Today we went to Salem for the first time.

It was also my first time riding the commuter rail north of town. I've ridden it a fair bit, but only to points south ... and I remind you, that in the Boston area north rail is north rail and south rail is south rail and never (apparently) the twain shall meet.

I have to mention that because as you know, I am a public transportation nerd and a train nerd especially, and it was very important to observe such things as that the Lynn station is apparently in a long-term state of nonexistence and its temporary platform is so short that they can only open doors in one place on the train for people to dis/embark, or that they are still running a flag-stop station on that line (in this day and age), or that the area in/around Chelsea has five fucking grade crossings (in this day and age), or that the Salem station is single-rail -- one track, used by trains going both directions. I had some fun with a map after I got home figuring out how far on either side of the station it split/switched to two tracks again.

I also discovered that there is apparently a short place where the commuter rail track has to pass under the Orange Line track very briefly, which I have somehow not managed to notice despite all my years at sea. I'm going to have to go to the Sullivan Square platform and look off the end and see if I can see it from there.

But enough about trains. (There is never enough about trains.)

Salem ... well, we only saw a little bit of its "downtown" area, but as far as that little bit is concerned, the vibe was very peculiar. I have never before, and possibly never will again, see a location that so thoroughly mixes stuffy stick-up-the-ass New England history (whaling and textile factories and crusty high-collared merchant barons and saltbox houses and a lot of old brick) with the sleazy fortunetellers and mystic crystal shops and wax museums and other tourist traps of the back streets of the French Quarter in New Orleans.

I mean. "Here's a big ol' square brick building that was built in the 1700s and used as a meeting house, and the ground floor is now a Goth coffee house and an ice-cream place with a melting skull logo and a witch souvenir shop."

(The ice-cream place was not actually in a restored 1700s meeting house, but it does exist. We thought we might visit it for dessert before we left but we were too tired and still too full of lunch. Next time.)

Salem seemed like a lovely place, you understand. Embraces its weirdness. Very welcoming, very inclusive, etc. It's just that the juxtaposition of that weird streak with the starched-bottom Old New England crap still lingering in the corners was a little cognitively dissonant at first.

Salem realized a long time ago that the only thing that was consistently bringing in money -- basically, the only thing they had left -- was the witch stuff, and in recent years they have leaned into that in a big way. I can't say I blame them, but it also makes me a little bit itchy. My Wiccan phase was a long time ago, but I still don't like seeing that stuff get commercialized. It should always remain the quiet province of freaks.

On the other hand ...

The main reason we went was to go see the Peabody Essex Museum, which is a very nice museum with a lot of interesting stuff, and one room was a sort of A-Z of Salem history. The letter L was about Daniel Low & Co, who were well-regarded and famous-in-the-area sellers of jewelry and fine silver for nearly a hundred years. One of the items was an advertising sheet which, among other things, offered souvenir silver "witch pins." That sheet was from the 1890s.

In fact, it turns out, Low was very possibly the first firm to turn out official witch-based Salem souvenirs -- the pins, and an even more popular set of "witch spoons."

So I guess it was ever so, and the ship has long sailed.