very different from buzzards, but the name stuck anyway.  Names have a way of doing that.

      The saltiness and warmth of Buzzards Bay make it an attractive place to bob around in during the late summer and early fall.  The bay is considered “an estuary of national importance” in the late 1980’s.  There’s no doubt that the bay teams with thousands or millions of fish, shellfish and the birds and wildlife that feed on them.  The king of all feeders is the osprey.  Watching them float and dive for fish is one of the highlights of being down here.  Thankfully they’ve rebounded from the catastrophic introduction of DDT and other insecticides into the environment.

      That  some explorer 400 years ago can mistake an osprey for a buzzard and name the place after that mistake is interesting.  What even more interesting is it didn’t evolve over time to something more accurate.  I guess once you start associating a location with a name it would be confusing to suddenly call it something else.  So the genie has left the bottle and there’s no changing the name now.  Which is a shame because Osprey Bay is a pretty damned good name if you ask me.

    • The NJ to NH Run

      As a road warrier, I’m used to long drives.  Honestly, I don’t even blink when I drive 6-7 hours anymore.  The one exception to that is the drive back from New Jersey to New Hampshire.  The timing of the drive is critical, and so is the weather.  This afternoon neither worked in my favor.

      From New Jersey, there are basically two viable options over the Hudson River; the Tappan Zee Bridge or George Washington Bridge.  When you drive over the GW you assume the worst, no matter what time of day it is.  Heavy traffic and a rough and bumpy road surface are a given 90% of the time.  Usually crossing the GW means placing all your chips on I-95 all the way to New Haven.  That’s a scary bet.

      The Tappan Zee is less predictable, but generally lighter than the GW.  I’ve always found it to be an interesting and enjoyable bridge to cross, largely because of the width of the Hudson at this point, and the beautiful cliffs that line the shores, particularly at Hook Mountain State Park.  The challenges come after you cross the Hudson.  You either roll the dice on the Sawmill Parkway or on the Merritt Parkway.  Parkways sound lovely, but they’re narrow, unforgiving roads built at a time when cars were driving 35-40 MPH.  Quaint.  Of the two parkways the Merritt is more appealing, with rest areas, a tunnel and importantly, no traffic lights.  The Sawmill has multiple traffic lights along the parkway, which puts the park in parkway.

      From the parkways you’ve eventually got to get through or around Hartford before you finally catch a cruise control breather on I-84 from Manchester, Connecticut to the Mass Pike.  This moment of bliss is usually interrupted by the realities of the Pike.  Channeling thousands of drivers from from parts west with thousands of drivers from parts south can lead to epic traffic on the turnpike.  Summer and holiday traffic is especially delightful along this stretch of Americana.

      Life at highway speed isn’t all its cracked up to be, but its still better than bumper-to-bumper speed.  The math has never worked taking the train or a plane to New Jersey.  So we all enter the grinder and hope for the best.

    • Mount Hope Bridge

      Bristol, Rhode Island is home to the first and thus oldest 4th of July parade in America.  The stripe down the middle of the road is red, white and blue.  This town is patriotic and quaint.  It’s home to Roger Williams University and the America’s Cup Museum, but my favorite thing in this town is the bridge between Bristol and Portsmouth.  The Mount Hope Bridge is a two lane suspension bridge over Narragansett Bay.  It’s a tall, narrow bridge that runs 135 feet above the high tide mark.  There are no sidewalks on this bridge – one lane each way at no wider.  It’s on the National Register of Historic Places because there’s quite a history to it.

      The Mount Hope Bridge was proposed in 1920, supported by the wealthy and influential William Henry Vanderbilt III and finally completed four days before the 1929 Stock Market crash that started the Great Depression.  It’s named for the bay that it spans, which in turn is named for the 209 foot hill Mount Hood.  There’s incredible history in this area.  The Wampanoags held meetings at a rock formation called King Phillips Seat near Mount Hood.  Thankfully this is preserved by Brown University, which owns the land in that area.  That history is a blog (or a few blogs) for another day.  Today is about the bridge.

