[WIS] Holding our breath

[jon_chaisson]

There's a spot on Daniel Shays Highway in New Salem where, if you're heading south, you end up driving through a tiny wedge of neighboring Shutesbury for about two hundred feet before re-entering New Salem for about a mile and a half until you cross over into Shutesbury for good.

I don't remember when I first did it, but I know it was probably about 1985 or 1986, heading down to Amherst with my Dad to go see a movie. I was always amused by this tiny you're-in-you're-out stretch and somehow I was compelled to hold my breath in that stretch, just to say "I held my breath all the way through Shutesbury."

I brought this silly little habit to my circle of friends soon after. Our habit of "holding our breath" through the town was another silly pastime that would sometimes elicit giggles...sometimes the driver would slow down to a crawl (if no one was behind us), someone would start tickling someone else. Our road trips back then were often down to the Valley (Amherst/Hadley/Northampton) and the normal way to get down there was via Daniel Shays Highway (Rt 202) to Pelham and then cut over via Pelham Road. Later we'd take what we called Shutesbury Road (actually the stretch of Prescott/Cooleyville/Leverett Road--it's called Shutesbury Road once you're in Leverett), a twisty-windy back road that would take us through Leverett and into Amherst via the northern side of town. That was another road my Dad knew, but I think my friends knew it as well. That back road goes through the center of Shutesbury, which consists of a few small buildings--the library, the Town Hall, the fire station, and a few houses.

The majority of the town is woods. It's a quiet and unassuming drive, but you feel like you're driving through a cave of trees that seem to reach out over the road, nearly obscuring the sky. Shutesbury became sort of a running joke with us in high school--not in a mean-spirited way, more of a comment on how boring it can get growing up in a small New England town where there's really not much to do at all except go somewhere else.

I still hold my breath through Shutesbury, every year that we return to New England to visit my family and our friends. It's become habit, and it still makes me smile.