This weekend I put Maeve into my Subaru and drove down to one of our favorite spots: Dunn's Pond.
When I was a child, my brothers and I would hike the mile or so to the pond, to spend the day fishing, catching frogs, spotting turtles. Sometimes we would try to "cook" the fish we'd snagged--usually they fell into the campfire or were so blackened they could filter water. (Years before "Cajun" cooking meant black food...)
While these meals were not especially delightful, they symbolized, for us, a kind of independence one found in novels. We were Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. We were the Pirate children from "Peter Pan". We had our own side of the mountain. We could surely exist without parents--if need be. Of course, when some accident occurred ( Kev lighting the pine trees on fire by accident; Bud snagging his thumb with a fishook; all of us slicing ourselves with a slippery pocketknife, while trying to gut fish or cut a tangled line or "whittle something"...)then heading home seemed far more reasonable than staying in the woods--however good the fishing might have been.
Really early days at Dunn's consisted of Dad or Mom or Aunties and Uncles packing us all into a station wagon and driving over to the playground swings and slides at the park's entrance. In summer, we'd fight the mosquitoes and yellow jackets for our hotdogs and orange Crush. We were never allowed to swim in the rusty water of the pond, but we could explore the edges. Tadpoles, water skaters, dragonflies, tiny darting lines of baby fish--even the bubbles of a snapping turtle under the pond lillies--these were the joys of the wild waters at Dunn's.
When I came back to Gardner,the shock of all the furniture factory closures were only outweighed by the loss of the "wild places" I had haunted. Crystal Lake field, the scene of tobbogan rides and early meditation attempts, as well as the setting for countless short stories, has been replaced by a state skating rink. All the "wild" lakes are now "posted", with hours and fences and gates. You cannot even touch a fishing pole without a valid license--let alone bait a hook or reel in a line.
As for Dunn's...well...this winter, Maeve and I discovered that there is now a paved parking lot. Gates. A boat house. And shock of shocks, a place to swim!
"They drained it and pulled out all the junk...it's clean...they even have a little beach..." my family informed me.
I thought of the snapping turtles; the old frogs; the horn pout and pickerel--where did they go during this "draining of Dunn's"? I didn't ask...
In the fall and winter, there had been no guards to lock the gates and no one to man the boathouse. If you wanted to slip into the parking lot and take the dog out on one of the forested trails, you would be unmolested. Though it was a far cry from the adventure in the briars of my youth, the new nature trail, with the doggie poo bag stations and markers for the blind, were easier to follow. For a while, I had visions of summer mornings. The mist rising off the face of the water. Me slipping my kayak, silently, into the shimmery depths...a silent paddle before anyone started tossing styrofoam noodles and floaties at the kiddie end of the swimming area...
So, as Maeve and I turned into the usually unmanned gate, imagine our surprise at four state Conservation Police populating the booth!
"Five dollars, please," one smiling tanned dude in green waved me down.
"Five!!!" I was aghast. "I don't want to swim or picnic, even. I just want to walk the dog..." I held the clean doggie doo bag up so he could see I was a respectable citizen. Maeve wagged her tail, unconvincingly.
"Sorry. It's to keep the park maintained...five dollars in the lot...no matter what..." he dropped his smile.
I saw people begin to pull in, behind me.
"Can I make a u-turn and get out, here?" I asked, my face beginning to burn.
"Alright...go slow..." the guy waved me out of the line and back to the main drag.
Maeve whined, disappointed. (This was "our place", "our woods"; what had changed???)
I ended up walking her by the old high school. Far less fun for us both. No mist. No lake waters. No jumping fish or passing ducks. Just sprinklers and people picking up their Sunday papers off their lawns...(Maybe it wasn't even the Sunday paper...) I cannot afford five dollars to park just to walk the dog.
If I want to drive out of town, I can find other "woods"--but not the places of my childhood. There is talk that these "other walks" will also begin to put up gates, chains, booths for collections of fees. All in the name of "maintaining the woods". All in the name of collecting money for the state...All in the name of what? Really?
Seems like the woods have done just fine on their own.
Not so, the state, even as it adds more fines, more rules, more money to its coffers.
(The churches, and synagogues and public libraries--all spaces of quiet contemplation, of meditation and prayer, they, too, have locks on doors, even in daylight. Truncated hours. Parking regulations.)It's Disneyland without the glitz--where even the water is too expensive to drink.
(No wonder bags of pine needles and spray-scent sell in gift stores...)
