Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Saturday, July 4. 2009

Hero's Tunnel

It's a big travel weekend. In Yankeeland, you might very well find yourself driving through the Merritt Parkway's Hero's Tunnel under West Rock ridge in New Haven.


Amusingly, the Merritt, the earliest American parkway, had these criteria in its design:



To ease objections from county residents who feared an influx of New Yorkers on their roads, in their towns, on their beaches and through their forests, highway planners called on engineers, landscape architects and architects to create a safe and aesthetically pleasing limited access highway - one with exit and entrance ramps, but no intersections - that would not spoil the countryside.



With the lighting, the Hero's Tunnel looks like the gates of hell - but it really just takes you to Hamden:


 

Posted by Bird Dog in Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 05:38 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

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Behind these cars, the road dips down into a valley, and then up a long hill toward Woodbridge, Orange, Milford, etc. At the top of that hill, in the 1950's, a State Trooper used to stand on an elevated outpost to observe and deter speeders. That was back in the day of 45 mph speed limits, very nice roadside rest areas with barbecue grates. Of course, these were all closed after a spate of reports in the local rag of Ward and June and the rest of the Cleaver brood observing men doing things to each other not normally associated with picnics. They were like parks, and people used to plan to spend time there . . .

There used to be a custom of honking your horn, ostensibly to entertain the kids riding with you, as you entered the tubes; haven't heard that in about ten years now.

Anyway, thanks BD for the pic; the ridge that this tunnel bores through is called West Rock. Not far from this low saddle is the Judges Cave, where three of the Regicides hid from Charles II' men after The Restoration in England. Google "Regicides West Rock" for more info, the spam filter wouldn't let me post a link here.
#1 Steve in CT on 2009-07-04 11:00 (Reply)
Steve in CT: in following your Google suggestion, I now realize that one of my childhood friends was descended from one of the Regicides. That I didn't discover it until now, indicates that his family didn't harp on it. But other details his family dropped indicate that it was so. But not that unusual: I had other neighbors, including a Sunday School teacher, with ancestors memorialized in statues at the State Capitol. Which they never talked about: I didn't find out about the statues until years later. Yankee reticence is not just a stereotype!
#2 XYankee on 2009-07-04 12:49 (Reply)
@XYankee, can you provide a link? googling "regicides west rock" just leads me to people talking about hiking and not the story behind the naming.

Somewhat related, my yankee family's unofficial motto is "etlay itway opdray." Life is too short to hold grudges.

[aside: an earlier comment of mine talking about the Merritt and comparing the Hero's tunnel to the Lehigh Tunnel was rejected. Foo.]
#3 Jack Diederich (Link) on 2009-07-06 04:13 (Reply)
When I put the Google query in quotes, only one source comes up, which gives some cursory information on the Regicides. When I do not put it in quotes, the 8th hit refers to book in Google Books, which gives a detailed history of the Regicides.
#3.1 XYankee on 2009-07-06 16:28 (Reply)

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