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Community Corner

Hello September

It Could Be The Best Time Of The Year In These Parts

 

This being Labor Day, and it being a big transition in the year, I figured it appropriate to write as I did last year, another September and autumn cometh column.

Yet, we have about three more weeks of summer, unless you don't know.

Then again, soon enough the first frost will be upon us.

Today sunset here is 7:14 p.m. On the final day of this month it will be 6:27 p.m.

September is a great month, one of — as I frequently tout — warm days and cool nights. And it does seem that the planet is going through a warming phase, for whatever reason. Call me selfish, but if you live in New England, I don't know if this is all a bad thing.

School is back in session, and at the secondary and post-secondary level, Easton has three schools: , , and

A lot of school athletic uniforms are circulating in Easton this time of year.

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A lot of energy here.

Years back, Easton was a far bigger farming community than it is today.

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Harvest time was a bigger deal in this area than today.

Townies referred, and some still refer, to the area up on Bay Road, beyond Five Corners and as you head toward Norton, as the Corn Belt — because of the strong concentration of farms there which grew corn and other vegetables.

There was a time when Easton had two Granges each with its own Grange Hall. Grange is short for the The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, founded in 1867, a national fraternal organization that promotes and supports agriculture, community, rural living, and family values.

Easton still has an operating Grange which meets in its Grange Hall, located on Washington St./Rte. 138, next to Buddy's Union Villa. Membership of the Easton Grange has been growing over the past few years.

Harmony Grange, which was headquartered in a Grange Hall on Bay Road along the Corn Belt is no longer active, and the hall is a private home

Today, Easton has a treasured agricultural resource in Langwater Farms located inside the estate of the Ames family off of Main St. and Washington St./Rte. 138. It is a multipurpose resource — one that produces healthy produce we are able to consume while it is fresh, one that educates us about and acquaints (sometimes reacquaints) us with nature and the earth and the origins of life-sustaining food, and one that offers a sweeping visa and aesthetic of fertile fields and orchards.

Yes, local produce, so good.

I have a memory of late summer/autumn when I was a student at North Easton Grammar School, and the ripe grapes that grew on vines that bordered the school property behind NEGS.

Sweet, fragrant; we picked those grapes and ate them in September.

I graduated from Oliver Ames in 1981, and back then the Tiger home football games were played at Frothingham Park on Saturday afternoons (save for home Thanksgiving Day games which had a morning kickoff at the park).

The first football games were in September, and even if you did not attend the games, and you lived within a mile or so of Frothingham, you could hear the OA band playing and the voice of Tiger football announcer, Manuel "Putt" Santos, as he sat up in the big green press box, and his voice carried along the electric public address system and out into the park and beyond.

I have a good friend who says that as a kid living in Easton, in the 1970s, his favorite time of year for walking or biking through North Easton Village and up along Long Pond was during the fall when the leaves had turned. There was something about it, he says.

I have written a few times here about Johnny's Cider Mill which was located on Depot Street approximately across the street from Center School.

September and October were busy months at the Cider Mill with its overflowing bounty of apples, pumpkins, and cider.

For sure, we are in a nice stretch here.

September — for many, the best time of the year in these parts

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