This Is Framingham

Some more footage from the video shot from the (moving) car given to me by Mitch Cohen.

Herbie’s was an ice cream shop where Cafe Bagel (or fresh bagel) is now in Framingham Center. ivermectin, liver damage
I loved going here as a kid after ballet lessons at the dancing arts center, which was right around the corner. As a teenager, my friend worked here, my friends and I would visit and wait for her to get off work. I don’t know how they went out of business, they were always pretty busy from what I remember. a que hora se toma la ivermectina en gotas
Anyway, I just thought I’d share some more lost footage of Framingham that Mitch so generously allowed me to use.

The Farm Stand was a local grocery store that was where Whole Foods is now.
I remember my parents taking us here a lot when my sisters and I were young.  It seemed like they always ran into someone they knew here.  It’s funny how that didn’t seem to happen at other grocery stores.

Too bad something like this probably couldn’t survive in either the Franklin St, (sad) Plaza or Nobscot Plaza where there are vacant grocery stores collecting dust (among other things).

I cannot thank thank former Framingham resident, Mitch Cohen, enough for sharing this awesome video his friend took of driving down route 9.   Thanks again Mitch!

Walking through the downtown library, I saw a nice display of Halloween products made by the old Dennison paper product factory here in Framingham.

I thought it was interesting to see these old designs. ?????   From what I saw the displayed peices were dated from 1918-30’s. ?? ??? ???????? ?? ????????   Just something worth checking out if you’re in the library. ???? ??? ???????

Ethan and I were watching TV last week and in this show’s ending credits there was a guy named Maurice, I forget his last name but I thought “That’s a name I never hear of, I’ve never even known anyone named Maurice.”  Unless I counted “Maurice the Pants Man” and even then, I didn’t know him, just the name of the store.
It was weird to remember that, I asked Ethan if he remembered that store, he said no and I moved on to thinking about something else.
The next day I found myself waiting in the lobby of an office building and looking through some books that were out on the table.  I found one about metrowest, opened it up and on the first page I opened to I saw this:

Upon closer inspection I saw this:

Maurice the freakin’ Pants Man!!!
When I got home I immediately told Ethan about how weird it is that I hadn’t thought about Maurice the Pants Man in forever and then I did, and then the next day I randomly see the sign in a book.  I said that HAS to mean something.  Ethan, being the more rational of the two of us, thought it was a little weird but that was all.  I kept saying “No , it must mean something, don’t you think??”  Finally,  knowing the only answer that would satisfy me, he gave up and said “I guess that means he’s coming back then”.
I realize M the PM most likely is not coming back and I probably wouldn’t care that much if he did but I thought it should mean something.   Weird coincidence anyway.

I’ve never been to this Dunkin Donuts but this is where the Athenian Restaurant used to be, a Greek place that my sister Elanie and I worked at while in college.  We both were going to Framingham State and both waiting tables at Coyote on Edgell Road.  I don’t know how or why we got involved with the Athenian but on the weekends they were open 24 hours and one summer we work the graveyard shift.  Often after a full night of working at Coyote, we’d change uniforms and head over to the Athenian from 11:30pm to 7am.  We were young and foolish and thought we could just do everything.
The late night Athenian crowd was different from the day time crowd.  A lot of late-nighters were left over regulars from the Copper Kettle, the previous dive establishment at that location.  I guess most people came here after the bars closed for the night, a lot were drunk or just odd with nowhere to go.  I remember some nights it became a downright zoo in there between 1-3am.  The only thing that kept us sane was Bruce, the only cook for these shifts.  I don’t know how he did it but we’d have a packed restaurant and somehow Bruce handled everything back there all by himself without once losing his cool.  I asked him once how he did it and he just shook his head and said “I don’t even know, I just close my eyes and hope everything gets on the right plate”.

Since it was just Bruce, Elaine and I, he would also have to act as security sometimes when a drunk someone found their drunk ex there and got too emotional or people locked themselves in the bathroom or people just plain being obnoxious.   I’d get this customer who yelled at me about the pancakes and said “I get the pancakes here every time and EVERY TIME they come out horrible!”  I suggested that maybe she’d like to get something else but every week she would get them and I’d cringe every time I saw her walk through the door.  The nicest people were the ones going to or coming from work, like the limo drivers or delivery guys.  We could actually have a good conversations with them and they tipped well too.

The place would empty out around 3:30 and everyone would leave just as fast as they came in.  After cleaning up and depending on what a rough night it was Elaine and I would sometimes fall sleep in a booth and Bruce would wake us up if people came in.  Just a few minutes nap in a booth was precious.  I remember one time being so tired that driving down Rt. 85 on the way home I swore I saw a giant white…thing, like some sort of creature, crossing the road.   I actually slowed down and tried to wake my sister, but she was too konked out to wake up.  I had never before and never since hallucinated but I’ll never forget how real that thing was and how important sleep is.

The Athenian was owned by a Greek couple that worked so much that I think they were a little out of it, just by the way the ran things there but I remember almost everything the wife showed us how to do was followed by her Greek accented voice telling us to “make it nice for the people”.  Cleaning menus, wiping tables, vacuuming, making coffee was all to “make it nice for the people”.   One night before the changing of the guards, we had to convince her to correct the spelling of the night’s special “BQQ” Burger.   After we stopped working there she would still call us like we never left and leave messages like “It’s Litza,  I need you to work tonight…” 
For years after that, the Athenian would sometimes come up in conversation and my sister and I would laugh and say “Is that place still open?”  It was turned into a Dunkin Donuts a few years ago and even though that place was insane in some ways, I think it is a shame to lose a local place like that (especially one open 24 hours) and have it replaced with something that is everywhere anyway.  Another piece of Framingham gone.
 

On the back side of a sign by the courthouse on Concord St. is an old sticker for WZOU.  This station wasn’t Framingham based (and all my pictures I was going to post about are on another computer but I wanted to post something today) but since it’s the only place I’ve seen a sticker for this 14 year old-dead radio station (the call letters anyway) I thought it was worth pointing out. ???? ????   Particularly impressive is the condition of this sticker, although I guess someone could have been hanging on  to a an old sticker for years and decided to stick on a random sign but there is enough bleaching to figure it’s been there for a while. ???? ???? ??? ????
WZOU was one of three stations I listened to in the 80’s, (WZOU, KISS 108 and my favorite, WHTT 103)
Here’s a WZOU playlist from February 1986 incase anyone is interested and a little listen to WZOU towards the end featuring a commercial for the now defunct MVP Sports where the woman with a thick Boston accent tells you there are “All-stah savings”.

The Kendal Hotel from another dimension ago.