I was raised in Newton, Massachusetts. I was watching the news yesterday and they had a clip from Newton. A flood of memories and thoughts came rushing back.
Newton has a unique character. There is a stone tower in Newton that was reportedly built by the vikings. The city is almost entirely enclosed by the Charles River. It is known as the Garden City because of all of the flowers and trees. Newton has a very ethnically diverse population.
There is a section of Newton, called the Lake, that is strongly Italian in nature. The crosswalks and the fire hydrants are all painted red and white and green in that section. It is the home of DePasquale sausages. DePasquale is a store front that has been making sausages for about a hundred years. You can also get a pepperoni and hot dog sub in the Lake.
Newton's claim to fame is that a certain cookie is named after Newton. Originally the cookie was made with strawberries and was known as Cambridge Strawberries. This didn't work out very well so the formila and location was changed and the cookie became known as Fig Newtons. The Stanley Steamer factory is still standing in Newton.
Newton has a large population of Jewish people. That explains Newton's excellent schools and libraries and police department and parks. Jewish people are willing to tax themselves for things that are important but not for silly things.
I left Newton when I was about nineteen. I worked all over the country but kept coming back to Newton. I don't know if it was Newton that I missed or Massachusetts.
For a while, after our first child was born, we lived in Amesbury. We moved there because the rent was much cheaper than where we lived. I worked in Boston at the time and often worked twelve hours a day. The commute was about forty-five miles each way and there was no public transpotation that accomodated my schedule.
We moved back to Newton because the commute was too much. In Newton I could catch the Mass Pike bus and be at work in fifteen minutes. We lived in an apartment where the neighbor downstairs made wine in the cellar and shoes on the back porch.
We moved to Plymouth because I thought that that was the only place that we could afford a house. In the beginning in Plymouth, the commute was forty-five minutes each way but it was on public transportation and therefore included one and a half hours of naps each day. The transportation was on a bus that followed route three and the dreaded Southeast expessway. It is hardly an expressway. It should be called the Escargot Expressway.
Over the years, as the traffic grew, the commute became one and a half hours each way. The strain was extremely debilitating. I never seemed to see my home and family in the daylight. The taxes began to rise in an almost exponential fashion as the town grew. The town installed teak benches at the new library but did not provide funds for more books. They did install air conditioned offices in it for the town officials to have their meetings. Silly seemed to be on the town agenda almost constantly as the nuclear reactor paid almost half of the town's taxes. That largess was soon exhausted.
My thoughts return to Newton again. Newton with its association with Horace Mann and John Eliot and the Stanley twins. Newton with its fifteen playgrounds and no Walmart. Newton, a crucial stop on the pre Civil War undergroud railroad. It seems so cruel that we can never go home again. Newton where the bones of my ancestors are buried. Newton, where there is a burial plot reserved for me and one for my brother, We will rest beside my Mother and My Father, about one hundred yards from my Grandmother and Grandfather, Hulda and Olav.
Newton, I do give a fig about you! I remember the short commute and how it enabled me to see the light.
