Tag Archives: photoographs

Home Town

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Today we left still later than usual.  We stopped by the Normandy Farms office to extend our stay another day. Our campsite is booked on 11/05. and the entire campsite is booked this weekend.  Is there a PAT’s game at Gillette Stadium?  Probably.  We’ll be moving on to Rhode Island, though we may visit Boston one last time.

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Walden Pond, Concord Massachusetts

Our first stop was Concord.  I have fond memories of family visits to Walden Pond as a child.  I caught craw fish, walked and swam in the pond, and read On Walden Pond by Henry David Thoreau.  The pond holds a special place in my memories.

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Walden Pond in Glorious Color

The parking lot as I remember it is on the right as you drive past the pond.  Not so any longer.  We drove right past the large parking lot to the left before the pond.  Another U-turn for the record books.  Luckily, I am not counting.  There is an $8.00 fee for all day parking, $10.00 for out of staters with an electronic payment kiosk at the entrance.  When we drove up there were two cars ahead of us and two guys at the kiosk not making any progress.  I walked up to make the count three.  The first fellow tried everything he could think of and anything we two suggested.  Nothing worked.  Then a passer-by said, “That machine will not work with the new chip cards!”  Oh, right.  Things went smoothly thereafter.

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Fall Foliage in November

Funny though, The two guys ahead of me paid, got their ticket, and drove off.  There I was at the kiosk with forty feet between me and our car.  The fellow in line behind us grew very impatient as i was paying our parking fee, to the extent that he had words with Ellen and was starting to drive around us as Ellen moved into the driver’s seat and I walked back to the car.  He said something about holding the line up and I responded with, “You cannot wait a few minutes while I get a ticket.  Why are you in such a rush?” Apparently, Ellen had already suggested he cool his jets.  We parked and never saw the guy again.

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Mockup of Thoreau’s Pondside Home

Apparently Walden Pond has grown more popular in the past 50 years.  The parking lot is many times larger, there is a mock up of Thoreau’s house near the parking lot, and a huge visitor’s center is under construction.  A statue of H.D. Thoreau stands on the walkway toward the pond and a ranger greets visitors.

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Ranger Nick

Nick said the population has roughly doubled since the ’60s and a number of improvements have been made.  Yes the parking lot used to be past the lake on the left side.  Prior to 1974, the pond was administered by the town of Concord though the land is owned by the state.  In 1974 the area became a state park administered by the state park system. Cement piers have been erected at the site of Thoreau’s home.  Nick also mentioned that Walden Pond, a glacial lake, is the deepest body of water in Massachusetts at 100 feet.  I asked about fishing.  I was an avid fisherman back then, but never caught anything on the lake.  Nick said the lake has been stocked, there are big mouth bass, trout, and muskellunge.  A passerby stopped to say, “Yes, there are muskellunge in the pond, but they’re hard to find”.  Nick said the lake drops off quickly and there is no water flowing into or out of the pond.  There is no natural place for the fish to congregate and local fishermen will not share where they find the fish.

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A Peaceful Walk

Nick also recommended that we walk around the lake.

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Thoreau’s Homesite Memorialized

 

Today was a very unusual day for November; it was much more like September.  There was no wind and not a ripple on the lake, except for the wake kicked up by two swimmers.  The air temperature was in the low 70’s with highs in the low 80’s in the sun.  It was glorious to be walking the lake remembering things as they were years ago.  One summer Greg, Fitzi, and I bicycled from Arlington to the pond up Rt 2!

We took a number of photos as we walked around the lake.

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From Walden Pond, we drove through the towns of Concord and Lexington.  Not surprisingly, both have grown in size.  The streets are very busy.  I had hoped to find Buttricks Ice Cream in Lexington.  The family would drive to Buttrick’s on Sunday afternoons for a family drive and a treat.  Mom would always have Mocha Almond Fudge in a cup.  I always had a coffee frappe.  I could not find Buttrick’s in Lexington or in Arlington.  They and Brigham’s have gone out of business?

From Lexington, I drove to Arlington thinking I’d remember the way.  I didn’t!  We wound up using GPS to drive into Arlington on Summer Street, a back road and not Mass Ave.!  I recognized the turn onto Mill Street by the old Sporting Goods Store build near the bridge over Mill Brook.  The Sporting Goods Store was gone.  School was getting out and traffic on Mills Street was wicked (a Massachusetts term). Turning Right on Mass Ave. we passed Arlington High School.  I turned left onto Field Road and left again onto Woodland Ave to head back to Bartlett Ave.  This was my old home turf, between Mass Ave., Bartlett Ave, Brantwood Road, and Pleasant Street, and especially Menotomy Rocks Park.

