If only I could take back the mouse clicks. The ones that showed how much had changed in the once out-of-way neighborhood in Nashua, New Hampshire, home of my early childhood. I haven’t been back since moving to Florida in 1959. It was spring. I was in the third grade. Then this week while researching the maternal branch of my family tree, I found a notice in the Nashua Telegraph about my parents buying our house in 1955. I didn’t remember the street name, Intervale, but knowing it now meant I could visit virtually via Google Maps and Street View. That thought triggered a young boy’s memories. The gray Cape Cod-style home alone on a large tract. The big hill across the wide street, all trees except the sled and flying-saucer trails that my brothers and I carved. The steep, wooded slope that dropped off behind our house to a small tributary of the Nashua River where we ice-skated in perfect desolation. The path that took over where Intervale ended and meandered up another hill toward mystery.
The first Google map showed me things I didn’t know. A long U-bend in the river cradled the neighborhood, more proximity to more water than I had realized. Some land along the river and behind our house has been a sprawling park since 1969. Oddest of all are the names of the four streets nearest Intervale, streets I prowled on bike and foot with brothers and friends: Tampa, Daytona Beach, Miami, and Orlando, the area we moved to and where I lived and worked most of my life. No doubt the coincidence struck my parents but was lost on a third-grader who never wanted to leave.
A click to the satellite map showed new streets and a claustrophobia of new houses blanketing our sledding hill. Zooming in on Street View, I “strolled” the neighborhood. Everything I recalled had shrunk: Intervale was narrower, the hills shorter, and houses smaller—except ours. Additions had made it nearly unrecognizable. There was no mistaking the path near where our lot and the street ended. One day I followed the path until it petered out. I kept climbing a winding route up the hill through autumn leaves, a long journey. I heard water. It was a small creek coursing toward the river. The water was milky green or blue, but not a hue one associates with water. And it smelled bad. Later my parents told me the color came from the tannery and explained what took place there. If they were concerned it didn’t register.
A Google search found a slew of news about the Mohawk Tannery, which operated for sixty years until 1984. The Centers for Disease Control has identified how many people, including children, live within a mile of the site. This includes anyone living in our old house, which isn’t the long journey from the tannery that I remember—only the length of two football fields as the crow flies. Health risks from a witch’s brew of dioxins and other toxic chemicals left behind in the ground and the water are a significant concern. The chemicals stripped flesh from animal hides for all those years. Now they’ve stripped the patina from my memories. What else have they done?
All I can say is WOW! I feel that the older (and more in-depth my feelings seem to become), the past is much more important to how and why I became me. I hope that makes some sort of sense because the more I think about my personal feelings, etc., the harder those feelings are to put into words. That is why I love reading your blogs, Mike. You are able to express some of those things that I also feel. Is it because we are of the same generation? Is it because those things matter more now? Did our parents feel that way as they matured? Keep expressing those thoughts and feelings because you indeed have a way of expressing in words the feelings I have about my own life. Sincerely, your childhood friend and greatest fan!
Thanks for the kind words, Jo-Ann. They mean a lot to me. I think some of our shared sentiments have to do with our shared age and connection. We went to school together for most of our childhoods. The age part includes the reality that we have fewer years left than we've lived, so we tend to spend more time looking back. We're more introspective and live less in the moment than when younger. But I also think we had rich childhoods — not trouble free, mind you — that looking back seem charmed: the place, the era. Of course we forget bad stuff, making the good loom all the more brightly. It's a cliche, but those years were simpler and more innocent than those that kids live in today. When my brothers and I talk about our childhoods, our kids are awestruck. Oh what we would do that relive three days: one at Maitland Hill, one at Maitland Junior High, and one at Winter Park High.