Blueberry accents on record

It's fun to take the long way around sometimes.

We're not the only ones. John Burney's origin story for the start of Meadowbrook Farm in East Longmeadow involves a telephone pole in a field and a dream that's evolved to be ~400 acres of Western New England farmland. We speak with him and Jacob Nelson from CISA about blueberries, local wholesale, and the people who help to make that farm robust.

We see it in the circuitous route language takes, even on our own tongues. Linguist and budding local historian Wren Wood helps us discover the sound of a Chicopee past, including a speech approximating the accents of the time. They share with us their passion for making the sounds of the gilded age, showing how that shapshot of language can connect us even closer with the people of the past.

And it's happening in beloved mediums having a resurgence, in our case the return of vinyl records to the fore. Prodigal Massachusetts native, professor John Dougan has recently edited the anthology "The Life, Death, and Afterlife of the Record Store: A Global History", so we take him to Easthampton's Platterpus Records, where owner Dave Witthaus joins us to discuss the nature and progress of how we consume music.