Tobacco Barns in the Corn Fields

Tobacco barns still populate the countryside in Southern Wisconsin but the leaf itself is less evident. Corn seems to have taken its place. I suspect something more complicated than crop rotation is responsible for the changing landscape. Perhaps the end of tobacco subsidies in 2005 and misbegotten ethanol policies bear some responsibility. I would feel a lot better about ethanol if the U.S. government eliminated subsidies for corn and the plants which convert the crop from food to fuel.

The Shell station in Cambridge used to have a sign in front advertising NO ETHANOL. Not anymore. (This struck me as a bold statement, considering its proximity to the corn fields.) Apparently, the station is now required by Wisconsin law to supply gasoline with ethanol. So now only the Shell V Power 93 octane fuel is unadulterated. It costs $0.30 (about 7%)per gallon more, but yields about 9% better mileage (29.2 mpg versus 26.7 mpg as tested this morning on Interstate 39 in my 2003 Passat V6 4 Motion Wagon--I filled up with gas without ethanol for my trip and drew the tank down to empty before refueling with 89 octane 10% ethanol at a Kwiktrip in Stevens Point).

Berkshire Mass Transit Busses

The mass transit system in Hong Kong is among the most colorful and efficient in the world. In addition to the world class rail systems, both above and below ground, it has London style double deck busses, mini busses, ferries, and trams. The Star Ferry and Peak Tram have never ceased to excite me, even after three decades. Everyone in Hong Kong is familiar with the system and almost everyone uses it regularly. It is so good I could not imagine a resident not using it. I was dumbfounded several years ago when I met a not-so-recently arrived British expatriate who had never ventured below ground on the MTR. Perhaps I should have been more understanding.

I returned to the Berkshires about six years ago. Over that time I have seen the shiny blue BRTA busses crisscrossing the county. Until this morning, I had never boarded one. I needed to drop off a car at Hertz in Pittsfield and then return to Lee. Hertz was located near the Allendale shopping center and BRTA route 2/16 began there and terminated in Lee. Perfect. I would take the bus.

No one at Hertz knew where the bus stop was; I asked at least five people. Directly behind Hertz in the shopping center, a clerk at Big Lots advised the bus stop was along side the Big Lots building. At 10:40, right on time, the bus pulled up to the building. Before I could get on, however, I was advised to allow passengers to disembark first. A frail looking old dear, with dark glasses and black gloves, declined my offer of assistance. A couple of big dudes wearing shorts and sporting dreadlocks followed. When I stepped on I was the only rider. The bus was spotless. The only advertising posters inside were public service announcements.

The fare from Allendale to Lee was $3.30, or $1.10 per zone with each town representing a zone. The driver would not make change, but he would make conversation. He suggested that at the “intermodal center” on North Street in Pittsfield, I buy a pack of gum at the coffee shop to break my twenty and then pay the fare. Fine. Contrary to an NPR report earlier this week about increased mass transit ridership in Boston, LA and Miami: “No. More people are not riding the bus around here,” the driver explained. “Only the poor and unfortunate ride the bus; the rest just complain about gas prices but keep driving their cars.”

The NPR story emphasized how the economy in general and fuel prices in particular were compelling the new straphangers to use mass transit. A sad story made only more so by the observation that those still driving were benefitting from less traffic. No doubt unintentionally, this month’s Berkshire Living magazine validated the notion that riding the bus is for the “poor and unfortunate.” Nowhere in an issue dedicated to “green” living was there a mention of the excellent BRTA busses or routes throughout the county.

Delaware Tags

The big news in Delaware this week was the huge price paid for a small license plate. Frank Vassallo IV of Wilmington, bidding on behalf of his grandfather, property developer Anthony Fusco, paid $675,000 for the number 6 black and white Delaware tag. That’s a lot of money for a flat piece of steel. To put it into perspective, the same cash would buy a nineteenth century house in Lewes, educate ten kids at the University of Delaware or put a few hundred thousand pounds of RAPA scrapple on the table.

