Shelburne Falls

Ode to Porchfest

I was honored when Dave Dumas, one of the hosts at the Shelburne Falls Porch Music Festival, offered me a challenge to write an Ode to Porchfest. I would read it that day, July 13, before the lineup of musicians performed. He didn’t tell me how or what to write. But with that title, I figured it should be in poetic form.

To be honest, it’s been many, many years since I’ve written a full-length poem. I did write brief ones in my Isabel Long Mystery Series for a character, Cary Moore, a highway worker who wrote poetry good enough for a big shot poet to steal.

But a full-length ode? I would need to do some research.

According to the Poetry Foundation, an ode is “a formal, often ceremonious lyric poem that addresses and often celebrates a person, place, thing, or idea.” Likely the most famous is John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Written in 1819, the language is a bit flowery by today’s standards. Here’s how it starts: “Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness.”

Eh, not my style although there are two lines I repeat throughout my ode that have similar language. I knew I wanted the poem to rhyme, so that was another test. I also chose to abbreviate the event’s title to Porchfest.

I took my time, revisiting the poem each day to add more lines or to revise another or just read it aloud. I wanted to include Porchfest’s history, including how it came to Shelburne Falls, the mythical village where I live in Western Mass. Plus, I wrote lines about what was generally scheduled to happen that day and specifically, on the porch of Dave and Susanne Hynes’s house on Green Street on the Buckland side.

I kept the poem a secret until today at noon when I read it aloud. I timed the release of this post to come after that. And here it is below.

ODE TO PORCHFEST

Music, music all around

On the porches in our towns

People walk amid the choices

Lured by instruments and voices

O Porchfest

Thou art the best.

In 2007, Ithaca’s the first

Lesley Greene and Gretchen Hildreth

Both saw its worth

An afternoon of song

People strolling along

O Porchfest

Thou art the best.

Now Porchfest is in many states

Even Canada, that’s great

The total so far is 232

And on different days, that’s true

O Porchfest

Thou art the best.

The Village’s Porchfest has its fifth year

Thanks to Dorothy Strano-Bennett who brought it here.

She was only thirteen

And a resident of Queens.

Grateful for the welcome during the plague

Her grandmother’s State Street porch became a stage

Masks were on the musicians that day

When people came to watch them play.

O Porchfest

Thou art the best.

Dorothy’s dad Paul Bennett took charge

Since then the festival has grown large

Here are the facts:

Over 70 acts.

Hundreds of artists are performing today

Rock, jazz, soul, and reggae

Poetry, prose and joke

Acoustic, experimental, and folk.

If you’re keeping score

On porches, yards, in front of stores

At restaurants and clubs

The Mill, Water Street Barn, and Floodwater brew pub

O Porchfest

Thou art the best.

We’re here on Green Street with Susanne and Dave

Who’ve created a program of music to crave

Indie rock with Brook Bateau

Honest folk with Bob Chabot

Matt Price’s intricate songs

Yes, this lineup is very strong

Kevin Keady, a satirical folkie

Ralph Carson, our favorite Okie

And Jack Dwyer, who sings and swings

Thank you all for the music you bring

O Porchfest

Thou art the best.

So, on July 13, 2025

The festive spirit continues to thrive

Enjoy what you hear

Expect more next year

O Porchfest

Thou art the best.

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6Ws, Author Interview, mysteries

6Ws with Author Angela Wren

On occasion, I run a 6Ws feature to give fellow authors and their books a bit of promotion. Angela Wren is the next. (With a nod to my former life as a journalist, I opted for the 6Ws of the business: who, what, when, where, why and how, which counts as it ends in W.) I once shared a publisher with Angela, who is from the UK. I have enjoyed her cozy mysteries with private investigator Jacques Forêt solving crimes in France. She also writes short stories using the crime mystery genre. I will let her tell you about her latest.

Who is the author Angela Wren?

I write cosy crime mysteries set in France. My detective is Jacques Forêt, an ex-Paris police detective who moved to the Cévennes in south-central France to work as a private investigator.

