The Woods Are Lovely, Dark and Deep

This is how the woods should look--human size and friendly and primarily deciduous. I grew up with these woods and am, after all these years, still uneasy with towering redwoods and the vegetation of a drier climate.

We went for a nice long walk on a trail at the Quabbin reservoir, a massive public works project that flooded four towns in western Massachusetts in 1938. I have old photos of my parents visiting the site when the dam was being constructed to contain the Swift River. The trail we walked today went to the abandoned village of Dana, where there is a monument to "those who sacrificed their homes and way of life." It was clear there had been a town square, church, school and many homes; stone foundations are visible in the undergrowth and interpretive signs mark the sites. It appears that this town wasn't actually flooded, but the land was taken as part of a secure perimeter for the water supply. There is a family story that Dana was the hot spot on Friday nights because they had a roller skating rink. That would have been in the 1930s.

The afternoon was spent at a cousin's fiftieth anniversary party. There were dozens of relatives there that I haven't seen in decades, and their children, and their children's children. People of my generation have grown to look like the aunts and uncles who have passed away, and family features are sprinkled over a roomful of faces. I am the old cousin who can identify the even older people in the brown wrinkled photographs. I am spinning from trying to keep it all straight.