Day 3: Kids and old people

Today's was a short drive, about 3 1/2 hours from the Cape to Amherst. I decided to detour to Norton, where I had lived off and on in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Thank goodness for GPS! I didn't recognize anything, maybe partly because it had changed (there's even a new interstate from the Cape to the Mass Pike that goes right through Norton) but mostly because 40 years have scrambled those memories. It started with food, of course, as a pilgrimage to O'Brien's seafood restaurant where Nancy and I went whenever we were in the mood for whole "belly" fried clams and willing to tolerate a long wait in line.

Along the way I tried to find the house where we had lived when Alex was born. (Alex, I hope this kind of reminiscing doesn't still embarrass you!) I turned off Rte. 123 onto 140 more or less by instinct but nothing looked right. Deciding that it was the wrong road I did a U turn into a business entrance and was about to head back to the town center when I looked across the street and there it was!

We lived on the second floor in the corner nearest the camera; the turret was a peninsula off our living room. The house has prospered; then it was shingled in dark brown and as I remember it much less elegant than you see it here. I remember the paved area to the left of the house as lawn, but I no longer trust such recollections.

Then I headed back down 123 to the Attleboro line in search of lunch. Alas, O'Brien's is no more; the building now has a sign for Uncle Ed's ice cream and the once-tidy paint is peeling. I later learned that O'Brien's closed about three years ago.

I ended up at the Old Colony Inn on the way back into Norton; I did get my belly clams there, tasty but no competition for my golden memory, true or false, of the ones at O'Brien's. The waitresses got into the spirit of my research on what had happened to O'Brien's, and one of them confided that the Old Colony used to be Bliss Brothers Creamery. That was also one of our haunts 40 years ago but to tell the truth, the building didn't ring a bell with me, from the inside or the outside.

From there I went on to Amherst and spent the rest of the day with Mary and Mark after delivering roses from the Cape and mementos of Rachel from DC. Dinner with Hezekiah (age 5) and Meriel (17 months) was gloriously messy as it should be with kids. I was privileged to watch Meriel's first encounter with a drinking straw. Listening later on to the happy sounds of small children being put to bed brought back warm memories.

I'm settling in for the night myself here at the Delta Organic Farm B&B. I take comfort in the fact that Jim, the proprietor, is embarrassed that he doesn't remember me from my two previous stays here, first with Rachel and later with a passel of her family members. He is, after all, two years my senior.