I also write short stories in the crime genre too. There are number of my short stories in various anthologies but I would like to tell you about Summer Paths. This is the fourth in the Seasonal Paths series. My stories in these are also mystery-related. It seems I can’t stop myself putting some sort of puzzle in anything I write!  

What is your latest?

My latest short story is entitled Alice. She’s an auctioneer and valuer with a company in London, where she lives. Her dad, Peter, is a property developer who lives in central France. Alice and Peter have avarious adventures in France whilst solving whatever mystery I can come up with at the time.

In my story my recently published story, Alice finds herself being treated to some time away on a cruise ship because she has broken up with her long-term, live-in boyfriend. And within not time at all she stumbles on a mystery that has to be resolved before the ship returns to Southampton.

When did you begin writing?

I’ve always loved stories from being a very small child. I’ve always loved telling stories and reading them. One of my earliest memories is of being taken by my parents to Foyles Bookshop in London to choose a book for myself. I’ve been hooked ever since. I think writing stories came as part of a natural progression from reading, to telling, and then writing my own pieces of fiction.

Where do you write?

I have a library at home with my computer in there and a fraction of my extensive book collection. If I said that the only place in my house that does NOT have books and bookshelves is the bathroom – would you get the picture? I spend a lot of time in my office. But I also have a laptop and a smartphone and I can frequently be found on trains, planes, trams, ferries, and busses writing on either of my portable devices. I also have a small notebook in every handbag I own just in case an idea strikes!

Why do you write?

Because I love it and because putting words and sentences together is just my normal. Even when I’m cleaning the bathroom or hoovering the carpets you can guarantee my mind is somewhere else – in the Cévennes with Jacques, or in the auction house with Alice, or in Beauregard with Alice and her Dad, or somewhere entirely new with a character I’m developing. It’s all just so fascinating to me!

How do you write?

I’m very much a plotter rather than a pantser. I have to know where I’m going with story before I sit down and write it. That’s probably the result of twenty-odd years working in project management and business change. But I don’t plan every minute detail, so my characters do sometimes surprise me – which I think is good. It makes me look at my planned story with a different eye, and I frequently do what my characters tell me they want to do. I hope it makes my stories better.

Links to books and social media

Buy links :

https://mybook.to/SummerPaths

https://mybook.to/SpringPaths

https://mybook.to/WinterPaths

https://viewbook.at/AutumnPaths

LinkTree : AngelaWren

Amazon : AngelaWren

Website : www.angelawren.co.uk

Blog : www.jamesetmoi.blogspot.com

Facebook : FacebookAngela Wren

Twitter : TwitterAngelaWren

Instagram : InstaAngelaWren

Threads : ThreadsAngelaWren

Bookbub : BookBubAngelaWren

Goodreads : GoodreadsAngela Wren

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Experiences

Strange Encounters

One recent day, I was pumping gas in a nearby city when a big, shiny red pickup with New Hampshire plates pulled up behind my car. The driver, a man older than middle age, called out to me after he left his truck. “Hey, if I make you climax, would you pay to fill up my truck?” What? I thought of several things I could say, but given what’s happening these days, I chose instead to not respond. I ignored him.

Yes, that was one strange encounter.

Over the years I have had others. They range from humorous to uncomfortable. Surely, you have had your own.

And then there are the ones I create for my books.

First the humorous. I recall being at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge when a man approached me in a friendly way. He called me by a name that wasn’t mine. He explained we had known each other well in a previous life. Sorry, I don’t remember.

Then there was the time a twenty-something clerk at a liquor store asked if I was famous after he read the name on my check. I was a journalist for a local newspaper but didn’t think I was a household name. He explained, “Yeah, you work with chimpanzees in the jungle.” He thought I was Jane Goodall. I told him politely that wasn’t me.

Now for the uncomfortable. Of course, hitchhiking, which I did when I was young and didn’t own a car, generated a few strange encounters. I recall hitching to a college friend’s house in a rural area when this old man stopped to give me a ride. I got nervous as he left the main drag for an unfamiliar road. He kept talking about how unsafe it was for a woman to be hitchhiking alone. Uh, yes, buddy you are making your point. I demanded he take me back to the main road and let me out of his car, which he did. 

