I just got back from the St. John’s Episcopal Church after-party, where everyone gets together after the church service to drink coffee, eat fresh-baked goodies and talk. It’s my favorite part of every Sunday, and today I learned that I’d made it onto the church service prayer list, which explains why the difficult invoice I was trying to write between 10 and 11 a.m. suddenly got figured out and I was able to finish it.
I don’t attend services over there because it’s where my dad went to church for the last five years of his life and it always makes me too nostalgic to be there for any part of it except the after-party. The first five years Dad lived in Ashfield he attended the Congregational Church, but then declared he wanted a second opinion, so he walked down the street for the Episcopalians’ view of the spiritual world, and stayed with them until he passed on up to hear the ultimate word of the Lord from the deity Himself.
Maddy Roberts, a young woman in her mid-20s, attends the church, and told me that her goal in life is to be weird enough to make it into one of my columns. So far, the weirdest thing about Maddy is the modest dress and hat she wears every place she goes, looking far more 1922 in her style than 2022 — but that’s not really weird enough to be the subject of a column. I think she’s going to have to work a lot harder at her weirdness before that happens.
There was a new person in attendance who just moved into Mike Seymore’s house. No one in Ashfield lives in their own house — you live in the house of the person you bought it from, and not until you move away and bequeath it to your followers will the house be known as yours.
Ann’s fresh presence gave rise to conversation about the latest dust-up: people moving here and changing stuff. Social media on the Ashfield sites is ablaze with people complaining about interlopers from Away coming to town and wrecking everything.
I believe it’s what we’re made of, all of us. “This is how our town has always been, and don’t try to change it.” Regardless of what town the stance is taken in.
Mike Dufresne (of the Ashfield Dufresnes) posted a hilarious piece on Facebook recently warning people who might be thinking about coming this direction that, “Our lakes are full of gators, freshwater sharks and huge bald eagles that are known to snatch small children.
Appalachian panthers have eaten many domesticated animals.
Snakes: Don’t get me started on the water-headed copper moccasins here, and the diamond-back rattler cobras.
We’ve had bear sightings at every park, and they are after your picnic baskets. Cougars have been spotted in motel rooms and bars.
We’ve got clouds of murder hornets, swarms of giant crickets and even some West African grasshoppers that spit Skoal Wintergreen.
Head lice now fly, and we have vampire bats. Don’t even try to forget about the moth man! Glowing eyes and wings like a scene out of ‘Jeepers Creepers!’”
I read in “History of the Town of Ashfield, Mass., Volume 1” that in the very olden days, newcomers were met with the “customary” words, “I warn you, I warn you, I warn you — go back to where you came from!” at Town Meeting. We’re less direct than that today, though it doesn’t mean no one thinks it, at least until you’ve been here seven or eight generations and have proven yourself worthy of a local housekey.
I hope none of this scares the new woman away. She’s a bookkeeper, and since Sandy Lilly retired we’ve got a dearth of those around town and could use some more, which whispers the good thing about people moving to Ashfield: they keep stuff going when others want to launch irresponsible acts like retiring, dying or moving to another town they’ll have to work 200 years to be accepted in.
St. John’s tagline (posted right on their baseball caps) is “Serving Coffee and Everlasting Life since 1838.” I’d like to thank them for welcoming a poor, wretched 17-years-in-town newcomer like me to their Sunday morning party. And Maddy, keep working on your eccentricities. I’m sure you’ll land your very own column soon!
Nan Parati lives and works in Ashfield, where she found home and community following Hurricane Katrina. She can be reached at NanParati@aol.com.