Hangin' Around the Observatory

On this weekend before Thanksgiving, Middletown was particularly inviting. Another unseasonable warm weekend inspired a neighbor and me, simultaneously to take our kids on a hike. She suggested Wadsworth Falls. I told her I had the "Leatherman cave" in Maromas in mind.

We settled on the cave, and drove out to the twin reservoirs East of Connecticut Valley Hospital, and walked out the state road into the rocky hills dotted with oak, mountain laurel, and large outcroppings sparkling with quartz, mica and feldspar.

I had called former Common Council member Earle Roberts to pinpoint the location of the cave, and he called back as we were within quarter of a mile of the cave. He came over to direct us, and feted us with tales of his battles with the mining company who were leasing the feldspar quarry, and how he eventually prevented them from encroaching on the outcropping which forms the "cave," but not before blowing a significant chunk of it down in a blast that was apparently set for spite.

The cave is not a cave, but a rock shelter like many in the hills of Connecticut, caused by erosion and tumbling boulders and slabs. For decades, perhaps centuries, it was likely used as a shelter by the native Americans who lived by the river. In the mid-nineteenth century it became a well-known shelter for the locally infamous wanderer known as the Leatherman.

Indeed, the shelter has been re-shaped by the blast. I filmed there in 1984 when I was helping produce a short documentary about the Leatherman, and the blast dropped boulders on either end of what was once a spacious rock room, and is now less so.

Roberts directed us to a trail which lead to an outlook above the cave from which we could look Northeast over the old quarry, and West, over the trees of Maromas. Another ridge side trail took us back to the state gravel road and the reservoirs.

In the evening, a pot luck with neighbors who live near Wesleyan was capped by a walk to the Van Vleck Observatory which was open and celebrating the 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescopic study of the sky. We waited in lines to view Jupiter and its two moons, which hung between branches in the Western skies, and to see a blur of stars in a cluster that is millions of light years away.

Today, I walked to the theaters downtown to take in Planet 51 with my kids, and while there I spotted Councilman Phil Pessina.

Joking, I asked him if he was there to see the new vampire movie.

I was surprised when he said he was.

Turns out that Pessina is a big fan of the Twilight series of novels about teen vampires, and is equally appreciative of the movie versions.

"It's another side of me," Pessina confided.