A NOTE

from GO LOCAL MARCH 2022

CT Valley Mineral Club

FROM THE MANAGING EDITOR . G. MICHAEL DOBBS

When I was a kid, I loved rocks.

I still love rocks.

I was the kind of kid who was easily distracted by seeing a shiny bit of quartz poking out of the dirt. I collected interesting stones and was absolutely fascinated by items such as fossils as well as Native American artifacts such as arrowheads.

The idea of holding in my hand an object of antiquity or prehistory was thrilling to me and I seldom passed up an opportunity to add to my collection.

It didn’t hurt my budding enthusiasm for such items, that Western Massachusetts is known as a center for dinosaur footprints.

On a cross-country trip from Massachusetts to California we traveled through New Mexico and Arizona, and I still have the collections of minerals and rocks that were sold to tourists such as me.

My grandfather worked as a logger and miner in northern California and with great pleasure my mom and grandmother brought me to the remains of the mining village in which they lived and where he worked in a copper mine. I picked up a piece of copper ore for my collection and still have it.

When my wife and I visited Loch Ness in Scotland in the hopes of spotting the monster, my consolation prize was picking up several small stones from the shores of the lake.

For years, my wife and I attended the annual East Cost Gem, mineral and Fossil show presented at the Better Living Center at the Big E. Talk about an amazing experience every time! The show is a huge collection of exhibits and vendors who sold everything from finished jewelry to materials to make your own jewelry to mineral specimens to fossils.

Want a six-foot-long fossil of a prehistoric fish? That’s the place to find it. Want a cluster of fossilized dino eggs? I sure do. That’s the only place I’ve ever seen them for sale.

So, reading in this month’s Go Local about the Connecticut Valley Mineral Club was a lot of fun, as these are people with the same love as I do. I intend to go to the club’s own show, which will be March 26 and 27 at the Castle of Knights in Chicopee.

Also in this issue is a listing of local maple sugar destinations. For me there are few better harbingers of spring than maple sugaring time. There is also no comparison between actual maple syrup and the corn syrup-based fake maple dreck that most people use.

Sorry, but actual maple syrup is simply divine and getting it straight from the source is well worth the trip.

Spring is coming and the road trips suggested by Go Local will shake off the last of the winter doldrums.

MANAGING EDITOR

G. Michael Dobbs

CREATIVE

Beth Thurber, Manager . Leigh Catchepaugh Elizabeth O’Donoghue . Susan Bartlett

DESIGN & CONTENT

Michelle Johnson Curtis Panlilio

ADVERTISING

Barb Perry, Advertising Manager . Jeanette Lee Lisa Nolan . Kim Barba . Roxanne Longtin Miller Matt Mahaney . Paula Dimauro Scott Greene . Terry O’ Donnell Victoria Owen . Evan Marcyoniak Andy Shaw Carolyn Napolitan, Sales Assistant Fran Smith, General Manager

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