The road less traveled
Late winter thaws means that road quality becomes the foremost topic for many Tri-town residents. As frozen earth softens with rising temps, all the silt, sand, gravel, pebbles, cobbles, and boulders (in ascending order of size) which had been locked in ice reconfigure. This process stresses out the asphalt. Poor asphalt. Its formerly consistent bedding has basically played “Doesi- doe, choose a new partner,” with millions of rock particles, with the result that cars can go bumpitybumpity.
Yes, I find the potholes and cracks annoying. But my strategy for coping with the roads is this: drive at or slightly below the speed limit. Driving 25 mph on surface roads on which many people roar by at 35 or 40 mph is a more comfortable ride. I also wear amber glasses at night to sharpen my vision. In darkness, rough roads are not so easily seen. Amber lenses also soften the impact of white headlights on oncoming vehicles.
And consider this — in olden days, cobblestone streets prevailed. Summer Street, in Fitchburg was one such street. Its width was to accommodate street cars, although the photograph shows more exciting vehicles: the arrival of the Ringling Brothers Circus to Fitchburg in 1911
ith the circus set up on the Summer Street Fairgrounds, just imagine the clatter of hooves and wheels on those cobblestones. That picture reminds me of a story told to me by Ida “Gram” Ellis, our next door neighbor in Lunenburg.
Gram was a third grandmother in my life, and as she was born in 1892, I heard many stories about “the olden days.” Gram made her own soap out of lye; fried her own doughnuts (staple breakfast food with coffee for many New Englanders for decades); embroidered and crocheted, and never drove a car. She lived in the house her descendant, farmer Greg Burns of Oak Tree Homestead and Forge still lives in with his wife.
I love to think of the world Gram lived in — how quiet and still it was. There was electricity, but no amplified sound to speak of. One of Gram’s stories was about being a child and walking to Lunenburg Center. All of a sudden the fire bells rang out. Before long, a team of horses drawing a steamer tore out of the old firehouse. When the horse hooves hit the cobblestones, sparks flew, the wheels rumbled, men yelled and Gram told me the sound was so loud she fainted dead away.
Hollis The Mountain Man and directions
Can you get there from here? Sometimes — you just can’t. Try to get to
Leominster from West Fitchburg: you need to go further west on Route 2 before turning east. And we have some sign placements that make your brain hurt. Do you ever drive past the 50/50 Diner and see the signs that indicate you are heading north and south simultaneously? (Three of them: North 12, West 2A, South 31, lined up like a set for some Theatre of the Absurd.
My friend Hollis the Mountain Man would rather draw you a map than give you verbal directions because he still charts his path by many long-gone landmarks. “Go by the big field which used to be Levine’s Farm, dotted with black and white Holstein cows,” is another way of saying, “Drive down Lunenburg’s Wal-mart mountain.” And “Take the road that used to go by Cook’s Farm,” may eventually get you to Groton.
Fortunately, many landmarks in the Greater TriTown region are not subject to change. Thanks to sensible land management, Leominster’s Sholan Farms will be a “forever” landmark, just as The Boulder is for Fitchburg’s Upper Common.
Of course, the best directions aren’t directions at all. How many of you have met a stranger in town who’s looking for such-and-such a place. You start explaining how to get there (having determined they don’t have the right gizmo on their phonethingy), and then say: “It’s easier if you follow me in your car.”
My fellow Tri-townies — that is no defeat. Guiding a fellow traveler is a triumph of civility, collaboration and — of course — social distance — which Yankees have specialized in for centuries.
Happy Valentine’s Day
Snark is not a modern concept. As my family ate the last chocolates from the box of See’s my brother Hal Cragin sent from California, I researched how earlier generations viewed Feb. 14. ( N.B. I cannot write a lie — the last chocolates from the box were consumed days ago).
Here is some homegrown hilarity from a local periodical, Fitchburg’s Town Talk, February 13, 1892: “Expect a Valentine?” it begins. “Nowadays instead of the lace paper monstrosities of our youth showing an altar with a pair undergoing initiation into wedded bliss and a couple of fat little cupids holding 2 hearts on a skewer we have some very clever satirical valentines or something in the way of a caricature,” the anonymous scribe opined.
“Very little call is made for the sentimental or the skim milk amatory verses of ye ancient days.” Oh
1892 anonymous scribe — how very forward-looking of you!