I left the Pioneer Valley in 1978, chasing careers in Andover, Nashua, New Hampshire, and Windsor Locks, Connecticut.

I returned in 2008 to help my aging mother.

Yesterday, being a warm, sunny early spring day, I grabbed one of my cameras and went past the Green River Recreation Area, and turned toward Colrain.

Not wanting to follow the Green River all the way, I turned on the last paved turnoff. At the time I didn’t realize where I was until it dawned on me I was headed for the covered bridge at the Pumping Station. Nice place to shoot some photos.

The place has sure changed since my swimming there when I was a student at NMH. However, one change left me stunned.

I was going to take a photo when I noticed someone had defaced the original monument erected in the memory of Mrs. Eunice Williams, a granite slab dedicated in 1894.

A definitely disparaging word describing the Mohawk Indian who killed her there had been chiseled out.

My guess is the damage was done by someone with absolutely no investment in doing so, with complete disregard for property that is not their own.

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With the current “cancel culture,” it’s not too surprising, but I had imagined the people in the town I came from would have better sensibility to not deface a marker to a woman taken from her home during the French and Indian War. It seems the understanding that you may try to erase history isn’t followed by an understanding that no matter, it cannot be changed.

John Babits

Turners Falls