The second time I went to Boston was the first time that I walked along the Charles River — past the hatchshell and the head of Arthur Fiedler and a very familiar bridge. I was there to examine the couture-priced halls of MIT, attend a conference, and visit my artistic aunt who had moved there the year before. I had never seen the Charles, yet the bridge was part of my childhood. My mother, the trusty elementary librarian, identified it as the bridge next to Mr. and Mrs. Mallard’s nest in Make Way for Ducklings. The bronze statues in the Public Garden were based on the illustrations, but I hadn’t realized that the illustrations were based on the bridge.
After having lived in Boston for a summer and visiting numerous times, I decided last Wednesday to run two miles along the Cambridge side of the river then return to Meg’s place by turning around after about 20 minutes. I reached Harvard Bridge and the smoot marks without glancing at my watch and continued on. With the famous duck bridge in sight, I continued on but couldn’t find a way to legally cross Memorial Drive and run over it. My run continued unhampered to the Science Center, across the drawbridge, and back along the Boston side until I reached the footbridge from the opening scene of With Honors. By running almost ten miles, I had passed my Boston/Cambridge river history: the field where we prepped our shells for the Head of the Charles, the places I canoed with Matty, the courtyard where I’d helped with rush week, the hatchshell where we accidentally got seats and food for the dress rehearsal of the July 4th show, the Sigma Chi house where I’d spent a summer, and all the paths with walking and rollerblading memories.
As I took the Downeaster up to Portland and continued by car to Camden and on to Sedgwick in the dark, I thought I’d left McCloskey’s illustrations behind. Friday morning’s run on Christy Hill showed Maine to be strikingly beautiful. Fields of lupine dotted by glacial rock deposits, stands of pine, and breathtaking glimpses of the shoreline empowered our legs. After a blueberry pancake brunch, we went out back to gather our own berries for the weekend. We took “rakes”, which looked liked metal dustpans with combs on the edge, and walked into a field that seemed to be straight out of Blueberries for Sal. The rising hillside was coated by tufts of wild blueberry bushes like an illustration emblazened by technicolor. Our berries fell into seagreen cardboard quart boxes instead of tin pails and we didn’t meet any bears, but I felt like my time in the field was captured by the Caldecott Honor book.
I should mention that Robert McCloskey actually lived and wrote in the town next to Sedgwick called Brooksville. And as a retiree living in Blue Hill, he was in my mother’s dance class for the elderly! So rather than leaving the world of McCloskey behind when you left Boston you were actually heading into the heart of his territory!