It’s a hot, hazy mid-afternoon, storm threatening, me standing atop Mt. Sugarloaf, a Pioneer Valley landmark whose summit view never gets old to an old guy who climbed it often as a kid. Standing beside me on the lower tier of the observation tower is Dr. Marjorie Holland, a scholar passing through old haunts from […]

The loud, sudden, crunching, crashing halt to a power mower’s roar — the kind of sound you’d hate to hear when mowing your lawn — and a maiden voyage to the top of a Pioneer Valley landmark are on the front burner of discussion this week. First, the grinding, earth-rattling sound I heard while walking […]