Stirring up the Past

What do you do with old memories when taking a ride through your childhood hometown area?

This week I went through all my old photo albums which including my mum’s, aunt’s, uncle’s, and grandfather’s. Besides those I did and do know, are photos of grandparents and great-grandparents, relatives I never knew … names to photos I’ve never heard of. I’m sure my mum must have told me at one time, but I don’t remember who a lot of these people were.

Photo: Along the edge of Black Rocks Creek, Salisbury, Mass., to the Merrimac River and Butler's Toothpick. My grandparents used to have a home on the river side of the Toothpick.

It's stirred up a lot. Looking at these old albums tells me there’s family out there I don’t know. And it makes me want to know more stories of those I was close to. What stories didn’t they tell growing up?

Yesterday, I took a ride to the seacoast and drove through towns where I grew up. Some things looked the same, while other places were totally different including traffic patterns in the roads and widened roads to include extra turn lanes.

I drove down Epping Road in Exeter recalling past businesses and noting new places. I took what we used to call the short cut to get from Epping Road to Route 150, down past the Exeter Bowling Lanes (I remember bowling there. I loved to bowl) and passed – was it called Binette’s? – on the corner of front street by the railroad tracks. Then down Pine Street onto 150.

This route was where my emotions started in. For once, I didn’t get teary-emotional, just something was welling up inside me. I can’t even describe it.

For one thing, I had a friend with me, and I was introducing her to my younger years. I was in story-telling mode. Maybe that’s why I didn’t get into my usual tear-filled drive.

Along Beach Road in Salisbury and remembering old photos: There were a couple of photos labeled “Hazel’s store.” This looks like it might’ve been the house Grandfather and Grandmother moved to when they head to leave Black Rocks. Is this how Grandfather met Hazel and eventually moved to Florida with her leaving Gram with the Beach Road house and later marrying Burton Blaisdell?

How did the build all those condos closer to the reservation on the opposite side of the road? Wouldn’t that all have been wetlands and swamp from Black Rocks Creek?

I keep feeling I’m missing something when I visit my old haunts. I know you can’t return to the past, and I certainly wouldn’t want to, but there’s some pull, every time I go down there which makes me feel I’m looking for something and not finding it.

I have so many questions. I so wish I could have conversations with my mum again... I miss her so much.