My first visit to Delaware was about thirty years ago. Driving south from Wilmington I remember seeing endless flat, green countryside. There were big farms with grand old houses. There wasn’t much in the way of development. Frank Perdue’s trucks roared up and down highway 13 but otherwise there didn’t seem to be much going on. Lewes was sleepy and Rehoboth was a cool place for kids to hang out at the beach. Now it seems highway 13 has been developed into one long strip mall; highway 1 is even more built up. Retirement communities are being raised on vast expanses of what were once rich agricultural lands. Heritage Shores, south of Bridgeville, is about 40 miles from the Atlantic or Chesapeake but apparently that is close enough to attract flocks of buyers from the snow country up north.

It is easy to snicker at the silly amount paid for the number 6 license plate, but the widespread enthusiasm for Delaware's retro black and white tags represents something deeper than keeping up with the DuPonts. For most, those tags are tangible links to a simpler past when Delaware natives did not fight traffic to get to the beach. They declare “I was here before all this.”

Change for Good

Coins are pests. Every day, I accumulate more spare change: on counters, on top of furniture, between cushions, in drawers or on the floor and in the console, cup holder or some hard to reach spot in the car. Coins gather like dust, only dirtier and slightly more valuable. But not much. Nothing costs a penny. Even pennies cost more than one cent. Savvy merchants and restaurateurs have abandoned the 99 cent ruse and rounded up to a full dollar. Few bother to pick up pennies (unless with a vacuum); when cleaning drawers, some people would sooner dump the random coins in the trash than touch them.

Banks no longer want to handle them either. When I went to Lee Bank with a sack full of coins to run them through a coin counter and convert them to greenbacks, I was advised the bank did not provide that service. The teller recommended I make change at Stop & Shop instead. When pressed further, I was given flat coin rolls: the bank would accept full rolls of coins if I counted them myself.



Stop & Stop installed Coinstar coin counting kiosks several years ago. At first I thought they were great. Then I learned there was a catch: there is an 8% service charge. Eight percent. If I were to calculate what my time was worth, it would be an easy decision to simply dump the entire bag of coins into the hopper and give Coinstar its due. But I am too cheap. I find it galling that I am compelled to pay a retail establishment to count the cash I am willing to tender there. So I compromise: I let the machine count the pennies and I take the time to sort out and put the silver coins in their respective rolls. Now when I spend those rolls, I am asked to sign them like a check.



Recently it occurred to me that the coin changing machines could be deployed to dispense BerkShares, a scrip honored by Berkshire County merchants and restaurants. They are sold to consumers at a 10% discount to US currency but can be redeemed at the face value of US dollars. As such they offer a monetary incentive to support local enterprises. Since I shop or dine at many of the places which accept BerkShares and settle the bills in dollars, I would be happy to convert my bags of coins to BerkShares at face value. I can get rid of loose change, support business in the community and use some really cool money. The BerkShare discount could be divvied up between the BerkShare organization, the merchant housing the coin counter (Guido’s or Lee Bank, for example), and the owner of the kiosk. Balances of less than one dollar could be returned as change or donated to worthy local causes. In a small, and perhaps attractively subversive way, this puts small change to good use.

No Victory No Peace

This mousetrap does not deliver. It tortures.

When the leaves turned brown and the mice moved in, I went to Carr Hardware. The staff at Carr's quickly directed me to right aisle. I picked up a pack of the old wooden mousetraps but was persuaded to to try the new plastic model. It promised to be easy: easy to bait, easy to catch mice, easy to kill and easy to unload and reload.

The packaging was clever enough to allow a simulation in the store. I set the trap and tripped it with my finger. I wondered if the jaws would be strong enough to kill immediately: they had nothing approaching the force of the old fashioned mousetraps. Safe around children, I suppose. I was assured the new model would be very effective on mice. It wasn't.

The trap was indeed easy to load but its performance was dismal. Escapes, live catches, slow messy deaths. If you don't object to torture, use glue boards: they are more effective. Otherwise, use the old spring loaded wooden traps. All are manufactured by Woodstream.