Sunday, September 13, 2015

Out and About, Part 73.715

Fun is fun, once again joining Beth on an appraisal ramble. She needs pictures of recently-sold comparatives of subject appraisals. Destination: Natick, Mass. Have heard on radio ads: na-TICK. Pronounce it NAY-tick, like the locals do. Locals are always right.

Back in the good old days, Natick was, according to peerless Wikipedia, an early praying Indian settlement. As in, Our munificent God says Stay here, don't make waves. Colonialism = bulldozer, but gee, opiates are great!

We engaged Rt 3 to I-95 South, thence to Rt 20, aka Boston Post Rd. In elder days, the artery to the city, now the busy pass thru to all the yonders we learn to imagine. We slid thru Weston first. It is the moneyest town in the state and Boston bedroom community supreme. It is green and populated by houses of this and that extent. We were just passing thru.

Wayland next. More of the same, perhaps with rolling-er landscape. I mean the crust is lovely almost as the dirt. You can see the bones of farms, but farming is such an antique idea. Lawns = imagination, since I am so math-oriented. No McMansions, tho.

Thence to Natick. My aunt and uncle lived there, until they winterized and expanded the Cape Cod cottage and shifted there. Lake Cochituate was within walking distance of their Natick house, and Carling had a brewery nearby (assuming memory works). File under auld lang syne.
So much of New England is green, a fact I often forget. Big deciduous trees are our neighbours and friends. Beth grew up in the desert spareness of Nevada.

Natick centre is a fine bustle this side of gentrification. It has some lovely brick factories now housing emporia for the rising crest. I saw what must have been a retired brick school or municipal building now yceplt Cochituate Village. An apartment building. O marketing, you make the people weep. Village is now an embracing term for all that we no longer have. Developers of condos and developments love such comforting words as village or farm. “Come out from the grove my love & care,” wrote Childe William.

But anyway. At one house, the owner noted the suspicious car. Beth explained the wherefore and whereof of her enterprise. He was not nonplussed, and Beth says she has yet to encounter anyone fussed by her picture taking.

The final comp was on Pumpkin Pine Rd. Let that sink in: it makes no sense. Perhaps as a new craft beer. We live in dreams.