Lovely downtown Noho

I'm really liking the photo galleries at masslive.com's new Northampton section. The famous Truck Eating Bridge was just down the block from my office. It's been in a movie, but its claim to fame is its uncanny ability to seduce unwary truck drivers into embarassing accidents. It obviously has a really low clearance and it's well marked. You would figure a driver would know how tall his rig is, yet no less than once a month and often many times more, a big ass semi will get stuck under the thing.

You have to wonder if the bridge calls out to them, like the Sirens. You can almost hear it singing.... come on, you can make it, don't stop, come to me..... How else to explain the drivers that keep going until the top of their trailer is folded up like an accordian, while some manage to stop in time for a simple tow to extricate the rig?

From a spectator's standpoint though, the dumber the driver, the more entertainment value in the rescue efforts. I always felt bad for the poor guys, stuck in the middle of Main Street talking to a cop, while the traffic backs up and the crowd assembles to view their folly from the sidewalk.

Nonetheless, over 18 years, I've had of hours of fun watching this bridge claim its victims. But the best show was the time we had a tremendous thunderstorm downtown. It was an absolute deluge and the underpass flooded waist deep for a couple of hours. All the cars parked under the bridge, were floating in the water. But that's a story for another day. It's a beautiful afternoon. I think I'll go out for a walk.

Graphic shamelessly stolen from Kelsey.