As a young boy my friends and I would take a few of our days
of summer vacation from school to hike about the Middlesex Fells Reservation
which occupied portions of the towns of Medford, Stoneham and Winchester
Massachusetts. They would be day long
excursions with bagged lunches to sustain us while out in the “wild”. I enjoyed those tromps through the
woods. At times we would have a small
handful of boys and at other times it was big as a scout troop. There was mystery and mystique within those
treed pathways that wound about and at times crisscrossed deep in the woods. All the while with the tramp of each footstep
thoughts would run through my mind of who may have pass along this path
yesterday, a century or millennia ago. I
was sure that Native Americans must have walked these paths and perhaps
colonials too. There was no visible
evidence to support these thoughts but that did not damn back the flow if those
random thoughts.
Now that I have attained senior status my thoughts vary to
would others ever remember that I have travelled this way? Would another young boy on a future day
wondered who traveled through the same woods?
Maybe, he would see and think the same thoughts I did as we set out
about our adventure within the woods of the Fells.
No trip to the Fells would have had been complete without a
climb up the fire watch tower for a view of Boston. In my younger days I did not have camera in
hand to record the adventure. So, a few
years back on a sunny Sunday afternoon I went on an adventure to retrace some
of those earlier steps. First was the
finding of the trail leading up the hill to the fire watch tower! I walked the winding path with the less steep
incline which seemed much longer that I recollected from my earlier days. Back then we were surer of foot and I am sure
the ascent to the tower took a much more vertical path and a lot less time than
it had on my more recent visit.
Eventually, the tower was in sight and I hoped that still had access for
those willing to climb the steps for a view of Boston.
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| Fire Watch Tower, Middlesex Fells Reservation |
This time I climbed the familiar tower steps with camera in
hand. The view was pretty much how it
had been more than a half century ago but the landscape had changed
dramatically. The Boston I viewed was
far different from my boyhood days.
However, the view is still one that gives a bird’s eye view of the city
with the tall buildings appearing as parapets against the cotton ball cloud
checkered sky. The area closest to the
tower did not have a highway running though it as it does today. There were fields of rolling green grass, a
running brook and trolley tracks in the landscape of those days. I only wished I had a camera then to capture
that moment in time that can now only be seen with my mind’s eye.
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| View of Boston from the top of the Fire Watch Tower, Milddlesex Fells Reservation |
Satisfied that the view from the tower was pretty close to
what was recollected from my boyhood, I decided to find the “Panther Cave”
which held a great deal of mystique now as it had back then. As a boy there were no signs that highlighted
the features of the Fells as there is now and I was glad someone had taken the
time to mark the trails. My memory was
not complete enough that I could locate this den on recollection alone. At first when I saw the pile of rock that was
labeled the “Panther Cave”, it did not appear familiar as far as how I
recollected it. In reality, it was an
outcropping of rock that with its arrangement created a void to create the
cave. It appeared much smaller to me
that day and the likelihood that cavemen may have occupied it in the past was
erased from the boyhood memory bank. The
sun was starting to set and I thought best to start back to the parking lot
before it got dark.
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| Panther Cave, Middlesex Fells Reservation |
As I made my way to exit the woods, I came across a less
traveled path but a path nevertheless which seemed to lead out of the wooded
Fells. As I walked along I spotted
something that appeared out of place within the woods. I walked from the path to a tree where a set
of frames containing water stained photo and type written page. It was a memorial left by the children of a
man who used to like to walk the woods as I had when I was a boy. He apparently had taken them with him on his
adventures and on one of those trips carved each child’s initial in a
tree. The tree is there with the
initials very visible but I wonder if now after another few years had passed if
the photo and typed text would be legible enough to see the love of a parent
from his children and know how he used to walk these very woods.
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| A memorial to a loved Father |
To me photography is the seizing of a moment in time and
preserving it as long as the media can survive the test of time and the
elements. I only wish I had a camera in
those earlier days, It will take another lifetime to retrace all those past
steps.
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| The initials of the children carved in the tree |