I will spare you what one driver was doing as I sat in the front seat of his car while hitchhiking in France. My then-boyfriend was in the back seat. We had been waiting over 24 hours on the side of a road for someone to give us a ride. Hence, I put up with the situation.

Certainly, I have heard from other people about their experiences getting picked up by strangers. By the way, I also had many good ones when people drove longer and even out of their way to help me reach my destination.

I had odd and sometimes uncomfortable encounters when I was a journalist. As a reporter covering small towns, including the one where I lived, I could find myself in a social situation or say shopping at the general store with someone who had appeared in one of my news story. And while I tried to write balanced stories, sometimes I had to report on sticky situations.

In New Mexico, I worked as editor-in-chief for The Taos News, where I was expected to write hard-hitting editorials criticizing the way local officials conducted the public’s business. There were occasions when a person I criticized would be at a public event I attended or even hosted. In those cases, I maintained a friendly but professional manner expected of my position. Secretly, I enjoyed it.

Then there were the times those officials were running for re-election. The Taos News did endorsements, so I would have the candidates come in for an interview with a reporter and myself before making our decision. Let’s say there were some rather awkward conversations.

Here’s one about the county official in law enforcement who was unhappy with an editorial I wrote. He told me at the end of a meeting, “I can forgive, but I can never forget.”

Now for the imagined. Naturally, I give Isabel Long, the protagonist of my mystery series, lots of strange encounters, which would seem appropriate for a private investigator. They typically happen when she is interviewing so-called persons of interest and even outright suspects. They can even be threatening. I like throwing danger at Isabel.

In Finding the Source, Isabel and her mother are approached by a homeless man who announces that his mother was murdered when he was a kid — he actually found her body — and the case was never solved. Yes, she decides to pursue it.

Isabel’s experience was inspired by my own encounter on the day of my mother’s funeral. Hank and I were taking a walk beforehand when a stranger rushed toward me and announced, “My grandmother was murdered 46 years ago, and her case was never solved.” I asked the man for details and later checked online.

Hank, a bit surprised, asked me, “How do you attract people like that?” In this case, I was lucky.

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North Fairhaven Girl

North Fairhaven Girl: What’s in the Ocean

Bar-dum, bar-dum, bar-dum, bar-dum

Living in an ocean-front town, I spent much of my childhood summers at the beach. Every Saturday and Sunday, we hauled enough food and beach stuff that it took us a couple of trips to carry everything from the parking lot at West Island to its sandy shore. My mother made enough food, including clam fritters, so we could stay the entire afternoon.

Then there were the many hours my parents dug for clams and quahogs in the sandy beds during low tide. We kids found a way to entertain ourselves until they got their quota. Or we picked periwinkles from the rocks at West Island to eat later at home using safety pins to remove the cooked critters.

Spending that much time close to the ocean, I was well aware — long before the movie “Jaws” — that creatures lived in its waters. Certainly, I had seen prehistoric-looking horseshoe crabs, a giant sea turtle, jelly fish, and large fish like tuna. Sharks? No. They were out there, hopefully way out there although sometimes they come closer. I was safe because I never swam that far in waters over my head. No shark was going to grab me with its jaws like that woman in the movie poster above.

And, naturally, I had read Herman Melville’s “Mobi-Dick” and watched the movie version. Gregory Peck, who played Captain Ahab, made an appearance in New Bedford when it premiered.

Then there is “Jaws,” now celebrating its 50th anniversary. I so enjoyed the comradery of the three main characters, police chief Martin Brody, marine biologist Matt Hooper and the crusty fisherman Quint, as they hunt for the great white shark that is having its way with people in the waters off fictional Amity Island.

The movie is based on Peter Benchley’s novel and directed by Steven Spielberg. Who can forget John William’s two-note theme song, “bar-dum, bar-dum, bar-dum, bar-dum,” that told you something bad was about to happen. Then there is that memorable line I’ve used a few times, “You’re going to need a bigger boat.”

I am going to move onto adulthood, and the summers we vacationed in Fairhaven. Our family was living in the sticks of Western Massachusetts, and I longed to be immersed in salty air and waters. My aunt and cousins generously allowed us to stay at their cottage on Wilbur’s Point.

