Song: After the Goldrush
Album: After the Goldrush
Released: September, 1970
One thing I emphasized to Charlotte while in her teen years -and now
Peter - was to venture forth into the woods with friends. That’s where much of the magic is, I have told
them, and the freedom, and the wonder, and the joy, not to mention mind
expansion of the non-chemically-induced variety. I’d like to believe they both have taken this
to heart. Charlotte and a close friend
spent long summer days several years back exploring a small frog pond on the
mostly undeveloped west side of town; just the two of them knee deep in
mud. They got to observe bullfrog
survival techniques as the pond began drying up (as it does most years), but
mostly they just had a blast in an environment devoid of text chats and video
games. Over the past few years, Peter and
friends have hiked into a savannah-like meadow not far up the road from our
home. They call the area “Africa”, and Peter has opened up to me on occasion
about some of his adventures there; spooking out a baby deer, crossing a stream
on an overhanging tree branch, discovering clearings within deep pockets of
thicket.
Nancy and I connected the kids with the natural world regularly when
they were younger. Many a family trek,
be they hours a day or longer, were in the forest. And though I am sure Charlotte and Peter got
a lot out of these experiences, I knew that doing it with friends later in
their lives would be another thing entirely.
I knew this because the woods were where I spent a significant amount of
my time as a teenager. And I did this
with my closest friends, several of whom were a perfect fit for these
landscapes that were just out of reach of civilization.
The most frequently visited woodsy area of our youth was a region of
undeveloped land down the train tracks from my home on Park Road, Franklin,
MA. This region was our second home
growing up - a handful of square miles of lakes, trails, wetlands, streams,
rocky outcrops, pine-tree groves, meadows, and deep forests - and by our senior
year, we knew every nook and cranny of it.
Many a memory comes flooding back when I think about this open
space. There was the time I found myself
sinking into what I could only describe at the time as quicksand; close friend
Bruce pulling me out with a long stick after I’d sunk up to my waist. There was the grey fox Phil and I stumbled
upon. The fox was trapped – with a rocky
cliff behind him and our dogs (Nicky and Whiskers) and us in front - and could
only stand there as we marveled at his sleek silver coat. We finally moved on so the fox could scamper
off. That same cliff was where you could make your
way to the peak and be a hair breath away from the top of the trains that whizzed
by. My only concerns at those times were
the dogs wandering out onto the tracks.
When we heard the train coming, we’d call them close to us and even hold
them.
There were the fishing adventures to the 3 lakes in the region, each
with its own distinct habitat. The larger
second lake for example had giant-sized carp that you would never find in the
others. Several times, close friend Pete
and I beat the sunrise, making our way down the tracks in the early twilight
hours; rods, bait and tackle in hand. Bruce
was the real fisherman of the crew though, with an uncanny sixth sense on where
to go and what to use for lures and bait (often salmon eggs). When he was there, you were guaranteed to get
a gander at something interesting on the line at some point of the day, be it a
carp, bass, bullhead, perch or snapping turtle. And if Bruce’s older brother
was with us, we’d get a good education on bird identification too.
The winter was never lost on us down the tracks. There was hockey in the day, small bonfires
on the edge of the frozen first pond at night and just general exploration on
ice and snow. In the early spring we
took daring treks across the weakening ice, a loud crack often shaking us in
our bootstraps. The tracks were where I
broke my leg on an unfortunate hill-sliding incident and got carried a mile
home by Pete and Jeff. My dog arrived
home alone that evening, wet and out of sorts.
My Mom knew something was wrong since Nicky never left my side.
In our earlier years of exploration into this region, we would come at
it, not down the tracks, but from the “Mountain” (see the 9th in a
series of Stepping Stones “Gone but not Forgotten” from March 3, 2012). This was a tricky approach. First you had to deal with a large forested
wetland. It was an adventure getting
across it, and sometimes we didn’t bother to continue. We would get sidetracked at some rivulet
where we would build dams and divergences (years later when I read Stephen
King’s “It”, I could identify so well with the opening chapters where the lead
characters began their friendship doing the very same thing). More often than not though we would forge ahead,
setting up log bridges and hopping tufts of grass, which would lead to the
occasional hilarious moment when someone would lose their footing and plunge
into the murky mess. One situation had
me clinging desperately to a tree sapling as it bent me closer and closer to my
muddy doom. Once we got past the
wetland, we would have to deal with thorn bushes. Beyond that was a hill that had a wonderful
feel of isolation to it. Not many were
willing to go through what we would to get there, so we knew we were on uncharted
territory when we reached the scraggly large pitch pine tree at the
summit. From there we descended down the
other side and out through more thickets, before finally reaching the Southwest
edge of the first lake. Nearby that
access point was an open culvert that was risky to jump over. Only a few of us dared do this on a regular
basis.
In our upper-classman years of high school, nighttime was the right
time to head down the tracks. One of our
favorite hangouts was a place we called “Pine Tree Grove”, a stand of pitch
pine just beyond the view of the Thompson Press building. We were invisible from civilization here -
including the cops - and so a fire pit, beer and great conversation were the order
of business at this juncture in our lives.
Even though we were losing our youthful abandon by this time we were
still connected to the night air, the stars, and the memories around us. I now recall a comment made by a friend in
college. His roommate was from the same
town. I liked them both, but they were
clearly from different circles. I asked
him if they ever hung out together back in their hometown. His reply: “are you kidding…he hung out in
the woods. I was at the house
parties”. This was meant to be
condescending, and it was funny, but to me it opened a door with his roommate and
partially closed one with him. My
thought at the time was that he missed out.
I reflected on all of these memories this week as I listened to ‘After
the Goldrush’. The title song ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N88YgEKGMzI
) was the first Neil Young tune I really connected with. It was also the first time I realized rock
and roll had a green side to it. The
song is a dream sequence with 3 versus that appear to connect with past,
present, and future. The underlying
analogy is that of a gold rush (though a gold rush is never mentioned in the
song) and the strip-mining aftermath; a once pristine environment turned into a
barren wasteland. The lyric-induced
imagery is intense in this song (“lying in a burned out basement”, “look at
Mother Nature on the run in the 1970s”), which raised my awareness to man’s
responsibilities as stewards of the earth and helped pave my eventual
professional path.
-
Pete
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