Just pretend you’re on vacation, filled with the excitement and anticipation of seeing the new and unfamiliar. It’s a beautiful, warm, sunny day for a drive in the country, just as it once was, before everything became so familiar that the beauty around you became taken for granted.
As you drive into Harvard along Route 111, the countryside glistens, and overhanging trees shade the road. As you enter the school area, you come upon the Bromfield House on the left.
Bromfield House is where I made my first stop in the spring of 1959 to meet the principal of Bromfield High, George “Buck” Rogers, in preparation for my very first teaching position. George took me across the street to the elegant old castle-like high school. Walking up that ornate staircase to his office was a most pleasant trip back in time. If the present new, beautiful library did nothing but restore the old Bromfield High, it was worth it.
Continuing along Route 111 past the Bromfield House onto Bolton Road, you’ll find a sample of Harvard’s picturesque homes and lovely gardens, with spacious lawns. The road is dappled with the sunlight filtering through the canopy of trees overhead, a pattern repeated in an almost cathedral-like manner on West Bare Hill and Woodside roads.
How long has it been since you looked on old familiar sights with new and perhaps younger eyes? Occasionally, a brief pleasure trip around town, as if it were the first time, can be a reminder of pleasures, ever-present, perhaps taken for granted.
