The Lane
Home Turf
The image this week is quite personally meaningful, so bear with me. The lane shown is a path that runs along the western border of my parent’s former home, and so is also running right through the middle of what used to be my grandparent’s property in Groton, Massachusetts.
Visiting my folks who are now in Nashua, NH, Norma and I then drove through Groton and stopped at the Groton Country Club and walked what locals call Lover’s Lane, which is just below the eastern edge of our old family property, and happens to also be the starting and finishing line for the Cross-Country running and skiing course for Lawrence Academy, or was when I attended anyway. The courses looped up Lover’s Lane and the around the football field and then up through the family orchard, which used to border the lane shown. The X-C courses then looped down the orchard and back down to the playing fields and had the finish line after another loop up Lover’s Lane and finished at the 50 yard line of the football field to complete the 3 mile course.
I call this home turf because having attended LA from 1969 to 1971, it means the daily practice plus the actual races had me travelling this route something like 500 times!
The path also has history – the minutemen of 1776 travelled along the route on the way to Concord, led by my 5th great grandfather Asa Lawrence. There have been musket balls found on the property, and there is a lovely old oak tree that witnessed it all.
It was so nice to visit my parents and then to be able to walk with Norma and Sam along the old so familiar ground. It is said “you can’t go home again”, and that’s true, but you can walk upon home turf and still feel the connection.
