(Personal reflections inspired by Beatles songs)
Song: “Strawberry Fields Forever”
Album: Released as a single
Release Date: February 1967
Much of this week’s entry is scavenged from an entry in my Stepping Stones series from 8 years ago. I could not resist replicating here (with a handful of modifications both to add clairvoyance as well as to fit this entry’s narrative) because as be the case with John Lennon, I too have a childhood memory of a dreamy place where only kids seemed to be able to find. John Lennon’s was Strawberry Fields. Mine was “The Mountain” near the home of my upbringing in Franklin, Massachusetts.
And so, without further ado….
I can still conjure up an image of the place as if I were there just yesterday. When you spend hundreds of hours at a naturally impressive and seemingly clandestine location, as a crew of us did over 5 or so years in the mid-70s, it’s not too difficult to get instant recall. Such was the case with “The Mountain” of my youth; a mere fifteen minute walk from home, yet for all intents and purposes, a world away. It’s been gone for decades now. I’ll talk about how that all came about in short order, including the period of time when we knew its days were numbered.
But first, please allow me to describe this wonderland of my youth for both nostalgic and preservation purposes.
The approach was from the west along an old logging road, a handful of downed trees and large well-placed boulders impeding motorized progress and revealing this passage as having seen more ‘useful’ days. Looming up ahead was our destination, The Mountain (see the rough sketch below for reference); a sizable expanse of rocky outcrop with a number of intriguing features, most of them tucked in and around what I will refer to here as the Inner Bowl. With the Inner Bowl at its core, one could think of The Mountain as loosely similar in shape to Boston’s Hatch Shell. The inside of this bowl was where we would spend most of our time.
The far side of the Inner Bowl was partly visible at several vantage points along the logging road. As you got closer though, you lost view of it, as the road angled slightly to the right backside of the bowl. Here a trail-head began its ascent just on the outside rim of the bowl. This was a steep, narrow, scraggly path consisting of both stretches of loose stone and smooth, solid rock. You had to be careful hiking up it on wet and icy days, although there were two small trees for support at several critical junctures (one of which broke off at its roots after years of overuse).
Most of this entry trail was concealed from the Inner Bowl, but about half way up it, you could cut off to the left around a knob and sneak your way inside the bowl via a protuberance followed by a long thin ridge line. Not everyone dared this route, but good friend Bruce would traverse it as if he were strolling through the park. More often however we would all stick to the main trail all the way to the top.
Ah, the top of The Mountain, which I will affectionately call here The Summit. Now, I’ve hiked up many a geologically-designated mountain in my day and in the process gained a feel for what to expect when emerging onto higher ground: That transition from a sheltered canopy to an exposed one. Amazingly, this relatively low-lying crest had the feel of one of those true summits; the pitch pines and scrub oaks were scraggly and stunted, with a windblown look to them. Tucked inside this grove of trees were blueberry bushes and a small clearing with an old abandoned rock fire pit in the middle (which we would use in the latter years of our journeys there).
On the far side of this clearing was a final vertical heave of outcrop jutting just high enough to declare itself The Pinnacle (although no official benchmark by the USGS to distinguish it as such). Here, along with a few other locations in the general area of The Summit, were far ranging views in most directions. Looking back, I believe we were instinctively correct in dubbing this grand place “The Mountain” (despite good friend John’s attempts to keep our grasp on reality in check by regularly reminding us it was just a hill).
The trail continued past The Summit, and as you followed it a tad further, it looped back to the upper ridge of the Inner Bowl, the heart of The Mountain. There was not much space between the tree/shrub line and the cliff edge, but there were a few ledges to step out onto. One of these overhanging ledges hovered over a mid-upper level ridge below it, which itself was above the long thin ridge line mentioned earlier. This mid-upper level ridge was where I would spend countless hours with good friend Phil during our middle-school years, the two of us chipping ceaselessly away at the granite with any number of tools from crowbar to hammer. In the process, we grooved out a wider and wider platform for us to hang out on while also making a cave beneath the overhang above us.
Several more ridges scattered about the bowl at various levels would be occupied by my brothers Fred and Joe, as well as friends Bruce and Jeff (aka “the Piz” as in Pizarro), and occasionally other friends; they themselves also chipping away with an assortment of tools. Together, I suppose we were unknowingly creating our own version of Mount Rushmore, or at the very least we were excavating; exposing rock (and fossils?... quite often we were convinced) that had not seen the light of day since at least just before the last ice age.
