(My history, that is…) On my 41st birthday (4/22/22), I was staying in Rhode Island. I usually do a birthday hike, but I’m so spoiled by the Western Mass peaks and not that there aren’t any nice hiking trails in Rhode Island because there are, lovely ones, but I figured while I was there, maybe I ought to do something different. I decided that a walk around a real city, which we do lack in Western Mass, would be different. And Providence! My city! And what would make a walk around Providence especially special on my birthday would be revisiting all my old haunts—hence, an historic walking tour. My plan was to walk and stop and take pictures and write and repeat. But I only got a two-hour parking spot, so I didn’t have time to stop and write, only walk and take pictures. The thing about Rhode Island is that I kept leaving and coming back, so my history in Providence is broken up into chunks. childhood: I mostly didn’t grow up in the city proper, so my childhood memories of Providence co...

New Year's Eve: Our 3rd annual burning of the Christmas tree. Flames 10, 15, 20 feet high; heat; crackling; kids and adults yelling—it lasts for roughly 2 minutes. We'll do this until the neighbors call the cops on us. New Year's Day: Our 5th annual First Day Hike, this time Mt. Tom in Holyoke, MA. Not quite to the peak of Mt. Tom, but Whiting Peak, 1000 feet. My cameraphone does no justice to the depth and height of this trail. Before the hike, I reflected a bit and wondered why this was only our 5th year doing First Day Hikes, why I hadn't been doing something like this before. For most of my adult life, I've spent New Year's Day too hungover to do much of anything. I did my first (and only) polar plunge on New Year's Day 2016, while hungover. That same year, I moved from RI to MA, which is where I was introduced to the idea of a First Day Hike. 2017: That organized First Day Hike which introduced me to the concept—hosted by the "state park" that...