      Timing the ride over the bridge well, you may be lucky enough to see a spectacular sunset over Narragansett Bay and Jamestown.  It’s one of the rare times when I wish there was traffic so I could just watch the sunset.  Sadly there are no pedestrian walkways on the bridge, though in theory I could ride a bike across the bridge.  In practice that’s a scary thought.  The lanes are narrow and there isn’t much forgiveness between moving vehicles and the bay.  I’m not risk-averse but that doesn’t seem like a recipe for success.

      I’ve had an affinity for bridges for a long time.  It may have been all those trips across the Sagamore Bridge going to the Cape as a kid.  It may have been those long rows from Lowell to the Tyngsboro Bridge in college.  Or memorable trips across the Brooklyn Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge and recently the Vasco De Gama Bridge in Lisbon.  Beyond their utility and architectural beauty, bridges represent connection.  The Mount Hope Bridge may be named after a hill, but I prefer to think of the name as nod to optimism.  Connection and Hope.  We could use more of each in this strange world we live in.

    • Maple Season

      As the days get longer and the sun sits higher in the sky, a site unique to the region starts to appear.  Buckets or plastic barrels start to appear around the maple trees.  Plastic tubing running from the trunks of tree to to these containers wind through the woods.  Maple syrup season is upon us.

      The process of collecting sap and boiling it down in barns and sheds to the sticky sweet topping for pancakes and waffles begins now.  The key, I’m told, is to have cold nights and warm days, which triggers the sap to run.  I’m not sure who in history started licking the sap coming out of the maple tree to discover it was sweet, but I do know they’d be shocked at the industry that’s grown around it.

      Maple syrup comes in two varieties, the real stuff and the dark brown, mass-produced junk spotted in the supermarket and made by subsidiaries of Fortune 500 companies.  Look, I’m sure they’re nice people too, but if I’m going to invest in the carbs and calories for syrup, I’m opting for the real stuff.  Real maple syrup, like local honey, just tastes better.  It also has a lower carbon footprint, isn’t full of additives and preservatives, and supports people in my region.  The buckets are a true sign that spring is right around the corner, and I smile when I see them as I drive through New England.

    • For the Birds

      Yesterday while walking with Bodhi I caught a glimpse of brilliant blue in a neighbors tree.  It was a bluebird frittering from branch to branch.  With the snow as a backdrop it’s colors were thrilling as I paused to watch it.  Its not lost on me that I use descriptive adjectives often, and I offer no apologies. The ride is short and I’m going to make the most of it while on it.

      I’m not a birdwatcher per se, as in you won’t find me with a pair of binoculars chasing a tufted titmouse.  But I take the time to observe them, as I do other wildlife.  Bluebirds, finches, orioles, cardinals and hummingbirds highlight the backyard, offering life, motion and color to a sometimes drab canvas.  Hawks, eagles and osprey, so focused on their next meal, are thrilling to watch in action.  Pileated woodpeckers offer their own thrill, with a unique call and a rapid, loud knock that betrays their presence even when you don’t see these shy birds.

      As I’ve said before, I feed the birds, and view the investment in time and seed as worthwhile.  Bluebirds don’t generally visit my yard for seed because they prefer mealworms.  I’ve already started planning the addition of a Bluebird feeder, with it’s smaller 1 1/2′ holes to keep the bigger birds out.  The ground is frozen now and I don’t think it practical to add another feeder to an already crowded pole out back.

      Having an awareness of the world around you – birds, flowers, stars in the sky, the gurgling of the stream as the snow melt feeds it – doesn’t seem unusual to me, but it feels like many people don’t notice, or don’t care.  Maybe they’re much more focused on their careers, or their projects, or replaying a scene from something they watched on television.  Or maybe I don’t notice them noticing the same things I notice.

      We got eight inches of snow overnight, but its rapidly melting as the sun does its work.  Spring is closer, and with it the world becomes more alive.  I’m sensing change in the air.  Longer days as the earth tilts us towards the sun.  2018 is two months old and already highly interesting.  I’ll be starting a new job soon too.  Brilliant color on an otherwise drab landscape draws my eye.  I feel its worth the investment.