THE WOODS BEHIND MY HOUSE

In a place called Braintree, not far from Boston, in a county whose name I can’t remember, I grew up believing in gods. Don’t misunderstand, every Sunday I went to the nine o’clock Mass and Sunday school right after. I memorized the catechism and tried, with some success, to sit quietly enough to avoid the red-knuckling rulers the black robed nuns carried like cattle prodders. Part of my spiritual dichotomy may have arisen from my parents; one was Roman Catholic and the other Lutheran, a union considered a mixed marriage in those days. As a firm believer in the First Commandment, I held none of the other gods before God. Yet, at an early age I was aware that an impressive array of deities, spirits and imps followed close on my heals creating a barnyard of wonder and havoc in their wake.
For a young boy, growing up in the early 1950s, sub-urban Braintree was Paradise. Or so it seems through my airbrushed eyes a lengthy half century later. We were a solidly middle class family. Our home was a white, three bedroom expandable Cape Cod with black shutters, two dormers, a one car garage and an unfinished basement. There was even a white picket fence. We lived on Liberty Street, a farm-to-market road that meandered in a lazy north south direction across brooks and dales from Weymouth Landing to South Braintree. The two lane causally paved road had no markings and was lined by a hodgepodge of small ranch and Cape houses with neat yards that stretched to the woods behind them. Liberty Street was a safe place, a healthy place, a place returning World War II veterans and their brides could try and make up for lost time. It was a good place to grow up young.