Something Happened...

Something happened when I was five years old. We were living in Wayland, Massachusetts at the time. The time was about 1960, and that area was pretty close to rural. At least what seem rural to me now: no sidewalks or gutters, lots of open space with trees, and few houses. Stores were far away, at least it seemed that way to a five-year-old, and fences, when they existed at all, were purely decorative.

Those were the days when us kids were free to wander pretty much wherever we liked and mom hollered out the back door at dinner time. As the youngest of four, I usually had someone around, but I don't remember hanging out with my brothers much. I did have a best friend next door, Jeffery, and other kids in houses up the road that I played with.

We went back there some years ago, and it's much more suburban than it was. No real surprise there. It just seems so much more crowded with houses jammed into every free space, and eight foot fences replacing the split-rail ones I remember. It seems like all the houses have been added onto, enlarged, enhanced. The More bug nibbling away at open space that remains. I noticed that he breezeway where we played hockey on the game set that my dad had salvaged from the dump is now a Solar room complete with dining table. West coast Big infecting east coast modesty.

I those days, us kids found it just as easy to walk through backyards as down the street. And that seems my main memories, rarely seeing the front doors and any of my friends houses. I guess we were like water, flowing to our destinations by the path of least resistance, or the path more fun, or whatever struck our fancy at the time.

Jeffery was younger than me. I think he had an older brother, but I'm not clear about that. There were some girls up the way as well. There was one about my age, and I've seen pictures and have a few memories of a "gang," but I don't know more than that. We moved to California the year I turned six. I was born late in the year and was small for my age, so I had just finished kindergarten. (I don't think "preschool" existed yet.)

Something happened that last year in Massachusetts that I still don't remember. But what I do remember has begun to puzzle me, and I'm beginning to wonder how many of those memories are not what they seem. Do I dig or just let them be?