In 1966, Harvard was a country town. Ours was a class of 33, divided into the A group and the B group; the A’s were destined for college and greatness, while the B’s found the military and marriage, heading off to whatever else they could figure out. We hardly knew each other.
In sixth grade I gave Eddie Poitras a bloody nose. But when he didn’t give me up to Miss Sullivan, we became friends. Every third Saturday in April, I slept over at his house on Poor Farm Road for the first morning of fishing season—up before the sun, heading in soggy sneakers for Bowers Brook with worm cans and hidden Lucky Strike cigarettes.
Evenings, families huddled in living rooms to watch television until bedtime. Lawrence Welk, Walt Disney, Ed Sullivan—three channels. Sunday afternoons I sometimes sat with my father watching the only football game, with its fuzzy black and gray images of Y.A. Tittle and the New York Giants. And later “Bonanza,” the reason we’d finally buy a color TV.
There was no mall. We shopped in Maynard for Wrangler jeans at the Outdoor Store, and in the fall, school clothes at Arthur’s Factory Outlet in Hudson. We sent away for stuff from the Sears Roebuck catalog.
When Bare Hill Pond froze, we played hockey, and once the snow melted in the spring, baseball on too-wet grass.
At 16 we got driver’s licenses and found ways to buy beer and drove to the West Acton Drive-In to make out. Cars were freedom, our doorway to adulthood. And sin.
At 17, we felt grown up with the world waiting. But then there was Walter Cronkite with his jungle every night, and things got confused, like we’d slipped or climbed on the wrong bus to disobedience, disillusionment, drugs, and the draft.
When the school canopy lifted, we scattered.
Today I might see a name that’s dripped in on Facebook. Or remember a thing, like the evening Babe Ruth baseball games uptown, and after, the lazy, 3-mile Bolton Road bike ride home, in the dark, meeting not a car. A lifetime later, I sometimes ache for that time, when it was enough.
But that’s all done. I went to my friend Eddie’s wake, and our first baseman, Steve—he died too.
I thought I’d forgotten, so I was surprised today when I could recall every name.
Raymond Tatten is a 1966 graduate of the Bromfield School. He currently resides in Sterling.
