A Lost Moment in Time: Hubbardston 1974

By Craig: We had moved from the city the previous summer to the town of Hubbardston, a small quiet New England town. I was six and like all six year old boys I was curious. Every noise, every rock, every tree, every critter in the forest had the same effect on my juvenile brain. I wanted to know more about it. I wanted to understand. I wanted to comprehend the nature of my surroundings. It was all new...but at the same time familiar. I cannot explain this feeling, but it was a feeling that I remember having. It was as if I had experienced it all before, but that was impossible...I was only six.  I was an explorer and would sometimes venture forth into the woods to have a look. There were a couple of large boulders with mica on them. I was fascinated by this and would peel the mica off in sheets. My twin brother would do the same and it became a contest to see who could peel off the largest sheet. My father had bulldozed a trail up a hill, pushing a massive amount of rocks and boulders into what amounted to a large earthwork. It would have been a good defensible position against attack if we were living in the 17th century, but alas, it was 1974 and an attack by Nipmuck warriors or the French was probably not going to happen anytime soon. It was nothing but a pile of unwanted dirt and rocks that my brother and I called "the ruble." Why we called it that I cannot recall. I only knew that if we went beyond the ruble we were in uncharted territory. What lurked behind the ruble? There was a forest that much was certain. We could see the white pines and hemlocks, and could hear the trunks of the trees straining and creaking in the wind which we imagined were monsters and giants. Eventually we gathered up the courage to venture past this landmark into the forbidden zone, but never too far to where we could not see the ruble. This was where the mica was, and the white birch trees. We would later peel the bark and appallingly carve our names and other things into the trunks of these trees, but that was a few years in the future. Sometimes a noise would spook us back into the safety zone.

One day it was different. I was all alone. I believe that it was on the weekend because there was a party going on outside. The men were pitching horseshoes while the women sat outside in lawn chairs smoking and chatting. Everyone smoked in those days. It wasn't the evil thing that it has become these days. It was a different time...a different era. People were less suspicious, or so it seemed at the time. There were hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill and the scent of charcoal and beef wafted through the air. I walked past the ruble and into the forest. For some reason I was not afraid. Perhaps it was knowing that there were a lot of people at the house gave me a sense of false security. I don't know, nor do I remember why my brother was not with me since he usually always was. He was with me the day we emerged from the womb, and usually wherever I was he was not far away. I was an explorer. I can still remember my thoughts from that day. I was going to venture farther into the forest than I had ever gone. I walked on, climbing over fallen branches and the rotted trunks of trees that had probably fallen during the great hurricane of 1938. The leaves were crunching under my feet. I came to a stone wall...An ancient wall which are ubiquitous in New England. Farmers used them in the 18th and 19th centuries as property boundaries and a means to keep livestock from straying too far away. I did not know this at the time of course. It was just another puzzle that I would eventually sort out in time. At the moment it stopped me in my tracks. What was beyond the wall I could not even fathom. I turned around and looked for the landmark, it was not there!! The ruble was nowhere to be seen!! I panicked. I was lost. I had walked so far that I did not even think to look back! I could no longer hear the voices of the men playing horseshoes, or the women laughing to the long forgotten and now irrelevant gossip of the day. I could see the sun through the trees. It was low in the sky. I attempted to retrace my steps. The ruble had seemingly been swallowed up. I was doomed! A giant or a monster of some kind would surely get me. I ran this way! and then that way!, and then the other way! looking desperately for the ruble. The wind whistled through the trees adding to the confusion and it was getting colder. Surely they were looking for me! Then I saw him. An Indian. A Nipmuck warrior. He was looking at me. A stoic expression on a hard but compassionate countenance. It was not real. It was my imagination, but he pointed at the solar disk in the sky and I went that way. I stumbled and fell but instinctively followed the sun. My imagination was taking hold of me. I began to hear things. A humming sound in the distance which I imagined to be some large prehistoric bird that would swoop down from the trees and carry me away to its nest. Then I heard a familiar sound.  It was the sound of metal striking metal. Horseshoes! I followed the sound and the sun. I heard voices...familiar voices that got louder as I approached. I could see the outline of a house through the trees! A man in a blue tee shirt had just scored a ringer! I emerged into the clearing. I was home. My first expedition into the unknown was finished on that day long ago...two score and some in the past... in a time now so remote that I scarcely know whether it happened, or I merely imagined it.