Flashes of Panic

On Route 9 in Windsor (eastbound) and Cummington (westbound) there is a white bubble visible on a mountaintop. As best I can tell from my topo maps, it’s in Cummington, atop Bryant Peak, 2,070 feet up. The map, which is somewhat less than current, says there is a radio tower there, but this is unlike any radio tower I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to get a sense of its size; it looks a bit like the Peace Pagoda, but it sticks up much farther above the trees. It looks more like a scoop of ice cream fallen from a really massive cone. My bet is that it’s actually a doppler radar system inside its protective bubble.

But it looks like nothing so much as a giant golf ball, teed up and waiting to be played.