There is no better place than New England to experience fall foliage. The epitome of natural beauty, the experience invokes fond memories and brings back autumn thoughts from days of the past. Experiencing this season unencumbered by distractions is very satisfying.
However, there are many of us who have experienced so many seasons where the foliage-laden trees and their accompanying appreciation sometimes dull the colors of our thoughts. Heavy traffic and people visiting from down south can be frustrating, but there are plenty of colorful maple, oak, birch and ash trees for everyone. As a local, it is important to experience this season off the beaten path — take the long way home and travel those back roads laden with color and lined with unique historic homes and miles of stone walls. Gifts from our ancestors to certainly be cherished for many generations to come.
It was in the years of our ancestors here in Concord when the fallen leaves would be gathered and utilized to a degree. Our ancestors would use the leaves for bedding in the stables and later combine them with manure, small plants and discarded fruit to create rich compost to fertilize the gardens prior to spring planting. Fallen leaves left atop a garden during the winter season are also known to provide nutrients to the soil.
Growing up near White Park here in Concord, I have memories of the foliage season too. Yes, it was a wonderful time to appreciate the beauty that nature provides. As a child, I even had my favorite trees that offered the most vibrant leaves. Gathering the brightly colored leaves each autumn, I would seal them in wax paper and hang them in my bedroom windows where the sunshine illuminated them for days to come. I also recall the intense labor of raking our yard and the blisters that accompanied this painful task. I recall my thoughts decades later: “How could something so very beautiful inflict such pain?”
Some of the old-timers in my neighborhood took a simple but direct approach to managing their fallen foliage. They shoveled them into large barrels to burn. I can still remember the earthy aroma of burning leaves late each autumn. A scent that still triggers memories to this very day.
Our neighborhood friends would all gather on a weekend in one of the yards and pitch in to help a friend rake leaves. The intent and focus were always lost once a large pile of raked leaves materialized. Often placed beneath a large tree, we would climb the tree and jump into the pile time and again. By the conclusion of our leaf-raking project, we found most of the raked leaves scattered about the ground much as they were before we started. Certainly, good, clean fun for a young child many decades ago.
There is one particular incident that occurred back in the late 1960s near my neighborhood home bordering White Park. A memory that sounds quite humorous and entertaining, but was actually very dangerous. One of the neighborhood children passed his driver’s license examination, a time-honored event that most of us have certainly experienced. As I played in the park, I watched him drive down the road bordering the open field of White Park. I was still several years away from obtaining a license, and I envied that 16-year-old boy, driving his father’s big red Chevrolet around the park, sounding off the horn just to make sure we saw him.
As the autumn days were coming to a close once again, the Concord Recreation and Parks crew spent many hours raking leaves into piles and placing them along the side of White Street so that a city truck could pick them up once the raking was completed. I would watch the men working in those days, long before the invention of power leaf blowers and riding machinery that made the process easier. The crew would work the remainder of October and into the frosty early days of November to complete the job. The pile alongside White Street was quite lengthy but a gratifying sight for the workers who completed the task.
This should have concluded the season just prior to preparations being made for the anticipated snow, but it wasn’t.
It was a Saturday morning at White Park, just around Halloween. With great anticipation of trick-or-treating, cider and donuts at the Boys Club, and an overdose of chocolate, the neighborhood children were in a festive mood. As we played a quick game of tag early in the morning, we noticed the big red Chevrolet coming down the road. This time the 16-year-old boy had his father’s car filled with friends. Tooting the horn, zigzagging and waving to everyone, the car steered to the west side of White Street and targeted the very large and lengthy pile of freshly raked leaves. The boy hit the pile at about 40 miles an hour and the leaves just flew everywhere. The pile was quickly dispersed and the young boy made his escape.
The following Monday I walked down to the park and stood nearby as the park crew once again raked the leaves alongside White Street. They were quite angry and very upset. They heard rumors about the boy and his father’s shiny red Chevrolet plowing down their leaf pile. It required another entire day of raking to bring the leaf pile back to the condition they had left it. The language was strong and the tempers were even stronger. But I listened and I learned a thing or two about anger management and revenge. I didn’t know what the park crew was planning, but they certainly had a laugh or two about that large pile of leaves on White Street.
The next day after school was dismissed, I hurried over to the park to see if the pile of leaves was undisturbed. I assumed the Concord Police Department might be observing the pile from afar just to keep order. When I arrived after 3 p.m., the pile was the way it was left the day before: organized and structured along the west side of White Street. I thought I would just return home; nothing to see here.
A few of my friends showed up and we played a quick game of frisbee. About a half hour into our game, the sun casting long shadows across the field and the crisp autumn air lingering, we heard the horn sounding once again. Off in the distance, we saw the shiny red Chevrolet cruising along the road with a few of the 16-year-olds’ friends in the back seat. They had returned for one last strike on the leave pile. I just couldn’t believe it; I suddenly felt sorry for the crew that had to clean them up each time this Chevrolet mowed them down.
The music was blaring on the car radio; the kids were yelling at us from the back seat as the red Chevrolet veered to the west side of White Street for its next attack. The impact with the leaves was quite entertaining and they flew everywhere, that is until the shiny red car encountered its fate.
The work crew, highly frustrated with raking and then raking again, had laid a trap for this young man. As the car hit the pile and the leaves scattered, I witnessed something completely shocking. The work crew had piled the leaves a little further down the road around a fire hydrant — completely hidden from view. The Chevrolet in all its glory was dispersing the leaf pile once again until the front end struck the fire hydrant with such force that I was very concerned.
With leaves flying everywhere, water sprouting high toward the sky, I witnessed the red Chevrolet with the front end completely crushed in the middle of the pile of leaves. The carload of boys staggered out of the car safely. I could hear the young 16-year-old driver cursing as he said, “What am I going to tell my father?” His friends quickly ran while the boy stood beside his father’s destroyed car, soaking wet and covered with leaves. I felt sorrow for him at that moment.
A Concord Police Cruiser arrived, followed by a wrecker. City work crews arrived to shut off the water main. The last time I saw the boy, he was in the back seat of the police cruiser, perhaps contemplating his plan to tell his father about the accident.
I never saw another car run down the pile of autumn leaves on the west side of White Street. Nobody really talked about it anymore. I never saw the young boy drive another car, and the following year the city crew raked their leaves once again as they always had.