Not a Road?

Above, central image from Richard Tuttle's print series, Dawn, Noon, Dusk: Paper (1), Paper (2), Paper (3) (2002), which I saw yesterday at a beautiful retrospective of Tuttle's prints at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. The title suggests it portrays noon. And there is absolutely no suggestion the blue line represents a road. Still, I couldn't help associating it with the setting sun seen from Rte. 209 as it winds into Popham Village, Phippsburg, Maine.

Swimming Hole Road

Parker Head Road on Maine's Phippsburg peninsula. For the first time in my experience there's a sign at the head of the road: "Detour. Road closed. Local traffic only." I've driven it many times but never walked it until today. Or part of, that is, we never made it to Parker Head. Here the road approaches a narrow bridge that connects Center Pond with the Kennebec River.

The bridge is equipped with steps into the water on the pond side for locals who use it as a swimming hole--like the mother and daughter who arrived with their towels just as we were passing.

It is also equipped with a a fish ladder for local alewife. Good for people, good for fish.

Beach Road Getaway

Here's the road that runs between Weekapaug Beach and the salt pond behind it. The beach is for Weekapaug (one village of Westerly, RI) residents only. But if you get on before 8 and off before 9, as I did yesterday morning, you can enjoy it free of hassle--and of other people, by and large.

Jailhouse Road

Church Street, Norwich, Connecticut. One of a handful of streets that comprise Jail Hill. Early on, a community of free Blacks, brought to Norwich originally by the vicious "triangle trade" of slaves, sugar, and rum. Later a pulpit for abolition of slavery and an important stop on the Underground Railroad. The building on Main St. below is the Dunkin' Donuts I worked at in high school, long out of business. How exactly does a Dunkin' Donuts go out of business anyway?

New Road/Old Road

Rte. 95 seen in the distance from Rte. 3 (Nooseneck Hill Road), Hopkinton, RI. Below: Rte 3 before completion of I-95 in the 1950s, it was one of the main roads (along with Rte 1) from southern Rhode Island to Providence.

New Road

Your correspondent is on vacation for the next 8 days. Signal permitting, I'll share some of the roads I meet along the way. This one is Corning Road in Preston, Connecticut. Though I grew up (from 9 on)  in this little town in the southeastern corner of the state, I'd never been on Corning Road. I was following a sign from the main road out of Norwich (Rte. 165) for "farm fresh vegetables." A turn off from Long Society Road (no expessway itself) took me deeper into the woods and fields.

I finally reached the farm (above). "Is this Preston or Norwich?" I asked the kid working there. "Preston, but some people say part of the road is in Norwich." "I didn't know there were still roads like this left in Preston." "Shouldn't be," he said. Probably won't be for much longer, by the look of the McMansion I passed a hundred yards earlier on.

Paradise Cove Road to the Poconos

A few years ago, I saw a classified ad for a house trailer on a piece of land in the Poconos. The price was reasonable, somewhere around $13,000. It was on a pond or lake. I clipped it out and stuck it inside the case of a CD--now buried in a stack somewhere or given away to Goodwill. Retirement plan taken care of.

Paradise Cove Road (Rockford Files pilot)

I found out about James Garner's death yesterday watching TV, where else?  I wasn't a huge Rockford Files fan but the show managed to imprint itself anyway. Especially the idea of living modestly (minus the Firebird) to be someplace beautiful. On the beach in Malibu, in the Poconos, or maybe Biscuit City, RI.