Category Archives: Hilltown Postcards

Hilltown Postcards

Hilltown Postcard: Following the Plow

When I worked as an editor for a daily newspaper in Western Mass., I drove a good country road, Route 143, from the small hilltown where we lived through two others to a valley city. Most of the year, it was a pleasant 45-minute commute with long views, deep forests, occasional wildlife, and very few vehicles. A traffic jam typically involved three cars stuck behind a logging truck on one of the route’s steep hills.

But then, there was winter.

I dreaded November. Rain that month meant black ice. And that was just the start of a long season of digging ourselves out of deep snow. I constantly kept tabs on the weather.

Prior to working as an editor for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, I was its correspondent for the town of Worthington where we lived, being paid by the inch, and after several years, I was on staff covering two more hilltowns — Chesterfield and Cummington — plus regional news. Today, so many people work remotely, but Jim Foudy, who was the editor-in-chief then, said it didn’t make sense for me to cover those towns in the newsroom. I called a corner of our bedroom, where I kept my desk, the Hilltown Bureau.

I was frequently put in charge of any bad weather coverage. Typically, I would call a few of the highway superintendents for an update on road conditions and how their crews were handling them. Here’s a memorable example: during one ice storm, the highway trucks had to be driven backwards to spread sand on the road to give their wheels traction, and sometimes, the conditions were so dangerous, they were called back to the garage.

The highway supers didn’t mind taking a break to chat with a reporter. Sometimes I felt they were expecting me to call. I also called people who might have driven in the storm or worked outside or had an interesting perspective. Of course, Donald Ives, who kept daily weather records in Worthington for decades, was on my list.

But that changed when I became an editor, and I assigned those stories to reporters. Also, I had to commute to Northampton.

I left for the newsroom at 6:10 in the morning. I knew by then the plow trucks were out on the roads. I had faith when I reached the town line, the Chesterfield crew had taken care of a steep hill my car would climb. I kept going until I reached the Williamsburg aka Burgy line. Here was another hill, this time down to Route 9, a state highway that took me to Northampton. As I approached each town line, I asked myself “Did they make it? Did they make it?” It was extremely rare they didn’t.

When freezing rain or snow fell, the highway crews hit the steep hills first so they wouldn’t lose them. That included the one in front our house in Worthington. When I saw a truck’s strobing yellow lights move down that slope I knew for sure a storm had arrived.

One time, the police were on top of Burgy Hill telling people to take it slow since the road was icy. But as I did just that, the town’s highway truck was spreading salted sand on its way up.

Lucky for me and other drivers, those little towns spend a good chunk of their money roads. And the men who maintained the roads — yes, there were no women — took their jobs seriously. In Worthington, three men took care of 57 miles of roads in the winter.

The worst snow storms of the season were the first and last. During the first, it seemed people forgot how to drive on snowy roads. On the last, everybody, including the highway crews, was sick of snow.

Often I met the plow and gratefully followed it uphill all the way to the next town. Or its driver deservedly got a wave and toot of my Subaru’s horn when we passed in the opposite direction. At the end of winter, I sent a thank you card to the highway department in the three towns.

Sometimes we got hit with a storm when I was at work and my boss let me leave early. I recall one April 1 watching serious snow falling outside the newsroom’s windows. It was obvious this wasn’t going to be the flurries that had been forecast. In fact, it was such a fast-falling wet snow that when I turned left on Route 143, a tractor trailer was jackknifed on the road. But my all-wheel-drive Subaru managed to get around it.

After depending on these crews for so many years, I also got to know their work habits. For instance, I learned I shouldn’t drive home at noon. No matter the weather the guys took their lunch break then. If I waited until 1, they were back on the roads.

The crews also inspired characters in my Isabel Long Mystery Series, including one guy, Cary Moore, who worked on a town’s highway department and wrote poetry good enough for a famous poet to steal. That was in Checking the Traps.And in case you’re wondering, that character is not based on anyone real.

Here’s a poem Cary — well, I, actually — wrote about his highway super called The Peerless Plowman:

Night and day the Peerless Plowman sees the road ahead.

He drives alone

Pushing snow aside with his truck’s long blade.

No harm will come to those who follow.

The Peerless Plowman watches the weather.

