Thanks Neil, Barb, & All:
It was great to hear the Boomtown song again (from those links). It's remarkable how sounds and smells can trigger buried memories! I remember when my dad bought a "second" TV at the Salvation Army Thrift store for my brother and me. It had an eight-inch screen and a thirty-inch cabinet. I believe that we could only get four channels in Worcester at that time, Channels four, five, seven (WNAC I think), and when the weather was right, Channel nine (WMUR-TV) from Manchester, NH.
At this time of year, my dad would try to make a few extra bucks on the weekends picking apples in Sterling, Brookfield, and a few other towns in northern Worc. County. We would drive north on Lincoln Street, branch left in front of Nordgren's Funeral Home (didn't it become Burncoat at that point?), continue until Burncoat ended at a park I believe,left, then right on West Boylston Street. We would sometimes go one block beyond West Boylston to stop at the Pinecroft Ice Cream place. I would look out the window from the back seat of dad's '63 Ford Galaxie and eat my ice cream as we crossed the Wachuset Reservoir. I alwys looked for the the ruined stone church on the bank-I've heard that it has collapsed.
It seems that everyone who had a few apple trees would put an old kitchen chair out by the road with a bushel of apples and maybe a plastic jug or two of apple cider sitting on top. That freshly pressed cider! What I wouldn't give for a drum of it now! Of course, I would probably have to sleep in the bathroom for a month, but it is a price I would be willing to pay!
Bye for now,
DanG
