Tho my footprint fad

my interaction with you will continue.

We moved to Headland when I was in the first grade. By the following summer, I could identify the footprints of many of our neighbors: muskrats, rabbits, pheasants, Opossums, deer, raccoons, and squirrels. They visited our pond and roamed the open fields and woods behind the barn. Though the four-legged neighbors left footprints, we didn’t see these nocturnal ones often. Within a mile of our home, I had five friends who shared their experiences with my sister and me until we settled in and were able to share our surroundings with them.

We lived at Underwood’s Corner at the bottom of Priest Hill road or Burch Hill road. The Underwoods used to own the place we now called Headland, and Herb Priest had Fruit Acres Apple farm on the south side of the hill. I never did see a Birch tree on that hill. Across the street was the Martin family’s Honey Pot Hill apple orchard and store. It is still there, still in the Martin family. Their house and barn were used by the Underground Railroad. One day we observed a crew of men surveying the four roads that intersected around a huge maple tree in front of our house. The town had decided to name streets, and we’re now living on Whitman Street. The men had a heck of a time choosing where to place the street signs. They decided to plant it by a brook that ran under the road onto our property, nowhere near the intersection. The tree in the intersection is gone but the stump remains.

The Pond

In the summer the pond invited us to dive for turtles, fish for bluegills, and gig for frog legs all the time being bombed by barn swallows from the air and bloodsuckers from the shoreline waters. By August the water’s tempered heat was too hot for the intended plunge of cooling off from the summer heat.

In the winter, it’s a hard surface of ice that provided hours of hockey and pleasure skating.

We were living in history. Our home, Headlands, was a homestead, modified and enlarged many times since the mid-1700. Room after room until a single roof covered it all. From the pond to fields and acres of woods, we had places to play and explore always within sight of the huge three-story barn that had stories of her own.

Stonewalls

New England stone walls. As the granite mountain tops were crushed by the Laurentide Ice Sheet that covered the region, chunks of rocks became shades of themselves. The Glacial Maximum Ice tossed and rolled, many boulders that became smooth and round by the relentless ice front that continued to cut across the landscape approximately 22,000 years ago. In its path, the glacier left a land filled with small, medium, and large rocks some loved by the farmers who arrived from Europe in the 1700s. Most were a curse, a challenge, and an obstacle to these men. Though many men tried, most were poor stonewall builders and soon a new trade evolved - stonewall makers.

Thigh-high rows of rocks of various shapes and sizes, held together with gravity, luck, and a little bit of lichen and spongy moss instead of mortar. The “Two-handed” stones majestically bordered fields and forests. They were light enough to be lifted with two hands but seldom one unless it was a wedge piece. Miles of these now line roads and property lines. Winter drives who leave the road soon find themselves hitting them just feet from the highway. The stone wall builder comes and reconstructs the unforgiving road barriers.

Cows often maneuvered over them, goats walked on them, sheep were corralled by them and so the population grew. Flocks of sheep dotted the countryside. Their wool was processed in the factories that provided work and wealth to the Americans. Textile manufacturing was a dominant industry in Massachusetts during the Industrial Revolution and helped promote the industrialization of the state. one of the founders of the wool mill industry was a wealthy merchant, Francis Cabot Lowell. (1775-1817) He was born in Newburyport and built a factory that mass-produced textiles for a home market -the Boston Manufacturing Company.

We had a flock of sheep that were experts in escaping their enclosures. Arriving home I would often hear from my mom, “the sheep are out, please corral them and get them back behind the fence.” I would chase them and call them with food as I might, they never came back. When my sister arrived home she would walk behind the barn and call them. She called them by name and they responded by trotting back to the gate and entering the enclosure.

Formal Education in a small town

Our first and second grades were in Pilot Grove school located halfway up Pilot Grove Hill. On top of that hill were two pine trees that were visible from Boston Harbor. The air quality made the vision lost by the early 1970s and time and age had fallen these beauties since then.

In school, my shorthand was so poor that even the author couldn’t read it. I learned to memorize but often failed at recalling what was required to excel in class. Despite my inept ability, eventually, I made it into Conrad Geller’s Creative Writing Class at Nashoba Regional High School. No, I didn’t do well as penmanship was required. He forgave spelling errors yet I struggled. I really enjoyed the challenging exercises.

The Typewriter

Though this lefthanded poor speller had learned to write in cursive, I found printing much easier as I could print out the letters as I found the sought-after word in the dictionary. My grandmother, Dandy, decided to give every one of her grandchildren, who headed off to college, a typewriter. As the oldest grandchild, I had the privilege of receiving the first one. It didn’t have a autocorrect feature and possessed a small font that contribute to my problems when the professor in college requested a ‘two-page’ report. If the Smith-Corona had a 12 point font and not 10, I could have completed the assignment easier. Dandy soon ran out of grandchildren typewriter money and not all of my cousins received the gift. The Smith-Corona did introduce me to the art of writing that I could read.

The Big Challenge

My chosen professions and occupations have been wonderful and very rewarding. On one occasion, I was in Montreal Canada presenting at a Funeral Director’s Continuing Education week-long Convention. Though intending to stay at the convention hotel, I was invited to stay in the home of a man I met briefly in Texas two years prior where I was giving a presentation. “Stay with Rose and me and we will show you the city.” invited Norm. I accepted the hospitality and eagerly looked forward to the visit. Wednesday night this Canadian Armed Forces veteran asked me about my Vietnam experience. That was quite an evening. Norn said to me about midnight, “Jack, you have a lot of baggage and for your health, should unload it.” Nice, I thought, as I was among thousand who carried these stories from our time in the South Vietnamese jungle. “How do you propose I unload it? I asked. Write! was the response. “Are you kidding me,” I chuckled not actually as a question? “I want you to start writing the stories you shared with us and I will be following your progress.

Five years later and hundreds of encouraging phone calls and emails I had produced, Selected Memories of Vietnam 1969-1970. It was published and is now available on amazon

I was a member of the Four Deuces Mortar Platoon, 11th LIB, Americal Division

My abilities honed by education and training

He dragged himself with massive upper body strength and a pair of crutches to the water’s edge. A 12-year-old boy clumsily lowered himself onto the white metal docks that the waterfront staff had erected before the beginning of the Boy Scout Summer Camp season. It was my first year as a Camp Resolute counselor teaching swimming. I walked over to him as he removed his leg braces. “Hi”, I said. “Are you here for the swim class?” Slyly he said, “I don’t know how to swim.” “Do you want to learn to swim,” I asked? “Yes, I would like to learn,” he challenged me.

We worked together all afternoon. He was back the next day and on Saturday, after completing the requirements, was awarded the Boy Scout’s Mile Swim honor and patch. I wanted to help others.

A practical process for hiring a limited-term anybody

Professionally I have been an educator, teacher, trainer, and mentor to others always helping them become as skilled or talented as they could see themselves. I now challenge myself to do that through the written word. I believe in Pygmalion and brought a sense of personal growth to each person I have interacted with in life.

JHead.Historic.Stories@gmail.com

About the author