Hey, guys, a storm front’s moving in, he tells us,

Get the trucks ready before it does.

We can’t let the people down.

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Hilltown Postcards, Uncategorized

Hilltown Postcard: We Build a Home

In my last Hilltown Postcard, I wrote about an unfortunate accident that delayed our plans to build our own home. Hank was so badly injured by another person’s carelessness, he was unable to work for ten months while he recovered. Until that happened, I managed to keep things going as a substitute teacher, plus the pitiful amount I made as a freelance correspondent for the local newspaper. 

Come the following spring, we secured a construction loan through the Bank of Western Massachusetts, a local bank that no longer exists. The bank agreed to lend us $60,000, which included the $18,000 we owed for the two acres of land we bought. 

That wasn’t a lot of money left over to build a two-story Cape with a full basement. But then we were fortunate to know so many people in the building industry. Most had worked alongside Hank on other jobs and knew what a hard-working guy he is. How hard working? He worked full time during the week and on our house on the weekends and sometimes at night.

Construction began with the well and then excavation for the foundation. We had to have electricity brought in from the road, not an easy task since those who handled the lines for the power company had gone on strike.

People we hired gave us great discounts for the work they did like framing, electricity, plumbing, dry wall, siding, and whatever was needed to build a house. 

And so many others volunteered to come on the weekend to work alongside Hank because they were friends and wanted to help a family with six kids have their own home.

We remain grateful to them all because, yes, we were able to build a home for $52,000. That wouldn’t be impossible today.

I have fond memories of watching the men, yes, it was all men, working together. My contribution was minimal like help with the painting. I did get a job tending bar at a restaurant in town as a way to bring in more money. (It turned out to be great research for when I started writing my mystery series years later.)

For the weekend volunteers, I brought coffee from the Corners Grocery, the general store in town, and muffins or scones I baked in the morning. I returned at noon with sandwiches, sides, and drinks, and then when the afternoon work was near done, beer. The guys always showed their appreciation.

I took photos of the progress, and later put them in a book as a gift for Hank. The title page says: “This is the house Hank Livingston built for his family.” There he is in the photo on the right.

Construction continued through the summer, fall, and early winter. We didn’t care whether we would be in our new home for Christmas, but it happened soon after in mid-January.

Our house wasn’t finished when we moved in. That took years. Hank has built staircases, cabinets and fine woodwork for other people’s homes. But this time, he did all of that for his family in a home we owned. Hank actually didn’t finish the house until just before we sold it and moved to Taos, New Mexico, but that’s another story for a future Hilltown Postcard.

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Hilltown Postcards

Stacking Firewood

The wood stove we bought was our only source of heat in that funky house we rented in Ringville. It wasn’t our first go-round keeping warm this way. We did that when we lived for a year in a cabin in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire.

When we first moved to that part of Worthington, we bought long slabs of hardwood from a lumber yard. As you can see in the photos below, Hank used a chainsaw to cut the slabs into burnable pieces that were then stacked beneath the house’s front overhang. I don’t touch power tools, especially ones with a blade, so I helped with the stacking.

We brought in enough wood to last a few days or longer depending on how cold it was. The warmest part of the house was in the living room, which had the wood stove. The rest of the house, especially the bedrooms, was quite cold with ice on the single-paned windows. I seriously doubt the house’s walls had much if any insulation.

Fortunately, our thoughtful friend, Win Donovan came to our house to keep the fire going when we visited my parents at Christmas, the only time we were away during the winter. Otherwise the water pipes would have burst.

I recall someone saying you should only have burned half of your wood supply by Christmas. I always assessed the amount we had at that time. Fortunately, we never ran out.

As the years went on, we upped the quality of the hardwood we burned. It was necessary to burn seasoned hardwood, that is, logs that have dried at least a year after they were cut. (When we lived in Taos, New Mexico, we burned softwood in our passive-solar home because that was all that was available.)

Seasoned wood costs more than unseasoned. The smart thing would be to buy green wood, and then let it dry for a year. We weren’t able to afford that until we moved into the home we built — stay tuned for future Hilltown Postcards. We burned three cords to heat that house.

