You may have heard that recently, my co-author and good friend, TB Markinson, questioned my honesty when I included a certain Massachusetts location in our most recent collaboration The Love Project.
First, I should tell you I have lived in central Massachusetts for close to 20 years. This is important to remember, because it’s given me a lot of time to come across some of the stranger sights in our state that Boston folks just don’t know about.
For example, we have an actual Money Tree in the city of Greenfield. And while you’re out that way, it’s a short hop to check out a fish made entirely out of cutlery, as well as the world’s largest candle. There is also a mysterious stone circle, but I do not recommend trying to find it in the snow, because if TB thought the highway to Hell was bad, it’s nothing compared to driving the roads of Heath, MA in the winter.
While Massachusetts is currently tied with New Hampshire for the distinction of “least religious state in America,” we were once the home of the Puritans, an impressive number of Great Awakening religious revivals, as well as several utopian societies, like the one started by Louisa May Alcott’s father just a few miles from my house. So it’s no wonder that when a parishioner walked out of church after a particularly fierce “fire and brimstone” sermon in the 1930s and found a section of nearby forest on fire, he thought “Satan’s Kingdom” was a fitting name for the place.
In case you’re hoping for a better fate in the afterlife, not to worry. My state does offer a small reprieve from everlasting damnation in the form of Purgatory Chasm. Please do not tell TB about this one, as I’m planning to use it to my advantage sometime in the future. She is never going to believe me when I tell her, especially the part about it having something called “The Devil’s Corn Crib.”
I’m pretty sure I can get a second spa day out of it. I have my eye on one in Northampton, MA, called, appropriately enough, East Heaven.
To read about the startling accusation that started it all, click here.