Much of the Inner Bowl was littered with rubble, including the bottom, where one very large boulder stood out. We would use that boulder to prop targets on top of, picking them off with rocks thrown from the top rim (these targets included glass bottles which we would collect at a reliable party location for driving-age teens on the way). Bruce was always an extremely accurate hurler, but we all had our fair share of highlight-reel moments. We would take turns to go down to the bottom to set more targets up.
After chipping away at The Mountain off and on for a few years and hurling the rocks below, we had pretty much doubled the amount of debris at the bottom. This new debris included one particularly humongous chunk-o-pried-out ledge which took out a 20-foot tree on its way down. It would rest permanently next to the other large boulder and soon got used as a backup for more target-practice items.
Back to the trail which, after continuing beyond the top of the Inner Bowl, approached the most distinctive feature on the entire escarpment: An almost square ledge which had the appearance of “Frankenstein’s Head” (which I will officially christen here). This feature jutted out just beyond the Inner Bowl, perfectly defining the far side of the bowl (looking up from the bottom of the bowl you would have Frankenstein’s Head to the left and the aforementioned concealed trail-head to the right). Frankenstein’s Head gave the entire location a Wild-Wild West feel about it. It was the one part of The Mountain you really could not climb without rope and carabiners. God knows how we tried though, and I believe Bruce (again) figured it out once or twice.
Just beyond Frankenstein’s Head, past the Inner Bowl, was a nice stretch of climbing rock where you could practice your finger and toe holds, getting really good at it with repetition. Tucked in the middle of that vertical challenge was a crevasse area to rest and regroup. I believe some of this zone survives to this day. After this stretch, the exposed rock petered out to the great woods beyond. We ultimately discovered that woods in equally intense fashion, but that’s a story for another time.
This was a world all to ourselves. On the rare occasion when we were visited by strangers, they would usually get the hint that they may be intruding. The hint was delivered not so much by us as by our dogs, Nicky and Whiskers, who maintained constant vigilance on The Summit. Inevitably, folks would either turn around or saunter on by (and if they had read “Lord of the Flies” at any time in their lives, they may have sauntered a bit quicker).
Many great times were had on The Mountain, be they related to climbing, chipping, exploring, hurling, hiking, chilling, biking, or later, midnight fire stoking. It was a magical place; a natural fun house. Our own Strawberry Fields. What we did not realize in our earliest years there, though, but which would become more obvious to us over time, was that this land was actually owned by someone, deed and all. That entity was the Franklin Lumber Company, and their developed piece of property was adjacent, through a small patch of woods beyond the trail-head on the southwest side. Unbeknownst to us, they were apparently becoming increasingly aware of our activities and increasingly interested in this piece of land for their own uses.
I believe it was Bruce who first got wind of the lumber company’s initial wave of encroachment onto The Mountain; the lower sections of the more gradually sloping hillside leading up to it from the east backside had been stripped bare of trees. Our world was still fully intact, but the space between this wonderland and the real world next door had narrowed considerably. And rumor that this was just a first step was mounting, turning scary possibility into more-scary inevitability. For reasons that have never been fully explained to me, the Franklin Lumber Company was intent on wiping out The Mountain. Perhaps it was a liability issue. Perhaps other kids who came later had squandered the privilege of enjoying this land as there were reports of theft and vandalism in the lumber yard.
Squatters Rights were not in the cards. As we were growing up, each visit back had the feel of being the last. On a handful of occasions, I would go down there alone. The Mountain felt like no other place on Earth to me. It was a place of alternate reality, where I could be whisked away to the fringes of imagination. It was perfect. Knowing what was in store for The Mountain, I would savor those moments.
“Strawberry Fields Forever” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtUH9z_Oey8 ) was John Lennon’s proudest contribution to the Beatles. It is truly a watershed song, particularly considering how revolutionary it was at the time of release. The video does a fantastic job of capturing childhood imagination (and in turn capturing the essence of the meaning of the song). The tree, piano, strings, lighting, decorations, and even the way the Beatles move about all factor into this and remind me so wonderfully of my days on The Mountain.
The Franklin Lumber Company did indeed plow The Mountain asunder, actually managing to get their heavy equipment on top of The Summit from behind, wiping it and the entire Inner Bowl out. It was a hard pill to swallow and was likely an early impetus to my conservation leanings. After-all, The Mountain and the land around it was a natural gem.
And so, for now, The Mountain only lives in my memory, but something tells me that one day I’ll be standing on The Summit again, looking to my right at Frankenstein’s Head, to my left at the scraggly-trail entrance way, and straight ahead at the Inner Bowl. And as the mountain-top breeze ruffles my hair I will smile broadly and then suddenly feel as light as a feather.
- Pete
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