| Amherst, Massachusetts |
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| Yes I'm From Amherst |
| From: hollibub |
I grew up in Amherst (the “h” is silent) Mass., a town where even the dogs are cool, as proclaimed a t-shirt I once had. As a small New England town, it has all the charms one might expect, and then some. For example, Emily Dickenson’s homestead is our claim-to-fame, but now we’ve got Augusten Burrough’s memoir “Running with Scissors” to add a twist to the literary list. Sometimes there are Bill Cosby sightings, and when a few of the local colleges were mentioned in the movie “Blow” as prime location for George Jung to bolster his Columbian marijuana and cocaine trafficking, well, theater-goers went wild with pride!
It is also a place where people can’t seem to imagine anyone actually being from. As in, “You’re from Amherst? You mean you went to UMass?” No. Not unless you count crashing the frat parties in high school. (Glad I got that out of my system!) Everyone knows at least one person who has gone to UMass. It’s true. Ask around. Even Phife from A Tribe Called Quest raps about “This girl from my past/ Had ridiculous ass/ She attended UMASS and she passed every class/ Walked down the hall with her stuffed up sass/ Told the basketball players, she liked how they pass.”
For all its quaintness and uniqueness, I miss my hometown most in the fall. After moving to Washington, D.C. in 2001, I forgot why the fall had been my favorite season my whole life. In Amherst, nestled in the “Happy Valley,” surrounded by rolling mountains covered in sugar maples and pines, it is impossible not to love the fall. The air is crisp and cool. The brightly colored fallen leaves crunch under your feet, each leaf unique like snowflakes. The apples from Atkins Farm are as fresh and delicious as apples anywhere could be. And forget Krispy Kreme or even New England’s favorite Dunkin’ Donuts – you haven’t had a doughnut until you’ve had a warm cider doughnut rolled in cinnamon and sugar from Atkins!
In the fall, there is an air of excitement. The students return, nearly doubling the town’s summer population to almost 35,000. Businesses and restaurants, sleepy in the summer, extend their hours and there are people to see and things to do again. In other parts of the country, Labor Day marks the sad end of summer -- where the green turns to brown as winter prepares its unfriendly entrance. But in my hometown, the last day of summer marks a turning point of things to look forward to -- and a sign that the most colorful time of year is here at last. |
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