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This tale takes place between the years 1957 and 1959. The main characters are my friend Jim, the ’47 Chevy and me. Unbeknownst to us, in 1957, the Chevy — more than “just a car” — would be the “magic carpet ride” that would transport us from childhood to the next...
This tale takes place around 1952, when I was 10 and my friend, Tom, was 11. We spent Saturday at the pumping station on Fruit Street, like many other Saturdays, at work with my father. In the morning, Tom and I went up the brook trying to catch small trout...
This tale takes place in 1951. It was a Saturday, and my friend Jackie and I had gone to the pumping station with my father in the morning on our bicycles. We played in the woods, where Pyne’s sandpit would be located, all morning. We cooked hot dogs on an open fire...
Before I start my latest tale, you’ll notice the word Island in the title is emphasized. Back in my time and before, it was called Sandy Island. I don’t know when the title was changed to Sandy Beach or who did it, but that is one of my four pet peeves. (I’ll tell you...
This tale takes place during April school vacation in 1954. Things were a lot different then. The Fire Department’s three engines operated out of the old wooden fire station that would be razed in the summer of 1954 to make room for the new station. There were no...
This tale takes place around 1953. I had just joined Boy Scouts the year before. Besides regular meetings on Friday nights with the whole troop, we had patrols that consisted of six or seven guys. The patrols usually met during the week in the afternoon to work on...
This story takes place at the “Little Meadow,” which was located near where 58 Ash Street is now. Generations of us kids from the Ash Street-Fenton Street area learned to skate there. It was a small, shallow meadow probably about three-quarters of an acre, with two...
I ride off on my bike with a book to return to the library. I head up Pike Street to Church Street, passing Callanan Funeral Home on the left and St. John’s Church and Seymour Woods’ Funeral Home on the right before arriving at the library, on the right. I give my...
Unlike all of my previous stories, most of this story takes place in June 2022. On the first Monday of June, I worked in my garden in Westborough. Finishing around noon, I sat in my chair and reflected that the only way to describe the day was “delicious!” I went home...
I am a pine cone high up on a branch of a stately pine tree. It is summer 1749. I am located on Ash Street, just off Main Street, in Hopkinton. In the autumn, a strong wind blows me down onto the ground. During the winter, I will be covered by pine needles, leaves and...
A stroll up Main Street, circa 1950, through the eyes of a 10-year-old: We start our stroll at the corner of Wood Street and West Main Street and head east. The train just backed into Worthmore Feed Store (now Hopkinton Lumber) from Milford with a flat car of lumber,...
This story evolves from doing research for my article on the undefeated 1955 Hopkinton High School football team (Hopkinton Independent, Nov. 24, 2021). I needed the scores of the football games from 1955, and I had three yearbooks from Hopkinton High School, but not...
First let me start with a little bit about the author. I was ready to become a football star at the age of 14, very small (5-foot-5, 125 pounds) and very slow (Coach Mario Mariello would often yell at me while we were doing laps at the end of practice, “Hamilton, I...
In 1946, when I was 5 years old, my father, William Towne Hamilton Sr., worked as head of the Shipping Department at Seamans & Cobb, a thread mill on Hayden Rowe Street. Starting in September, I would go to work with him and walk down the street to 28 Hayden Rowe,...
This story was told to me by my mother, Evelyn M. Simmons Hamilton Swenor (1916-2010), who was born at 12 Claflin Ave. — as was her mother, Ethel Wood Simmons (1889-1972). The main character in this tale is my great-grandfather, Alfred “Pout” Wood (1845-1935). Alfred...
At 100 years old, J.C. Parmenter is the second-oldest company in Hopkinton (Callanan Cronin Funeral Home, at 131, is the oldest). J.C. Parmenter was started in 1920 by Charles W. Parmenter and was first named C.W. Parmenter. Charlie lived at 16 Grove St. in Hopkinton,...
