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I went for a ride along the bike path today, down through Peace Dale and
into Wakefield. Even though it was around noon, the December sun could
only get high enough into the sky to imitate mid-afternoon at best. The
tall bare trees along the side of the bike path turned the slanting sunshine
into a strobe light effect: sun * shade * sun * shade * sun * shade * sun
* shade. Very disorienting to have a bike ride take on the visual aspects
of a late seventies disco.
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I had stuffed my camera into a pocket of my nylon shell jacket and I stopped
to take some pictures of a stained-glass mural the size of a small billboard
along the bike path in Peace Dale.
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It depicts the village of Peace Dale, showing the village roads and some
of the more notable buildings.
Here are a couple of closer views of the mural. The first shows someone
riding a bicycle on the bike path. The other shows the Neighborhood Guild
building, a social and educational center providing a gymnasium, a fitness
center, classrooms for art and music classes and tutoring, etc.
Peace Dale was founded as a mill village, a center for textile mills filled with water-powered looms. |
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When I first moved here and saw the old mill buildings and picked up enough
local history to know that most of the mill owners were Quakers, I assumed
that the village got its name from their Quaker pacifism. (See my entry
about the historical house tour -- the first house shown belonged to the son of Peace Dale founder Rowland
Hazzard and the last one shown belonged to Isaac Peace Rodman, another
prominent mill owner.)
Actually, Rowland Hazzard had married a woman named Mary Peace and he named
the village in her honor. |
Blasts from the past -- selected entries from the archives for this date:
Okay, here we go with  entry number three -- But I really need to get them posted earlier in the
day -- I think posting them late in the evening means few people will see
them. |
A brief introduction....
A brief introduction to anyone who wanders in here for the first time from
the Holidailies site -- I'm a middle-aged (*cough* okay, 63, but I don't look a day over 62) guy who lives in Rhode Island with my wife Nancy (a middle-school math
teacher), daughter Gillian ("Jill" -- 24 yr old college student),
son Jeremy (21 yr old college student), and Tiger (senior citizen cat).
Eldest child Adam lives in New York City with his wife Leah and our grandson
Sam. I'm a former programmer/systems analyst who got into doing software
training and currently works from home doing quality assurance and editing
on course material for both classroom courses and Web-based training courses.
I've been writing this online journal since 1996. |
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