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Community Corner

Intriguing And Curious Sightings In Easton

And a Sighting that Should Have Happened but Didn't

 

It was about one o’clock in the afternoon on Tuesday, and I had just walked out of the at Correira’s Plaza on Washington Street/Rte. 138.   It was a sunny and warm day. 

And what do I spy in full gallop heading north on the sidewalk on the plaza side of the highway but a woman – yes, sprinting – while pushing a baby carriage.  Now, I wouldn’t have considered that exceptional, except the woman was not in workout gear – and not wearing  running shoes.  After all, many parents combine workouts with pushing their children in the stroller. 

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No, this woman, perhaps in her mid 40s, had on casual baggy shorts, and I’m not sure what type of top exactly – but on her feet she was wearing, as best I could tell, thin souled slip-on shoes.   

And she was motoring – this woman.

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It seemed a bit bizarre – like it didn’t all fit together. 

I turned to a lady who standing off to my right in front of (she works the counter at the store actually), and I said, “That’s something you don’t see every day.”

The woman smiled and said, “She does it every day.”

“Is there a kid in there?” I asked, with the “there” referring to the stroller.

“Yes,” was the reply. 

Interesting.   Not really bizarre – but merely a curious episode. 

So I get to thinking – how many sort of odd and different types of things do we see here in town – and we get accustomed to them.

Before my time, every afternoon on North Main Street, one could witness a herd of cows from Tufts Dairy Farm crossing the street.   Someone from out of town heading along that street may have been surprised with the flow of bovines over the macadam – or maybe back then it was cobblestone. 

I remember like 20 years ago – and the years around then – in front of South Easton Motor Sales there used be an old man who slowly pedaled one of those three wheel bicycles while accompanied by a big and beautiful Husky dog on a leash.   As motorists passed he would smile and wave. 

Perhaps no one can figure out that house that used to be on Depot Street near the power lines.   That house that became ever more decrepit and frail and eventually started to fall in on itself. 

Yet, of course, what locals found really intriguing is that for years – despite the condition of the house – the owner still resided there.   Then again, who are any of us to judge.  He lived simply and meagerly, didn’t bother anyone, and from what I hear, kept up on his property taxes. 

So the house is gone – but the former owner is still very much a presence in Easton, pedaling his bike through our community across all seasons and all weather. 

I never saw the “Big Cat” when he came to Easton in the early 1990s – but I can only imagine what that person felt when emerging from the back of Charlie’s Restaurant on Main Street and encountering a small mountain lion rummaging through the dumpster. 

If you click on this it will take you to a column I wrote on the Easton mountain lion.   

So here is one for you.  I think it was the late 1980s, and my dad is driving along Summer Street on a summer night.  He is driving east, about a couple hundred yards from where Summer Street meets Randall Street – where you either have to take a left which takes you up near Oliver Ames High School, or you take a right to go down Summer Street toward Center Street.

And now things get weird.  My dad claims he saw some lights dancing in midair (I’m not making this up) – and then dart into the woods.  

So, here, Valentine P. Muscato calls the Easton police.   I can imagine the talk at the police station, and on the discussion on scanners and police radio, when this VPM phoned in the report on this apparition. 

Next thing you know, there is an EPD police officer in a cruiser with my dad in the passenger seat and they are driving around the neighborhood looking for what I know not what. 

And I close with this – and anyone there will tell you it was freaky. 

A group of us; we were kids.  It was a nice day back in the early to mid-1970s during the summer. 

So we were sitting on the infield of the baseball diamond at , just gabbing and enjoying youth and life.   I don’t know if there were four or five of us – but it was about that number. 

We were sitting there and next to us in the grass was a basketball – it belonged to my buddy; he was sitting there as well.   The basketball was one of those old ABA style jobs – the red, white, and blue type.

Yes, the basketball was there 

And then it wasn’t. 

No joke.  We were 30 or 40 yards from anyone else in the park, and suddenly the basketball wasn’t there.  It just vanished.  Really. 

We reckoned that it slipped into a vortex or something.  It might have gone into the 4th Dimension. 

This was very strange.  

Then again, in this case, it wasn’t a matter of something freaky that we saw.  

Rather, it was beyond weird that something we should have seen, we didn’t see at all. 

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