By Paul Carrier
It dawned on me a while back that the logo of the Massachusetts Turnpike no longer sports the warlike look I remember so well from years gone by.
The 138-mile toll road, which cuts across the state from West Stockbridge to East Boston, still uses a signature Pilgrim hat on its signs, as it has for as long as I can remember.
But when I was a college student in Boston, and for some time after I graduated in 1972, that hat had an Indian arrow stuck clean through it.
The arrow is now long gone, having been replaced with a plain hat about 1989, for reasons that remain unclear. One theory has it that the hat was "de-arrowed" because of political correctness. Another holds that it was done because the arrow was confusing motorists who mistakenly believed it pointed the way to turnpike on-ramps.
Whatever the reason, the arrow implied a state of war between the Pilgrims and their Native American neighbors. That was historically misleading, at least initially, because the Wampanoags of southeastern Massachusetts, under the leadership of Massasoit, helped the Pilgrims adapt, and lived in peace with them for several decades thereafter. The so-called first Thanksgiving of 1621 illustrates that relationship.
Odd markers aside, "the pike" is something of a cultural icon in the Bay State, thanks more to James Taylor than to old signs that paid tribute to Native American marksmanship. Taylor sings the following lines in Sweet Baby James, which appeared on his 1970 album of the same name. Many an aging Bay Stater committed them to memory way back when.
The 138-mile toll road, which cuts across the state from West Stockbridge to East Boston, still uses a signature Pilgrim hat on its signs, as it has for as long as I can remember.
But when I was a college student in Boston, and for some time after I graduated in 1972, that hat had an Indian arrow stuck clean through it.
The arrow is now long gone, having been replaced with a plain hat about 1989, for reasons that remain unclear. One theory has it that the hat was "de-arrowed" because of political correctness. Another holds that it was done because the arrow was confusing motorists who mistakenly believed it pointed the way to turnpike on-ramps.
Whatever the reason, the arrow implied a state of war between the Pilgrims and their Native American neighbors. That was historically misleading, at least initially, because the Wampanoags of southeastern Massachusetts, under the leadership of Massasoit, helped the Pilgrims adapt, and lived in peace with them for several decades thereafter. The so-called first Thanksgiving of 1621 illustrates that relationship.
Odd markers aside, "the pike" is something of a cultural icon in the Bay State, thanks more to James Taylor than to old signs that paid tribute to Native American marksmanship. Taylor sings the following lines in Sweet Baby James, which appeared on his 1970 album of the same name. Many an aging Bay Stater committed them to memory way back when.
Now the first of December was covered with snow
And so was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston
Lord, the Berkshires seem dreamlike
on account of that frosting
With ten miles behind me, and ten thousand more to go.
And so was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston
Lord, the Berkshires seem dreamlike
on account of that frosting
With ten miles behind me, and ten thousand more to go.
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