Each fall we bought firewood from Dean, who lived in town and cut wood year-round. One year we splurged and bought six cords of dry and green wood. We burned the dry wood and let the green logs be. Next year and from then on, we only needed green wood delivered because we were ahead of the game.

In the fall, the green wood was stacked in long rows for a year. We brought most of the dry wood into the house’s walk-in basement and stacked what couldn’t fit beneath the deck. We had to carry the logs to the wood stove upstairs although we also had one in the cellar for those really cold days. 

Yes, we moved those logs a lot.

The chore of stacking firewood fell to Hank and I although I recall our three sons were helpful. The girls would start and somehow wander off before the job was finished. We worked at it for weekends.

I’ve always liked the puzzle of making a free-standing stack. You need a solid base and crisscrossed squarish logs at the ends to keep the rows in place. I so enjoy that clocking sound of wood falling in place. 

It was satisfying to watch the neat stacks rise, and later in the winter, use the wood to keep us warm.

I was inspired to write this post the other day while stacking firewood that will heat Hank’s workshop in our home. He burns one cord max. A half cord arrived to replenish our supply, thanks to our town’s program that supplies up to a cord of firewood free to residents. (Thank you Buckland and the state Department of Conservation and Recreation.) The logs came from trees felled by the power company. Volunteers helped prep the wood.

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Hilltown Postcards

My Teaching Experience

Suddenly, Hank couldn’t work due to a serious injury that was no fault of his own. That meant, I had to step up to support our family. What I made writing stories for the local newspaper would only fill a bag of groceries. Thank goodness, the certificate I earned 18 years earlier as a college senior meant I could teach in public schools, and it was our good fortune, I was hired to fill in for a teacher on sick leave who decided not to return.

At Gateway Regional Middle School in Huntington, I taught fifth and sixth graders, who needed extra help with reading, and seventh and eighth graders, who needed the same for writing. They came in groups to the oversized room I shared with two other teachers. The students sat at tables on my side. 

It had been many years since I took the courses required for my minor in education or did student teaching. So, I counted on what I had learned from my own inspiring teachers. I was lucky to have had many. Plus, as the mother of six, I was used to kids. Five were now school age, including our oldest daughter in high school. One son was among my reading students.

I wanted to make the time my students spent learning a comfortable experience. For instance, I let them chew gum in my class. I figured it helped them relax. But I had one rule: I couldn’t hear or smell it. They caught on fast.

Several had an I.E.P., that is, an Individualized Education Plan because they had been identified as special needs students. To me, it meant they learned in a different way than the larger pack. Two of my sons had I.E.P.s.

Fortunately, I worked with an aide who was a great teammate. I recall one fifth-grader, who I will call David, liked to stir things up instead of learn. So, my aide and I came up with a plan — she and David would trade places for a class. David would be my aide while the real one acted like him, being a disruptive pain in the you-know-what, even wearing his trademark suspenders. Was our idea a success? I believe so. At the end of the school year, I gave David an award for being one of my most improved students, which he accepted with gusto at a school assembly.

The curriculum was set for the reading students. My aide and I worked closely with them. However, it was up to me to come up with ways to inspire the writing students. So, I gave them writing prompts I felt would motivate them as they wrote on one of the classroom’s early model Apple computers. Here’s one prompt: “I am your worst nightmare” — the line from a Rambo movie. Yes, that was a hit.

In the spring, the school held a short story contest every year for the seventh and eighth graders, so my students worked on their entries during class. The contest was judged by people outside the school. Needless to say, I was thrilled when three of my students’ stories placed.

Meanwhile, Hank was healing from the torn tendons in his shoulder. He did what he was able to keep the home going. Our youngest was only a toddler. The next-to-youngest went half-day to kindergarten. Plus, we had moved Hank’s father, who could no longer live on his own, into a rest home in Northampton. 

We scraped by as best we could. Hank has always been a careful woodworker, but unfortunately someone on the contractor’s crew wasn’t, so he fell through a hole 18 feet onto his shoulder. The contractors declined to give him any money while he was unable to work because he was a subcontractor.

Yes, we contacted a lawyer, but any kind of settlement was at least three years off. Those who were treating Hank’s injuries agreed to wait for the money owed them. His goal was to get better, and he did finally, that summer when he returned to work. By the way, those contractors had the nerve to ask him back.

