Water and Witches

Well, we’ve finally found a place to kick off our shoes and stay for a while. We’re in an extended stay motel north of Boston where we have a room with a kitchenette for cooking. It’s somewhat like a studio apartment. The best thing about it is that we’re not tied into a lease; we can just pick up and go whenever we want.

Ok, so what have we been doing for fun? Well, not much since arriving in this area because it has rained two of the four days we’ve been here... the current storm courtesy of tropical storm Cindy. Yesterday though we went to Salem where the famous witch trials took place. In 1692, 20 citizens who had been accused of being witches were tried and executed. One thing that most people don’t know however is that far more people were put in jails than were executed… several hundred versus 20. So, it could have been worse. It’s easy today though to dismiss the hysteria that prevailed over the issue back then as being perpetrated by a just a bunch of religious crazies. But an excellent talk by a tour guide during a trolley ride around the city brought home the realization that all events in history must be examined in context of the times they occurred. The good citizens of Salem and all of New England were extremely religious in a way that is hard for us to understand today. Remember your history lesson from grade school? The Pilgrims came over here specifically for religious freedom and it was at the core of everything they did. And witchcraft was a concept that was very real and very terrifying to the people of those days. So, the idea of witches and witchcraft entering into their life was terrifying to them. The moral of the story then is that sometimes otherwise good people do bad things out of (in their minds) legitimate concerns for the welfare of the community at large.

Salem is also where Nathanial Hawthorne lived and wrote many of his novels. One of the more famous was “The House of the Seven Gables”, based on a real house built in 1668 which still exists and which is open to the public for tours. Although the tour in general was interesting, the most interesting thing to me was one of the two staircases. For some reason this particular one was built into the brickwork of the main fireplace. It is very steep and at a couple of points is literally no more than about 18 inches wide as it twists and turns it’s way up to the 2^nd floor. Fortunately for the more “ample” tourist of today, the main staircase is more accommodating… but not nearly as much fun. Pictures in the gallery.