Despite the recent heat wave, the cooler weather of autumn is on the way. UMass students will soon return to campus, with new students arriving for orientation starting on Friday, August 27; the University already has its electric signboards up, giving directions to traffic and pedestrians.
With our Society’s emphasis on history, we can sometimes forget the present-day charm of the town we live in, but there are a couple of youtube videos which can help to remind us. One is of a simple family outing to the Common on a Saturday in the fall a few years ago — note that they parked near the Strong House! And the other is a 4-minute video driving tour of downtown Pleasant Street, which was already deserted at the beginning of the pandemic, on a Thursday in March, 2020.