Create a theme park and they will come, which is precisely what has happened in downtown Northampton. The energy and vitality of the downtown has become such a scene that it lures young and old from far and wide to hang out, gawk, groom their dog or pet snake, exhibit various pierced body parts, panhandle, act out, and just be part of the scene. It's always showtime downtown.

These visitors may even patronize some of the businesses.

So why are the businesses now cry babying because of the offenses of those who travel to Northampton by motorcycle and park them in vehicular spaces and spend their time mostly talking, drinking coffee and adding to the show?

The complaining business establishments apparently want it both ways - they are happy to contribute to the theme park circus atmosphere, but they only want as visitors to the city and patrons of their shops - well-mannered, free-spending suburbanites. Noise, crowded sidewalks and doorways, aimless, transient, and oddly dressed voyeurs are an inevitable part of an urban theme park. It is somewhat graceless to impose new rules that don't apply to all to certain visitors to the theme park.

Many communities of similar or greater size than Northampton would happily welcome the influx of large crowds of visitors who provide diversity and zest to downtowns that are probably pretty much moribund.

But certain Northampton merchants want the theme park, but not the hassles, just as they are forever complaining that the city government is anti-business, even though City Hall goes out of its way to stroke and pamper businesses at every turn.

Dismantle the carefully constructed theme park and the problem of motorcyclists and invasive visitors to Northampton will quickly go away, and so will the buzz about Northampton.

Thanks IRS, for Losing Our Tax Return

Once the Internal Revenue Service had a well-earned reputation for being mean-spirited, even vindictive. But after reforming itself under threat from Congress, the new IRS is merely incompetent.

We received the following letter recently in response to an inquiry we made.

"You notified us that your check date 4/15/2001 in the amount of ... was never cashed. We show no record of this payment being received and advise you to make a stop payment on this check and issue a replacement. If we receive your replacement check within 30 days from the date of this letter, we will credit your account with the date of the original check.

"If you sent any documents to the IRS in Pittsburgh with you check, for example: you tax return ... please resubmit this information with your replacement check ..."

The letter was pure bureaucratic obfuscation; there is a cruder term.

The IRS had already confirmed by telephone that it had lost our entire multi-page tax return and the check that was enclosed, as it had for hundreds, maybe thousands of other taxpayers who had sent their returns to an address in Pittsburgh. The most recent news accounts had put the number of lost, misplaced, or stolen checks at 1,800, but the suspicion is that the number is much higher.

Yet this letter makes it sound as if we had screwed up - "we show no record of this payment being received " and the IRS is graciously going to let us send a new return, a new check after stopping payment in the old check and copying and mailing by certified mail all of the tax information a second time.

Typically, the IRS takes the position the burden is on us to correct its gross misconduct. Actually, come to think of is, maybe the IRS still is mean-spirited as well as merely incompetent.

I hope they know what they are up to at Look Park because paving over of much to the entrance to that estimable park sends a bad signal to some of us.

For months a pedestrian or biker entering the park competes for access with vehicles because of the excavation of a large area adjacent to the former swimming pool bathhouse, which is now being renovated into a rather elaborate function center.

Obviously, the expectation is that the function center once complete will require lots and lots of parking spaces, which is what is now being prepared.

Of course, there is a slight problem - the law suit filed against the trustees of Look Park by Bridge Road neighbor Edwin C. Warner on the grounds that a money-making function hall for weddings and other events is inconsistent with the terms of the bequest that created the park and its quiet spaces in a natural setting.

Based on a short chat I had with Brian Elliott, director of the park, should the park lose that legal battle (something he does not foresee happening), then the renovation project could turn into a very costly white elephant. And that cost could have serious repercussions for the park's long-term future, in my view.

Meanwhile, the creation of a vastly expanded blacktop lot with massive granite curbing on the very doorstep of the park is an unappealing blemish that is at odds with the aesthetics and taste so evident in the rest of the park.