How did we manage on a starting teacher’s salary? Barely, but then household expenses were rather minimal. TV channels came free through an antenna on the roof. No cell phones or computers. (I wrote my stories for the paper on a funky laptop it supplied and transmitted the copy through the phone line.) No car payments and the vehicles had basic insurance. Water came from a spring in the cellar. We heated with wood. Our rent was $300.

I recall a few days before Christmas finding a box of food and an envelope containing $70 on our doorstep. When we asked around, no one would claim responsibility for this good deed.

My thoughtful mother sent boxes of quality clothes for the kids she found at rummage sales held in her town. She took them shopping at a jeans outlet in Fall River when we visited. One time she mailed me a box of clothing. My mother was a cafeteria worker, so she knew what would be suitable for a teacher to wear. I smile thinking of that.

The end of the school year was approaching. The district was having a tough time financially, so positions were being cut. I found out I wasn’t being hired back when a first-year teacher rushed into my room, saying joyfully her job was saved because “they were letting the reading teacher go.” I recalled saying, “That’s me.” Flustered, she left. Minutes later, the principal came rushing into my room to break the news in a more professional way.

For a while, I contemplated getting my master’s degree, soon to be a new requirement for a permanent teaching license, even taking night courses at a state college. I applied for an open position at Gateway, was a finalist, but didn’t get the job.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the classroom experience, I concentrated instead on finding opportunities in the field of journalism. Later, when I became an editor, then an editor-in-chief, I most often hired rookie reporters. I would tell those who were recent grads: welcome to grad school. Once again, I was a teacher.

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Hilltown Postcards

An Unfortunate Accident

It was supposed to be an ordinary Monday. Hank went to work that summer morning 36 years ago, doing finish carpentry for local contractors building a house in the next town. I stayed home with our six kids. 

But that day Hank got badly hurt because of somebody else’s carelessness. 

Hank and his helper were setting up to work on the house’s third floor, which required moving a pile of wood left on a large sheet of plywood in the room’s center. But when Hank lifted the plywood, he fell through the large hole it was covering. The sheet of plywood should have been nailed, but it wasn’t, so he dropped 18 feet through the hole and managed somehow to land on his shoulder on the first floor. If Hank hadn’t, he would have gone another eight feet or so to the cellar floor. 

Hank got himself out of there and drove to a hospital’s emergency room, where he was told it was probably a bad sprain, and then he went home. I was stunned when I heard what had happened.

But his injury wasn’t a bad sprain, as we found out during a visit a couple of days later to another hospital. The impact had torn muscles in his shoulder. He was in pain. 

It was obvious Hank wouldn’t be able to work for a while, so he reached out to the contractors to see if they could pay him until he was able to work again. But they said no. Hank was a subcontractor and not an employee. He had no benefits.

We were in a fix. Hank did his best to keep our family going with what he earned although we lived modestly, renting a small house in Worthington’s Ringville section. We had an old pickup and a station wagon. Most everything we owned used to belong to somebody else. 

I remember going to the house to help Hank remove his tools. I saw the piece of plywood covering the hole, now nailed in place as it should have been. On the advice of others, we contacted a lawyer, but our case wouldn’t be resolved for years. 

This accident also meant our plans to build our own home on land we bought the previous year would have to wait.

But more importantly, how would we be able to take care of our family. I was working as a correspondent for the local newspaper, getting paid by the story, but that was a pitiful amount of money. I would have to get a real job.

Fortunately, I had listened to my mother and got my teaching certificate, which in those days was permanent, when I went to college. You never know when you might need it, I remember her telling me in what turned out to be prophetic piece of advice. (Thank you, Mom.)

So, I applied to be a substitute teacher at the Gateway Regional School District. Hank would stay home with our youngest child who was not school age, plus the next-to-youngest who went a half day to kindergarten. We would live as simply as possible while he recovered.

Then luck was on our side once again. I had only worked a couple of days as a substitute teacher when I was asked to fill in for a teacher who would be on a six-weeks leave of absence for medical reasons. She taught reading to fifth and sixth graders and writing to seventh and eighth for those students who needed extra help. Later, the teacher decided not to return. 

This turn of events meant a steady income for our family and an experience I treasure still. More to come.

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