Springfield Vermont holds it's annual SHS Alumni Day Parade

Today, Springfield Vermont held it's annual SHS Alumni Day Parade - it went off without a hitch (except for the fact that it was late). Nature blessed the day with beautiful weather, and all had a great time (especially the clowns!). Bongo the Goat was in attendance, as well as every other character you might expect to see.

Anyone caring to share an image of the parade is invited to submit it through the facebook page for this site, and if it passes muster and doesn't need too much editing, we will include it here for your friends away from home to see and enjoy.

Stay tuned, a short video with views of the parade will appear here shortly, and another of the parade aftermath will appear shortly after that, both shot and edited by Edward Huse, for SpringfieldVermont.org

Mermaid gets itchy feet - Fancy News!

The Mermaid who has quietly resided on the Black River for some years now is thinking of moving. When asked, she told Bongo that " … I came here years ago, originally just to visit some old friends, nymphs and sprites mainly, who chose to live in Vermont because the landscape is so like Greece used to be, in the good old days before the trees were all felled and the springs vanished. The trip up the Connecticut River was something of a challenge, but delightful, and when I took a left on the Black River and found the Precision Valley, I fell in love right away ... ".
She is contemplating a move to visit with dear friends in sunnier climes, to feast there on the last of the blue crabs and oysters, before they go extinct.
She will miss Springfield, Vermont, Official Home of the Simpsons and Jewel of the Upper Valley, but leaves behind a little of herself.
No nymphs or water sprites were available for comment, but Pan and the local resident population of Mallard ducks had a few things to say, which will be the subject of another posting at another time.

Fancy News - New Tree Boxes Make First Appearance! ... Hey, wait a minute!

Update: it seems that the logistics and engineering aspects of one tree box were too insurmountable for our town to overcome, and the neat little tree box is no more folks, oh well, it was too much to ask drivers to turn the wheel when parking or re-entering the traffic lane. Geesh!



There is a new tree boxe on Main Street, in lovely downtown Springfield, Vermont, Home of the Simpsons - one is in the picture here. It was right on time for a walkabout by a pack of legislators and a news crew, and it is way right on time for the citizens of this happy dale, who are as pleased as punch to see that soon there will be a fine new tree on Main Street! Some people have expressed dismay to see one of the twenty or so main parking spaces replaced by the tree bump. Even more amazingly, some find in the change a daunting obstacle to convenient maneuvering while removing from the adjacent parking space - to these timid souls I point out the big round thing on a stick that sits right in front of them when they are seated at the controls trying to park or de-park, it is called a steering wheel, and if they grab and turn it gingerly and with premeditated caution, while applying alternate breaking and accelerating pressure, they will find that the car can be made to go around it! A new tree for Main Street!

Fancy News - Pavement Progress in Springfield, Vermont

Above: a view showing the dog-trot in the otherwise unbroken line of the curb, it would be nice to see a tree there, but more likely than not this indent allows a controlled transition - from one travel lane alongside one parallel parking lane, into three clearer options for traffic flow at the trafic light controlled intersection. No se hace asi en Espanyah, pero aqui por fin tenemos reparaciones en las calles, o, por lo menos tenemos indicaciones de la intencion de modificar en alguna manera positiva lo que es un systema de baches, escaleras sin ritmo, y caidas mortales, a que se le da nombre de "calles".
Here we have a portrait of the fine new granite pieces that will soon be nestled in the paving of Springfield, Vermont, Official Home of the Simpsons.

Fancy News -New Paving in Springfield, Vermont

Mm-m, New Paving!!!

The spankin' new granite curb stones are mighty fine looking and well-set but the proof of quality is often in the details that will be hidden from view ... nice work!

Now that the sidewalks are re-constructed, the people who run around in big, bulky, bobble-headed costumes portraying Simpsons characters won't trip that often, especially on their way to Jake's Market!

Seriously, you could have knocked this observer over with a fiddlehead the other day, when something no one ever expected to see suddenly happened, (certainly no one expected to see any new paving hereabouts any time soon, after hearing rumors that the town dropped the ball on the deal to resurface Springfield's streets as part of the deal that stuck us with a state jail and all the negativity that that entails).
I waited a day or two to see if the mirage evaporated, but it is real, and after talking to the road crew I find that indeed, significant portions of the embarrasing and irksome dry stream beds called Park Street and Union Street are being resurfaced, and this includes the sidewalks! -even on the block that has them on both sides!
Unbelievable!
Maybe this is one reason why our property tax bills went up by about a million percent recently - forcing many to choose between paying taxes and paying a heating bill of course (that reminds me, it is time to watch for spikes in the sales of bailing wire, I am told it is the preferred method by rural folk who have reached the end of the rope, ugh).


Here are Springfield's Other Finest, the road crews who actually manage to do real work with such a situation, bungled by such inept pikers - they take not a little grief from citizens who are distressed enough to complain to any captive audience (no matter how inappropriate, imagine, complaining to the workers about the streets, geesh they need to get on the horn to the town and to the state about it!).
Here they are seen interrupting their well-deserved coffee break just to assure nervous passing motorists that this is real work, not a mirage, and certainly not any bizarre illusion that they risk losing themselves in if they pass - Yes Springfield, Vermont, Home of the Simpsons, you are really getting New Paving on Several Hundred Yards of City Streets, some of it with New Sidewalks, ¡ON BOTH SIDES!

Finally, the streets get a hosing (apart from pot-holing)

Brushed or not, the streets of beautiful Springfield, Vermont, are kept that way in no small part due to the efforts of the proud residents - here is a typical view, simple but nice!

Springfield, Vermont - City of Lights

Visible from outer space, Springfield, Vermont, is a garden of delights - and it has the honor of having been voted "Official Home of the Simpsons"! What more can a town ask for? Potholes and broken pavements you ask? Heck, we have more than One Thousand And One Potholes, all along whole stretches of the public byways that are more like random staircases then level roadways - and they are apparently here for good, with more to come!

Visible desde el vacuo del espacio, Springfield, Vermont, es un verdadero Jardín Encantado - ¡además de tener el honor de haver sido elegido Sede Oficial de los Simpson! ¿Que más puede pedir una ciudad - calles en malas condiciones con mogollón de baches? ¡Eso si, baches tenemos tambien, y a montón!