Re-Discovery Tour – Days 4-6

I was toodling up the I-93 to New Hampshire, heading for the gorgeous AirBnB estate, when I suddenly thought…. I need a Dunkin Donut. (No product placement was earned for the writing of this post). Thursday morning, I left my host Elliott in Somerville, and rather than heading off to drive to Cape Cod as Jimmie and I had done so many times in years past, I started up the road toward St. Paul’s. In past Cape adventures, we would have flown in from LA, and stopped at Somerville to visit with Jimmie’s nephew, Liam and his partner, Elliott. So much has happened since our last trip through Somerville, including both timely and untimely passings by Jimmie and Liam as well as Max, Liam and Elliott’s husky.

In the old days, we’d have had a lovely dinner with Elliott and Liam, followed by a sound snooze in their cozy guest room, and we’d have risen early to put our bags back in the car and driven off to Dunkin’ Donuts to stock up with Jimmie’s favorite chocolate glazed donut as we headed off toward Chatham to visit Jimmie’s sister, Kate.

This visit was different. Just me and Elliott, but in spite of our lack of Nolans, Elliott and I had a lovely dinner at a Peruvian ceviche restaurant in Union Square a good brisk 25 minute walk from his home in Somerville. Celeste. I welcomed the walk, as I hadn’t moved much in the previous three days and was feeling a bit dyspeptic from the late night bar food with David.

Liam and Elliott’s two new husky mixes were happy to see me, Obi is a lover, and Yoshi was a little more distant, but not unfriendly.

Lots of love was had. After another cozy overnight in the guest room, we had a great walk along the bike path and around Somerville, followed by a smoked salmon tartine breakfast at Assembly Row in Somerville, a new commercial and residential district within a quick drive of Elliott’s. It was a great action-packed overnight. During my visit, Elliott shared with me the work of Lynda Barry, and her amazing Syllabus: Notes from an accidental Professor. Food for thought and exercises for creativity in hand, back to my donut craving. Barreling up I-93, I decided I would take a short cut to SPS so I could walk on campus before the throngs gathered over the weekend for the Alumni events. I pulled off the highway at the first Dunkin’ Donuts I found and got a mocha latte and a chocolate glazed donut. Coffee was good – donut wouldn’t have satisfied Jimmie, I think. But it fortified me on my way to the AirBnB.

I reprogrammed my GPS to take me to St. Paul’s for a walk through of the campus. I quite rightly surmised that it would be quiet, and parked by the admissions office, walking onto the campus behind the schoolhouse.

The campus was resplendent, the brick walkways wending across the familiar grassy greenswards, chapel in the distance. My sixty-year-old feet felt solid on the path, as I remembered how at fourteen, I’d challenge myself by leaving the library at 10, as the first toll of the chapel’s bell struck, and running the quarter mile from the library up the road past the rectory to Middle, now off to my right, arriving at the door by the final stroke of the hour. Were we ever that young? It seems ridiculous in the mid afternoon chill with sprinkles threatening.

I kept on past the chapel, and down the trail, Turkey Pond on the right, the Rink building. Snapping pictures furiously.

After a brief jaunt to the former post office/now bookstore to buy a composition book I headed back to my car and was on the road to Pittsfield.

Forever a stage manager, I was the first to arrive at the house. What a place. My friends Michael and June had done a magnificent job of picking this place for a group of 8 of us to stay.

I enjoyed some time by myself in the quietude of the large barn beamed living room, anticipating the oncoming rush of old friends. Michael and June were the first to arrive, with a car full of food, fresh from the Nashua Costco. Soon others were arriving, and before long, June was carmelizing pecans, I was chopping salad, all in companionable conversation about our lives now and then, time ricocheting like the hot oil in the skillet. An hour later, we sat at the large round mahogany table in the former parlor, dining on a dinner of roast salmon, rice and broccoli and salad. Quarry and Pam had joined our group, bringing wine and other spirits. We talked long into the evening, about “what ever happened to….” and politics, reveling briefly in that day’s news of federal charges brought against Trump before moving on to AI, a review of the next day’s festivities.

It was all that I had hoped for or as Michael had said earlier, The Big Chill without the dead body. Lovely to be reconnecting with old friends over good food in a beautiful New Hampshire aerie.

Friday’s events were staggering – we had a tour of the Canterbury Shaker Settlement, only a few miles from our rental, arranged by Jon.

I won’t try to consolidate the fascinating history we learned from our knowledgeable tour guide, Kyle but there were some resonant things I heard: by practicing celibacy, the group ensured their ultimate demise. They were industrious, inventive in their practices, embracing more modern technologies that would better their community. This community, one of 19 formed between 1774 and 1992 was one of the longest lasting, the last member dying in 1992, two hundred years since the formation. The campus is vast, with the dwelling house, where we gathered having 56 separate rooms. After Canterbury, our next stop was Cold Garden Distillery, where we learned about the process of making bourbon from the owner, Greg Meeh. My friends enjoyed sampling the bourbon, and I enjoyed their sampling the bourbon.

Back to the Shaker Settlement for a picnic lunch outside before driving to campus for our 2:00 Humanities classes. I spent an interesting 45 with Chris Carter, talking about Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience, Abraham Lincoln’s Lyceum address from 1838, and Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. The current SPS students are fortunate to have such an insightful teacher.

After class, we checked in at the chapel, back to Pittsfield, then back to campus for an informal colloquy in the squash court common area about what we all learned from SPS and each other. It was frank, and healing, as well as re-bonding. Being with some of our formmates with whom we’d all become ethical thinkers was powerful. Special thanks to Nora for organizing this conversation.

Dinner under the big top tent perched on the grass by Turkey Pond was another chance to check in with form mates. The cold chill of the evening made us retire back to Pittsfield by 10:15. Ready for another day Saturday I’m so glad I came.