World of extremes!

This morning I passed a late friend's boarding school. In 1962 when I paid a visit it was called The Stoneleigh Prospect Hill School For Girls and it looked like a country club. Now, the sign reads Stoneleigh- Burnham School and it still looks like a country club. A flood of memories hit which is the wonderful part of a boomer brain having old files mix with the present.

It was time for food and a truck stop appeared. Enough of the rarified world! A stack of pancakes and a cast of real world characters very different from the Deerfield experience.

"Do you want meat with that?" the waitress asks.

"No thanks."

" You're going to pay for it," she says.

"Ok," thinking, I can eat whatever I want. A motorcycle at a truck stop OK. A loaded touring bicycle

Down the road is North Hampton, which, among other things, is home to Smith College. The town allows itself a good deal more edginess than Hanover the button up home of Dartmouth. A transgender admissions protest involving thousands of students is happening. Four thousand have signed petitions concerning transgender student admissions which has consumed student and media this morning. It's an international looking student body with an interesting sense of fashion or non-fashion.

North Hampton Smith College shopping opportunity.

Headed East on 9 towards the Berkshires I'm convinced Veterinary Clinics, Landscape Designers and growers, Farmers, and Bike Shops are principal employers after Boarding schools,
Colleges, and, of course, antique shops. I decide to stop and get my helmet strap fixed since the thing won't stay put. An old style non-flash bike shop has a matching codger running it. I stop.