Tag Archives: reporter

Hilltown Postcards

Following a Mislead about Mastodon Bones

After being the Worthington correspondent for years, I took on two more hilltowns: Chesterfield and Cummington. These days predated the social media we have now, so that required bona fide legwork. Fridays was my day to call sources in each town, which included officials, school secretaries, and people generally plugged in to their community. I also drove around, making a couple of stops at town halls and such. I called it “checking the traps.” When I became an editor that’s what I advised the reporters to do. It’s also the title for one of my Isabel Long Mysteries.

One of favorite sources was Ron Berenson, who used to co-own the Old Creamery Grocery in Cummington, population less than 800. Ron, who was a transplant from New Jersey, was a lawyer and had worked in PR, so he had a keen interest in news. He knew how to chat up the customers. He tipped me to so many stories and only misled me once, but it would have been a great one if it’d been true.

Ron called to say two archeologists from MIT had stopped at the store to say mastodon bones had been found in the Swift River section of Cummington, a discovery of immense proportions. “I wanted you to get the story before the New York Times and the Globe,” my loyal source told me.

So I drove to Swift River, following Ron’s directions. I parked the car at the end of a dirt road just as a state wildlife truck was pulling out, which I took as a good clue.

But as I hiked in the snowy woods to a clearing, I didn’t find a crew of scientists or equipment or even footprints. All I saw was the paw prints of bear, massive ones, but I kept searching for an hour or so, trying different roads until I returned to the store.

Ron was incredulous that I didn’t find anything, the men had been so serious, but then a customer overhearing our conversation started laughing. The night before on the TV show, “Northern Exposure,” two characters played the same trick on the locals. Now the laugh was on us.

I used to tease Ron about the story, but I didn’t hold it against him. He and I had been duped together.

But too bad, it would have been a great story it were true.

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Hilltown Postcards

The Great Pig Feud

When Hank and I lived in the Ringville section of Worthington, we lucked out with great neighbors. Good neighbors leave each other alone. Great ones become your friends. The Lipperts, Stroms, Charlie Baker and his son Chuck, and Marian Sanderson come to mind. Certainly, nothing happened to disturb the peace in Ringville. 

But that wasn’t true for everyone in Worthington and the hilltowns around it. There have been neighborhood feuds, often ignited by something personal. I will leave those alone for this story.

Instead, I will stick to the feuds about animals, typically over barking dogs, or worse, biting dogs, although I recall one notable dispute over pigs.

As the hilltown reporter for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, I covered hearings for all of them. The dog owners were passionately loyal to their pets and blind to their faults. I’ve seen neighbors who are generally reasonable people come close to losing it.

As for the pigs, it was a case of newcomer against native, and it was pretty easy to figure out who complained about the pigsty and who owned it. The Worthington Board of Health’s hearing drew a sizable crowd. 

The couple, yes, newcomers, who brought the complaint to the board didn’t like the smell of their neighbors’ pigs and worried their well could be contaminated by runoff from their pigsty. They had put money into their landscaping.

The owner of the pigs, who raised the animals for eating, had responded in good neighborly fashion by moving the pigsty closer to the property line after they complained.

I, of course, knew both parties, nice people, all of them, but they had a problem they couldn’t resolve on their own. One of the locals at the meeting told me, “Make it real funny when you write it,” but I wouldn’t do that. This was serious stuff to these folks.

Tony Lake, a Worthington resident who would later be Bill Clinton’s National Security Adviser, spoke in favor of the pigs at the hearing. He was raising cattle then and was concerned this could be the start of an anti-farm animal trend. Besides, he said, everyone knew that cattle manure smelled worse than pigs’.

The Board of Health vote unanimously in favor of the pig owner.

But that wasn’t the end of it. The situation was resolved a few years later in the couple’s favor when the neighbor who raised pigs got divorced and moved away.

Many of my books are set in the fictional hilltowns of Western Mass. because I was inspired living and reporting on the real ones. Here’s link to my books on Amazon.

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