It is no more.
BY DON DOUCETTE
Gone is the geographic undulating local terrain we knew so well as children here in Attleboro.
The Thurber Avenue side of the old Thurber Farm has been flattened for development. It had been expected. But the site of destruction has been personally devastating and today, I am grieving the loss.
It was a special place made for childhood imaginations while we pretended “to ride the range” along the crest of our now extinct glacial esker. A cluster of large stones was our Bar-20 Ranch as we took turns pretending to be Hop-a-Long Cassidy, the clean-cut and upright version of our bigger than life childhood hero.
Gone is our stand of tender little blue stem grasses, our secret hiding places, our grandfather’s apple orchard along with his fat-stalked red rhubarb patch and succulent sweet red current bushes. Gone are the red raspberry and strawberry patches – and the piece of ground where the old man grew such large carrots and beets and golden bantam sweet corn.
Gone are the hanging branch locations for Baltimore oriole nests to freely sway in summer breezes. And.our grandmother’s beautiful beyond description flower gardens — or, the functioning outhouse and the hand-pump well which dispensed such clear cool water for busy playing kids during hot summer days. No need to run into the house and waste good playing time…in return, the sweet smell of blooming honeysuckle vine was totally and without condition, free.
Gone is the stone wing wall portion of the old Thurber family barn ramp where we sat with legs dangling and waved to countless strangers passing our dear farm in passenger train coaches as some waved in return…and were quickly gone.
Or…the unexpected flush of wild pheasant from a stand of autumn-dry goldenrod.
All gone.
Don Doucette
“Ten Mile River Rambles”
Friends of the Ten Mile and Bucklin Brook
Citizens of the Narragansett Basin