Once and Future Smithies

In an effort to plant the seed in my daughters' brains that my alma mater, Smith College, is a nifty place to get ed-ju-ma-ca-ted, we drove up from New York to Northampton, Massachusetts, for a quick campus visit. The picture above is the girls overlooking Paradise Pond, below is Molly in front of Seelye Hall, where I spent many classroom hours, and all the girls near the greenhouse/gardens. We then hopped up to the Yankee Candle factory store, a place Peter and I visited a few times--both when I was in college and when the two of us lived in CT. At Yankee Candle, it is always Christmas, and you can dip your own candles. Yippee!




To round out the New England part of our adventure, we stopped in Meriden, where we lived while I was in grad school and Peter worked for both Ikon and Eventra. We chose Meriden for its geography alone. I was going to Yale in New Haven on the southern end of the state, and Peter's job would be in Hartford, in the northern part. On the map, Meriden appeared right in the middle, giving each of us a 45-minute drive. So there we landed. We established ourselves as a family, solidified our couple-hood in CT, and we have some truly wonderful memories from there. Molly was born there. She rode around in a baby backpack while Peter rehearsed with the community theater group there. We went to church there. I learned the art of midwifery there. We ate phenomenal Italian food there. Our rental house looks less than lovely now--perhaps it always looked like that and our standards changed? Our very favorite restaurant, Il Forno, is gone, replaced by a Chinese place. This was a HUGE disappointment. On the positive side, the town has had some nice additions, not least of which is a fabulous playground in Hubbard Park, where the girls played ad nauseum. Older abandoned buildings have been demolished--for the better--and there are new businesses all around. We mourned--out loud--the loss of a great authentic Italian joint, to the point that Molly laughingly said, "Get over it!" and jolted us back to reality. Time marches on. We sighed, realizing you can't make your kids love the things you loved--they don't share your memories and, at their ages, they don't care to! You just need to help create new ones together!