Back When Love Was Simple

Boylston Ma 1960

At this stage of life
I told my mom one day,
"I'm so lucky, everybody loves me."
Ah, back when love was love and
There was no need to worry about the motive.

My parents and me on my grandparents' property, on which we lived as well.
1790 house on 180 acres. Two ponds, woods, fields and hill for sliding.

Long walks in the woods just past the small sand pit yielded mushrooms, lichen,
and a glimpse of the doughnut tree. My dad had lived on the property since he was eight.
Don't know when he tried to chop down this tree, sometime as a young boy but it resisted and grew back with circular bent before heading to the canopy again. We thought it was quite remarkable as kids.

My dad loved this place.


Never ever wanted to leave.


We had a donkey, Smokey. Got the scar to prove it.
Peacocks and peahens hatched from eggs our hens sat on.
Courtesy of Mr. Frangello.
Sassy the duck.
Woolly and Shebaa our sheep.
Mr. Tiger, the man cat that came to find me as a kitten.
The rock garden where my brothers used to lie down on the glacial boulder in the middle and fall asleep in the sun.

All this bought when my grandfather and his brothers sold their father's ice and coal company in RI.

My dad's legacy.

He lost it.