The HD Garbage Walk

On Sunday I went to my first HD Garbage Walk. The official title is the Arlo Guthrie’s Historic Garbage Trail Walk to Massacree HD. It travels 6.3 miles in Stockbridge and Great Barrington, Massachusetts made famous by his song & movie, Alice’s Restaurant.

I almost went last year. Kathy’s passing seemed too fresh I guess. I had gone to the open mic at the Guthrie Center and knew about the garbage walk. I just didn’t feel ready.

It was really a lot of fun and good exercise. The reality is that walking a basset hound every other day is not good training for a longish walk. Walking a basset works on your upper body more. Pulling him away from poison ivy. Pulling him away from traffic. Pulling him home. So Marty stayed home. The weather was really perfect.

I got to meet Huntington’s advocate Jimmy Pollard in person. We’ve been Facebook friends for a little while. I think we ‘met’ after I wrote the Huntington’s Waltz. Jimmy has been an expert on Huntington’s for decades. I became familiar with him when I read his book A Caregiver’s Handbook for Advanced Huntington’s Disease long before Kathy was actually diagnosed with HD. The funds raised by the walk are going to smaller HD care and research programs rather than the big foundations. That is where my heart is also.

Here is a selection of photos I shot with my phone. Since I am a car nut there are probably a few too many photos of VW Vans. In honor of the story of Alice’s Restaurant volunteers drove us to the start of the garbage walk in retro Volkswagen Transporters (aka VW Van; or VW Type 2). I owned a 1966 model (called Big Bird) when I was in college. Big Bird was painted like, you guessed it, Big Bird. The beak and eyes were on the front and the wings stretched out on the two doors. I had to make my own inspection stickers each year. It was handy being an artist. Kathy and I had another one in Plymouth but the engine blew up on the Bourne Bridge when Kathy was driving it to work.

A composite of photos of the vans

Retro vans waiting to ferry walkers to Stockbridge. That’s Arlo’s tour bus parked behind them.

With some fellow walkers getting a lift to Stockbridge.

Some other photos from the church and the start at the site of “Alice’s Restaurant” In Stockbridge.

Arlo’s son Abe signing us in.

Jimmy’s car

The starting point was near the site of the original Alice’s Restaurant.

In honor of the late Officer Obie the Stockbridge Police Department joined in the fun.

An invisible Fence.

I was trying to make sure I could keep up with this guy using a cane. I skipped a lot of the rest stops so I could get ahead of him. I lost.

I like train stuff almost as much as car stuff.

Crossing into the Housatonic are of Great Barrington, MA

One of the water stops was at the site of the dump made famous in Alice’s Restaurant. Sarah Lee Guthrie and the Hoping Machine sang to us.