Menotomy Rocks Park

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This park was one of my go-to places to fish, climb rocks and trees, make lean-to hideaways, and imagine life hundreds of years ago.  I played a few football games in the field here.  Used a fly rod to catch bats in the evening.  We discovered this could be done while practicing fly casting one evening.

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The Pond

Funny how the streets that seemed too wide and long as a child, look narrow and short today.  I drove Bartlett Ave and pointed out Harry’s house, our doctor’s house on Jason Street, Rick’s house on Gray Street, Fitzy’s house at the corner of Gray and Jason.  We walked the pond in Menotomy Rocks Park stopping to talk with two older gentlemen who happened by.  The small merry-go-round was gone.  Older kids would turn it so fast that smaller kids would be launched from it or get sick or both.  I was both a smaller kid and later one of the big ones.  I remembered tobogganing down the slope above the now playground and having the toboggan hit a tree and split in two.  We had all bailed out before impact.  Then there is “Eagle Rock”, an outcropping in a hillside that was a favorite place to play and imagine other times and places.

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Eagle Rock

 

My Neighborhood in Arlington Mass.

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The Boston Skyline from Kensington Park

We walked across Jason Street and up  Brantwood Road to Kensington Park and the house where my siblings and I grew up.  The houses are just as I remember them, though the colors have changed.  There was the house the English Professor rented, there the house the Lickliter’s  owned, there the house where I raided the concord grape vines one summer, there the house where my childhood friend lived and his father had me help harvest his pears.  He was a psychologist.  There the house the first black  family in the neighborhood bought.  And there was my old house.  I had forgotten that I had a view of the Boston skyline from my 3rd floor windows.   Many of the houses in the neighborhood now have a historical plaque displayed prominently by the front door announcing the original owner and the year the house was built.

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Neighborhoood Heritage Homes

We walked past the house where I was badly bitten by a dog.  We walked past the house where I traded something of value for a small toy car.  My parents walked me back to that house and had the trade reversed after they read me the riot act  and had calmed down.  We walked past the house the artists owned where I often climbed the highest pine tree in the neighborhood as high as I could go and felt the wind sway the vary top of the tree.  We walked past the house where my friends and I interrupted a girl’s sleep-over (I will say no more).

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Neighborhood Homes

 

 

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Neighborhood Foliage

 

Thanks to my mother’s decision to move into a neighborhood with extremely good schools, I had the joy of growing up in a thriving neighborhood.

 

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My Childhood Home

Harvard Square, Cambridge Ma.

Hunger set in and we headed to Arlington Center for a bite.  We drove past the center and on to Harvard Square, passing the old sub shop, the old pizza shop, the fire station, the music school (that was no longer there), and into Cambridge.  We parked in pay for parking and walked the square.  Except for some large developments on the south side of the square, the buildings were the same as I remember but the shops were entirely different.  I had hoped to stop by the Hoff Brau,, but it was gone.  We walked past a number of fast food restaurants and cafes looking for an inviting place to eat.  The deviled eggs on the menu at Grafton Street Pub and Grill really appealed to me.  Ellen suggested walking Harvard’s campus which was just across the street.  Off we went.  Sometime later we discussed where to eat.  Should we continue on or go back to Grafton.  By now we were both starving and I was getting testy and really wanted to go back to the pub. Ellen, agreed we go back.  We ordered deviled eggs, clam chowder, the Pork Loin entree and the steak entree.  The meal was paced slowly giving us time to savor each bite. This might just be the best meal I have had on this trip.  The Pork Loin was fabulous.  Ellen had a remarkable steak and potato and arugula dinner.  She had ordered the steak done medium rare and it arrived rare.  I assume the waitress did not hear the “medium”,  She went off shift before the entrees arrived.  I mentioned that Ellen’s steak was done too rare;; Ellen added that she wanted the meat done medium rare, and the dish was whisked away.  It took quite some time for the dish to return.  The manager arrived with the steak.  He said that rather than simply re-heating the meat, they had prepared and entirely new serving as the dish would lose some of its flavor if it were just re-heated.  This was great service and a wonderfully presented and timed meal.

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The Pub

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 Newburyport Green Head IPA

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Pork Loin, Perfection

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Study Hall and Theater build like a Church, Harvard Square

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World War Memorial Church, Harvard

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Caramel Macchiato & Sweet Cream Latte

On the drive home I missed a turn and wound up driving back and forth across the Charles River before finding route 90 south.  Boston is like that.  The roads are not well marked and often if you are not setup well ahead for a turn, you will have no way to make it.  In California, we have Bots Dots, reflectors built into the highway.  That reflection makes the lanes quite visible.  We even have lighted roadways in many cases.  In Massachusetts the roads are dramatically dark, the drivers can be anxious and dart across lanes; and the roads are notoriously poorly marked.  Driving at night can be challenging.

Home again,, the beast sat awaiting our return.

Ron