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Holderness Redux

Posted by abohan Jumat, 07 September 2012 0 komentar

This story was originally written by our contributor, Joe Klock Sr., about 10 years ago. The details may be dated but the insights are still relevant. - RC

It was like a page suddenly torn from a forgotten diary, brought to life by people I didn't know, but who revived sights and sounds from my early boyhood with astonishing accuracy.

It was Old Home Day in Holderness, the small New Hampshire town that is our late-summer escape from the climatic caldron of South Florida and our annual adventure in leaf-peeping.

Holderness, at least to this big-city-raised geezer, is an example of the vanishing slice of rural Americana wherein I was born, from which I was borne at an early age, and to which I've returned to some extent by settling in laid-back Key Largo, Florida.

It partially surrounds Squam Lake, recently famed as the site of "On Golden Pond," and is, in turn, surrounded by the foothills of the White Mountains. It is quiet, serene, homey, and peopled by people who can be pretty much described the same way.

It's warm, friendly and nice - a place, for example, where motorists are courteous to a fault, pedestrians are always given the right of way, and horns are never, but never, used as a means of protest or an expression of impatience (Miami please note!).

Although only a summer resident, I'm recognized on sight and by name by Larry, the local postmaster, who can also be counted on for news of bear sightings and other current events.

It was, in fact, while picking up the season's first mail that I learned about Old Holderness Day 2002 and for the first time followed through on my annual intention to participate.

Truth to tell, it was the lure of a craft show and hot dogs at noon that got me there, plus the billing of a "New Holderness String Band." As one who had witnessed several decades' worth of the Philadelphia Mummers Parade, I was eager to see and hear New Hampshire's version of this gaudy old Philly tradition.

Well, it turned out to be simply the Pelletier family of four, singing hymns and folk songs, accompanying themselves with guitars, a mandolin and a wash-tub bass. It was charming beyond description - and that's where the deja vu really hit me.

The last time I'd seen and heard a wash-tub bass was in Willow Grove, PA, nearly seventy years ago - and beside that tub, I suddenly re-envisioned a fiddler, a spoons player and what I remember as a virtuoso Jew's harpist. The vision was real enough to be scary - and heart-melting, too.

But it was the later parade that peeled back the curtain of time and transported me to a spectacle that had been buried in memory since our family moved to the Big City in the early 1930's.

The parade of old had again come to life, albeit with different names and faces. The same people and things that had thrilled me as a kid, were thrilling me again in my geezerdom.

There was the Bek Tash Temple Shriners Drum Corps, easily sexagenarian in average vintage, but belting out march music with bone-jarring percussion; there were vintage automobiles, many of which had not yet been made when I last attended a small-town parade; and the antique "Same Day" fire truck that drew smiles from the crowd would have then been state of the art; the Willow Grove version was a horse-drawn hand-pumper with stacks of buckets on board.

There was a kid riding alone on his training-wheeled bicycle in patriotic attire, floats sponsored by local entities, and a plethora of politicians riding in open cars or "working the crowd" on foot in advance of the coming election season.

There was a fancy cart drawn by a strutting pony, a tractor decorated, manned and womanned by "The Young & Old Burleigh Farmers," the Baker Valley Band from a neighboring town, and a wood-fired steam vessel somewhat like the "African Queen" that lives in retirement near our home in the Florida Keys.

What really hit me where I lived - or used to live - was the American Legion color guard, with aging standard bearers and riflemen marching in proud precision, their progress along the parade route marked by ripples of applause as the flag went by. They could have been the same old guys who marched through "downtown" Willow Grove those many years ago - and, for a magic moment, they really were, in the eyes of at least one old guy among the spectators.

I suspect that the old-fashioned hometown parades are generally regarded as corny these days, but it surely didn't seem that way to the hometown folks at Holderness - or one ancient bystander enjoying a major rush of nostalgia.

Maybe you had to be there - and I genuinely wish you had been.

Anyway, I'm sure glad I was!

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Judul: Holderness Redux
Ditulis oleh abohan
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