Deep Travel: In Thoreau's Wake on the Concord and Merrimack

Father of the Man

{ 5 6 } Wind whipped the river to whitecaps. Water slapped against the boat. The distant Nashua Road Bridge was a mere filament, a thin tightrope stretched from shore to shore gaining texture and substance with each paddle stroke. Soon we were alongside a cluster of small houses as colorful as mushrooms and, after traveling miles along swampy banks without human habitation, just as surprising, popping up on their neatly trimmed lawns stretched to the river. Beyond the houses was a marina with large, bulky buildings and docks. A broad macadam ramp reached like a dark tongue into the river . The Riverview Restaurant, a white shoebox of a structure, squatted just before the bridge. Only its parking lot abutting the water seemed to take advantage of the view. Just below the grills and headlights of a parked Mercedes and two Fords, a couple of boys Josh’s age fished with worms out of a foam cup on the muddy shore. A great blue heron wading near the opposite bank seemed indifferent to our concerns and unperturbed by our presence. The Depression-era concrete bridge had a handsome balustrade heavily spalled from decades of salt and winter freezing. Though to traffic above, the bridge formed a connection, for us it was a portal leading to a low marshy area that soon gave way to more small houses on our left. The cluster of cottages had all the markings of an old-time A physician in France, recommends as a preventative to cramps the placing of a bar of iron about an inch square, under the mattress upon which you sleep, crosswise of the bed, and as high up as the calves of the leg. Boston Courier, September 5, 1839 Cross into Cambodia Manchester Union Leader, September 5, 1969 Lowell parking clerk charged with embezzling $40G Lowell Sun, September 5, 2003 Father of the Man f a t h e r o f t h e m a n 5 7 summer refuge for middle-class city folks that had gradually become a year-round neighborhood. Most of these humble structures looked battered by time, weather, and busy lives. Some were daringly close to the river on flood-prone ground and surrounded by bright green grass. Canada geese congregated on one of these close-cropped expanses, and another hosted a henhouse with a fenced run from which a rooster crowed repeatedly though the sun had passed the meridian. A dog barked a few streets back from the river. Many homes had odd-angled additions in various styles and contrasting materials, indicating growing families and changing tastes over generations. Buildings with peeling paint and leaning sheds were cheek-by-jowl with those so carefully maintained they appeared newly built. Yards were often strewn with old toys and garden tools. There were small stacks of lumber and clusters of plumbing fixtures. These were well-lived-in places teeming with children and people who liked to tinker with their homes and gardens. Pontoon boats were tethered to warped and broken docks. Labeled “Rio Vista” on the map, the neighborhood clearly offered the river view promised by its Spanish moniker. I searched vainly for a spot to land so Josh and I could stretch our legs, but it was impossible to disembark without, essentially, stepping onto someone’s front lawn. The river itself seemed like an extension of the yards, and even from the canoe I felt guiltily like a trespasser. Nevertheless, the temptation to get out was hard to resist. For some unaccountable reason I was drawn here with the powerful, dreamy magnetism of déjà vu. This unassuming hodgepodge of a shoreline community had an indescribable and irresistible charm. I’d be back. Not until Josh and I were long off the water did I realize that my fascination was steeped in nostalgia for a similar place where I once lived. In early adulthood, I had spent a few years on a dirt road in a twenty-by-twenty-eight-foot cottage about six paces from a large lake at the edge of suburbia. It was an insular and eccentric neighborhood of independent characters that included stiff-lipped Yankees, refugees from the sixties counterculture, and young families. Although sometimes it seemed as if neighbors spoke different languages, the 5 8 t r i b u t a r y lake was a centripetal force pulling us together. Its moods were our moods. The...