Local Government TV

Monday, April 11, 2022

A Visit to The Kindness Garden


As most of you know, I'm as mean as cat shit. That's a prerequisite for a bottom-feeding blogger. But even someone as miserable as myself was touched by The Kindness Garden, located at mile 89.9 of the D&L Trail (about 2 miles below the Slatington Trailhead. I stopped there on Friday afternoon in the middle of a bike ride. Someone went to the trouble of painting several stones and writing thoughtful little messages on them. The Trailside Library, located here as well, had a tome written by science fiction writer Ray Bradbury. 

I stole two of the stones.

I have a reputation to maintain.  The Bradbury book, incidentally, is horribly written.  

OK, I do plan on returning the book and bringing back two stones. 

By the way, the D&L Trail which traverses the Lehigh Valley from Easton to Allentown,and from Northampton to Slatington,, is without doubt the Lehigh Valley's best kept secret. You think you're in another country, especially along the magnificent stretch between Coplay and Slatington. If you've never been on the trail, give it a try this summer.  

10 comments:

  1. What is this Bradbury blasphemy!?

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  2. Sorry, but it's a terrible book. The title is A Medicine for Melancholy. Its first sentence: "George and Alice Smith detrained at Biarritz one summer noon and in an hour had run through their hotel onto the beach into the ocean and back out to bake upon the sand." This is no way to start a novel. The opening line of Melville's Moby Dick is "Call me Ishmael." In my view, that simplicity is the best first sentence to a novel that I've ever read.

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    1. Yea, that's clunky writing from an otherwise great writer.

      "It was a pleasure to burn" opens his Fahrenheit 451, which is well done.

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  3. Thanks Bernie, great trail and we always stop at the Kindness Garden when riding that portion of it.

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  4. I have seen stones like that in various places across the Lehigh Valley. They normally have something feel good on them. What are you supposed to do with them when you find them?

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  5. Bernie:

    What's the best way to access the trail in Northampton/Coplay?

    thanks,

    got a Verve on your rec, great bike, thanks

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  6. Some of the painted stones have a Facebook site on back of them to log where they got to or are. Not sure what is on the site. I hate Facebook thus I do not belong.

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  7. Gsmith, the trail is right across the bridge on Rte 329 going out of Northampton and into Coplay. Glad you like the Verve.

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  8. Bern do you still wear those ridiculous painted on lycra tights to peddle your childrens toy around the forests?

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  9. thanks Bernie, I may try to find it, always good to find new places to ride. I like the less travelled bike trails.

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