On my return to Concord today, I took a different route in. Yes, OK, it was accidental. But at least I was on the way to Concord. I came across a large parking lot with a number of cars and a sign about the Minutemen Memorial. I swung in, pretty convinced I could get a pic and dash on to Walden Pond before it was closed, since they allow no more than 1000 people in at time. But there was no statue. There were some displays around the room, but the real jewel was the multimedia presentation of the events of April 19, 1775. It broke my stride in my timeline, but it was worth it. Before I even left the building, I was thinking of how I could use the information here to help prep my students for the Declaration of Independence. Another piece of that puzzle fell into place a bit later.
Racing off to Walden, knowing I was pressing my luck to get there after 10 and get in, I thought of the things I had left. When I drove by and saw the sign "Park Closed until 3 p.m.," I knew my plan. Setting off for Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, I went in search of Author's Ridge. "Ridge" indeed! A steep paved path with handrails led straight up a sharp incline that was evidently too much for one mother; there was a stroller sitting at the foot of the slope unattended. Straight up, corner to the right, across the edge of the ridge, corner left and straight ahead is Thoreau's grave, as well as all of his siblings, none of whom married. Just across and up the path a few steps was the humble grave of Hawthorne, his simple headstone conveying nothing but his last name. It was here that I noticed the oily-sweet smell of pine needles; they were everywhere on the floor of the cemetery, having rained down from the enormous trees and been crushed by visitors. They were comforting to smell. There were fresh breezes under those trees on the crest of that great hill, so I marched onward to find Louisa May Alcott just ahead on the right, another burial with family. Finally, the Emerson family was last, a few dozen steps beyond the others. After paying my respects, I sat down on some steps to enjoy the breezes and think, not for the first time, about all that greatness resting in one narrow ridge in Eastern Massachusetts. The odds of that many great writers and authors in one town now are not safe bets!
I went off in search of the Old Manse, which was built by Emerson's grandfather, and from where he and the family watched the battle at the North Bridge in 1775. When I realized the north bridge was behind the house, and that THAT was where the minutemen statue was, I trotted off in that direction. ( They have these "Minutemen" National Parks buildings set up in a number of locations. It seemed like the old bait-and-switch to me!) Here I experienced what may be my best video to date: a reenactment of a town hall meeting to decide on the important issue of tea taxes, among other things, using three park rangers plus discussion from the audience. A little difficult to film with a little boy running between me and my subjects, but hopefully useful when it's time to study the Declaration. It was a lively discussion since a large group of students from Boston College was in the audience. I wandered this area for more than an hour and a half, and it just never seemed I could catch it all. It was an eerie feeling standing on that bridge and knowing that everything I am, have, know, or will be is because of the bloodshed that took place there. My instinct was to drop to my knees, but that might have alarmed people, and it was a very busy place. I said my prayers quietly at the apex of the bridge and trekked up to the Old Manse.
The Old Manse had a patchwork past of Reverends living there, family members staying there, roomers to help when times were tough, renters (the Hawthornes) when times got even tougher. After William Emerson came to Concord to be the new pastor, he built the house. But he died when his son was only eight, so his resourceful wife took in the new pastor as a boarder, and a couple of years later they were married. So the man Emerson knew as his grandfather, Ezra Ripley, was really his step-grandfather. This made no difference to either of them. When Emerson needed a place to go after returning home from traveling in Europe to escape despair over the death of his young wife, it was to the Old Manse that he came home, and where he wrote his first great work, "Nature." After he left, the Hawthornes rented it as their first home, moving in the day after their marriage. He called their time there a "three-year honeymoon." They were a bit sappy; this is the home where Sophia used her diamond to carve inscriptions in the windows, a practice Hawthorne joined in with as they mutually adored one another. But the most impressive stories I heard about the Manse were about Emerson's aunt, a woman who was named Phoebe, I believe, who was left with 8 children when her husband died, started a home for "rusticating" boys (reforming them) in the attic, housing up to 14 at a time, teaching them all, teaching herself 7 languages, higher math, botany, and everything else you can imagine. Thoreau credited her for all his knowledge of botany, and the president of Harvard said she could have taken over as the dean of any department of the college. One story from the family recalled her sitting at her desk in the schoolroom/parlor, using vegetables to teach the children botany, shelling peas for dinner, and rocking a cradle with a grandchild in it, all at once. I thought such superwomen only existed in movies, and in my mother.
By the time I finished there, the 3 p.m. re-opening of Walden was long past. It was nearly 5, but I drove by the park anyway. No dice. So I have a new plan. I only have that and one other site to cover: the Adams Historical Park, for Abigail Adams. I HAVE to go through Boston on the T to get there. I had already decided to treat myself to a whale watching trip tomorrow afternoon from the New England Aquarium, so I'll try to get to the Adams site early enough in the morning to take a tour then. (They are very popular and fill up fast, even more so after the success of the HBO miniseries John Adams. ) Then Monday I can trot out to Walden when everyone has left the water and gone back to work, go Fed-Ex all my collected items home, and pack it up to head for home myself on Tuesday. I'm tired and ready to be home, and yet, I know this kind of adventure doesn't come often in life. Just a little, I want it to linger.
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