A Visit From The Priest – II

Now as to Hinsdale Flats; if you don’t know what a “flat” is when you move to the Berkshires you soon figure it out, why even my cousin Clovis who spent a good measure of his life in the 5th grade could figure it out – it is purely and simply any stretch of road that is flat. Flat road is something, unlike in Iowa where Vickie is from, that you notice in the Berkshires, for just about everything is vertical.

In the section of Becket where we lived there was no gas station (Becket being a township of 40 some square miles). Once a neighbor ran out of gas in Becket and coasted 7 miles down Route 20 to the town of Chester to get gas – now that is vertical – wouldn’t you say? He was fortunate in this trip in that the Chester gas station, which did not have regular hours, happened to be open. Otherwise the neighbor would have had to shoot for Huntington, farther down Route 20.

How did we get to Huntington? That’s south, Pittsfield is north, and to get to Pittsfield from Becket you’ve got three choices, one is via Washington Mountain Road, another is to veer off just before you cross the railroad bridge into Hinsdale via the flats, and the third is right through Hinsdale on the Hinsdale Flats. While you are on “flats” prior to the aforementioned veer-off, the Flats continue on the other side of the bridge and it is that section of the flats where you want to be cautious – for lurking there like a predator appearing in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie is the infamous Hinsdale constabulary with radar.

Now please understand, this is not an endorsement of exceeding the speed limit, nor of speeding; which I guess are the same things. Kind of like when  on Monday you want to refer to Wednesday; you can say, “Two days from today,” or, “The day after Tuesday,” or, “The day before Thursday,” or I suppose you could just say, “Wednesday.”

The thing about the Hinsdale Flats is that the speed limit drops from 55 to 35 with NO NOTICE.  Makes you wonder if the town fathers of Hinsdale did that on purpose; what do you think?

When I drove our 5-speed Ford Ranger pickup through Hinsdale I would automatically lock it in 3rd gear as I approached the drop-off from 55 to 35 MPH, then I’d remain in 3rd gear through the town of Hinsdale.

Folks who contested speeding tickets in Berkshire County had to go before the Magistrate in Pittsfield to plead their case. One morning the first three offenders had all been nabbed on the Hinsdale Flats. After the third motorist protested his innocence – for the Hinsdale constabulary were said to be rather liberal in their reading of the radar gun – the magistrate looked up and asked how many others there had a ticket from the Hinsdale Flats. When virtually everyone raised their hand the Magistrate dismissed all their cases – he’d had enough of the Hinsdale constabulary that particular morning.

Washington Mountain Road was another adventure, but not in the same way as the Hinsdale Flats. There was no radar on Washington Mountain Road for there were no shoulders and only the occasional driveway, on the south section, where a law enforcement office might pull over and drink his coffee with one eye on the radar gun. On the north section there were no pullovers, no driveways, and sometimes not much road; at least not much road until Washington Mountain Road was repaved.

Vickie once had the pleasure of a moose traveling with her on Washington Mountain Road. As she was motoring along its crest out from the woods comes a moose and lopes alongside the Jeep. Since moose are so tall and our Jeep didn’t have a sunroof the moose didn’t have much eyeball to eyeball contact with Vickie, though it did bend its great head down a time or two to peer into the passenger-side window.

This particular moose wore a radio collar, not because it was into XM Radio, but because it had been in the town of Lee a few days earlier and had been apprehended by the Mass game warden, tranquilized, fitted with a radio collar, and transported up on Washington Mountain. I wonder what would happen if you put aluminum foil on a moose’s antlers, would it increase its ability to receive signals?

Now I suppose I should mention that on the north descent of Washington Mountain Road, a twisting and turning proposition, it was not unusual to find a Pittsfield cop nestled at the bottom of the mountain where there was a flat, a straightaway. The natural tendency for the motorist, after negotiating Washington Mountain Road and its twisting descent, is to increase his speed upon arriving at the flat stretch of road. It’s like what happens when there is a backup on an Interstate, the tendency among many folks is to go a bit faster than the speed limit after exiting the backup. Now I write these things not because I do them, but only from observation. Speaking of observation, I observe that I need to wrap this up – we still need to get back to Jean Claude don’t we?