One summer, Hank and I decided to take the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, a place I hadn’t visited since I was a kid on a family field trip. Back then, you had to take the ferry from Falmouth. But now, it went out of New Bedford. My mother, Algerina Medeiros joined us. Three of our kids came along.

When we arrived on the island, my mother was interested in going on a van tour. I was game, well, we were tourists, and so was my son, Nate, which surprised me since he was in high school. That’s him in the photo. Hank and the other kids were going to walk around. Nate really wanted to come with his mother and grandmother on a tour? 

But I soon found out why. Nate wanted to see where “Jaws” had been filmed. 

(There were, of course, other interesting landmarks like the cemetery where John Belushi is buried and Chappaquiddick, the scene of a notorious accident.)

But as we rode around, the person at the mic pointed out where various scenes were shot since most of the movie was filmed on Martha’s Vineyard. That began in May 1974. Here is a memorable fact I recall: the scene in which people are in the ocean and come screaming across the beach was filmed when the weather and water were damn cold, so there was a good inspiration for their screaming. “Bar-dum, bar-dum….”

I have watched “Jaws” a few times and plan to do it again. I bet Nate will, too.

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Hilltown Postcards

Hilltown Postcards: A Generous Gift

t’s been a while since I wrote a Hilltown Postcard, stories inspired by the many years we lived in Worthington Mass. Here is one about a surprise bequest.

A person I knew who worked in the Hampshire County Registry of Deeds called to say I should check out a will recently filed in Probate Court. According to the source, Marvis “Peg” Rolland, a Worthington resident, had left a great deal of money to the town and hilltown groups.

That was in 1989 when I was the hilltown reporter for the Daily Hampshire Gazette. I so enjoyed the beat, covering stories, big and small, for rural towns. Think populations around a thousand, give or take a couple of hundred. For that, I counted on my network of reliable sources like this person, who I will not name. Breaking news with a front page story was absolutely one of the best parts of that job.

Of course, I drove straight to Probate Court. This is what I found out.

Peg Rolland, who had died Aug. 13 at age 71, did indeed leave a huge amount of money — $1.7 million — to the town, hilltown organizations and people close to her.

She designated $627,500 and the brick ranch home aka Brickhaven at Four Corners would go to the town. Of that sum, $100,000 was for planting maple trees along town roads; $25,000 for North Cemetery; $100,000 for the Worthington Historical Society; $100,000 for the Fire Department; and $100,000 for the Council on Aging.

Residents had to formally accept the conditions of the will at a Special Town Meeting, which they did. The Art and Peg Rolland Highway Fund was eventually created to buy equipment and machinery. A scholarship in their name was established for Worthington students.

Another $575,000 would go to hilltown groups, including the Worthington Health Association, Worthington Congregational Church and Huntington Lions Club.

Peg also left $515,00 to relatives and friends.

She and her husband, Arthur, who died a few months before her, did not have children. That’s a photo to the right of Peg and Arthur from the Worthington Historical Society’s Archives.

I didn’t know Peg, but those who did told me she lived a fugal and quiet life. She never spoke about her business affairs or the intentions in the will she had drawn up five years earlier.

For many years, she worked for Snyder’s Express, the transportation company owned by her father Henry Snyder. Henry was a genuine hilltown character, serving as a Worthington selectman for over 35 years and a shrewd business man. I’ve heard the stories. He certainly would make a great Hilltown Postcard.

Peg was also the office manager for Albert Farms, owned by Ben Albert, another mover and shaker in Worthington. Check out this Substack about his farm: A Potato Farm Goes Barren

She also served the town as tax collector for 20 years and was a member of local groups.

Of course, after the news broke, people had a lot to say about Peg’s generosity. Julia Sharon, who was on the Board of Selectmen when the news broke, said she fielded many phone calls about it, including from people as far away as the Midwest. Locally, some townspeople wondered if it meant they wouldn’t have to pay property taxes or the money could be used to fix up Route 143 in town. Sorry, no.

NOTE: The Hilltowns not only inspired me as a reporter and columnist, but as a novelist. Most of my books are set in the fictional hilltowns of Western Massachusetts. Here’s a link.

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