The Living Rockumentary

The following is reprinted with permission from the Eye On Northampton - which is me.

You know those movies where the small irish town comes together and fixes everything up for the arrival of a famous Hollywood star or something like that? You know how when you suddenly have company coming over and you quickly clean your house? That's what Northampton is doing today. Walking through town is like watching one of those clean-up montages.

It's like watching Howard Johnson and friends try to assemble a fake version of the whole town of Rockridge in an afternoon.

People are painting City Hall, there is a work crew setting up bleachers in front of the Good Thyme Deli, a young man is walking around and scraping tape off of light posts, men on ladders are cleaning the bricks on the side of Sweeties, the construction company in front of the church is rushing around trying to finish up the new park-area, someone has even repaired the Silverscape clock so that the thermomenter part of it works again.

This is all in preparation for the 50,000 people that are expected to come and enjoy the Northampton 350th Anniversary Parade on Sunday. You can read more about the parade in this article at the Gazette. The parade starts at 1:00 at the Northampton High School and travels for two and a hlaf hours all the way to the three county fair grounds. They plan on having 40 floats, lots of bands, and marchers, and even mummers (I thought I saw one of the mummers this morning but it was just a woman gesticulating while talking on her hands-free cell phone).

Whatever you do, don't plan on going anywhere in town that is not parade related on Sunday. Main Street, Route 9, and a bunch of other roads will be closed.

Also, if you are in a band or having a tag sale, don't even think of putting up any flyers around town - I've heard that the clean-up crew is authorized to beat your head 350 times if you're caught.