When will the poor take back the forests?
When I was a child, my brothers and I would hike the mile or so to the pond, to spend the day fishing, catching frogs, spotting turtles. Sometimes we would try to "cook" the fish we'd snagged--usually they fell into the campfire or were so blackened they could filter water. (Years before "Cajun" cooking meant black food...)
While these meals were not especially delightful, they symbolized, for us, a kind of independence one found in novels. We were Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. We were the Pirate children from "Peter Pan". We had our own side of the mountain. We could surely exist without parents--if need be. Of course, when some accident occurred ( Kev lighting the pine trees on fire by accident; Bud snagging his thumb with a fishook; all of us slicing ourselves with a slippery pocketknife, while trying to gut fish or cut a tangled line or "whittle something"...)then heading home seemed far more reasonable than staying in the woods--however good the fishing might have been.
Really early days at Dunn's consisted of Dad or Mom or Aunties and Uncles packing us all into a station wagon and driving over to the playground swings and slides at the park's entrance. In summer, we'd fight the mosquitoes and yellow jackets for our hotdogs and orange Crush. We were never allowed to swim in the rusty water of the pond, but we could explore the edges. Tadpoles, water skaters, dragonflies, tiny darting lines of baby fish--even the bubbles of a snapping turtle under the pond lillies--these were the joys of the wild waters at Dunn's.
When I came back to Gardner,the shock of all the furniture factory closures were only outweighed by the loss of the "wild places" I had haunted. Crystal Lake field, the scene of tobbogan rides and early meditation attempts, as well as the setting for countless short stories, has been replaced by a state skating rink. All the "wild" lakes are now "posted", with hours and fences and gates. You cannot even touch a fishing pole without a valid license--let alone bait a hook or reel in a line.
As for Dunn's...well...this winter, Maeve and I discovered that there is now a paved parking lot. Gates. A boat house. And shock of shocks, a place to swim!
"They drained it and pulled out all the junk...it's clean...they even have a little beach..." my family informed me.
I thought of the snapping turtles; the old frogs; the horn pout and pickerel--where did they go during this "draining of Dunn's"? I didn't ask...
In the fall and winter, there had been no guards to lock the gates and no one to man the boathouse. If you wanted to slip into the parking lot and take the dog out on one of the forested trails, you would be unmolested. Though it was a far cry from the adventure in the briars of my youth, the new nature trail, with the doggie poo bag stations and markers for the blind, were easier to follow. For a while, I had visions of summer mornings. The mist rising off the face of the water. Me slipping my kayak, silently, into the shimmery depths...a silent paddle before anyone started tossing styrofoam noodles and floaties at the kiddie end of the swimming area...
So, as Maeve and I turned into the usually unmanned gate, imagine our surprise at four state Conservation Police populating the booth!
"Five dollars, please," one smiling tanned dude in green waved me down.
"Five!!!" I was aghast. "I don't want to swim or picnic, even. I just want to walk the dog..." I held the clean doggie doo bag up so he could see I was a respectable citizen. Maeve wagged her tail, unconvincingly.
"Sorry. It's to keep the park maintained...five dollars in the lot...no matter what..." he dropped his smile.
I saw people begin to pull in, behind me.
"Can I make a u-turn and get out, here?" I asked, my face beginning to burn.
"Alright...go slow..." the guy waved me out of the line and back to the main drag.
Maeve whined, disappointed. (This was "our place", "our woods"; what had changed???)
I ended up walking her by the old high school. Far less fun for us both. No mist. No lake waters. No jumping fish or passing ducks. Just sprinklers and people picking up their Sunday papers off their lawns...(Maybe it wasn't even the Sunday paper...) I cannot afford five dollars to park just to walk the dog.
If I want to drive out of town, I can find other "woods"--but not the places of my childhood. There is talk that these "other walks" will also begin to put up gates, chains, booths for collections of fees. All in the name of "maintaining the woods". All in the name of collecting money for the state...All in the name of what? Really?
Seems like the woods have done just fine on their own.
Not so, the state, even as it adds more fines, more rules, more money to its coffers.
(The churches, and synagogues and public libraries--all spaces of quiet contemplation, of meditation and prayer, they, too, have locks on doors, even in daylight. Truncated hours. Parking regulations.)It's Disneyland without the glitz--where even the water is too expensive to drink.
(No wonder bags of pine needles and spray-scent sell in gift stores...)
When will the poor take back the forests?
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