A Pilgrim’s Digression

Today we awoke in Warwick, Rhode Island, and we are ending the day in Concord, Massachussettes. As Lynn’s mother has said repeatedly, this is where “it” all began, meaning the American revolution in particular and the American nation in general.

For me, “it” is the American literary experience. Concord was the hometown of Emerson and Thoreau, the Alcotts, and Hawthorne. Many other lights of the nineteenth century travelled through the town to visit Emerson, who was considered the premiere American intellect of his day.

We arrived around noon, not planning to see Walden Pond immediately, but on the way into town we saw the sign for the “Walden Pond Reservation,” and so we veered off course. It was a beautiful day to visit Thoreau’s woods, but unfortunately I shot mostly video rather than taking still pictures. I bought a Panasonic mini-DV camera specifically for this trip, and for better or worse, much of my photography has been done with it rather than our digital still camera.

I did take a few pictures at the site of the replica of Thoreau’s cabin. This is Lynn’s mother signing the guest book; I think it gives a good sense of the smallness of the cabin.

Outside the cabin stood a bronze statue of Thoreau. For some reason, his hand was formed as if he were reading a book. Thus we enjoyed taking pictures of ourselves pretending to view a brochure alongside Mr. Thoreau.

Walden pond is a busy place situated just off a major four-lane highway. Although it remains a beautiful place, there is no way to really “get away” in the way that Thoreau did. The sound of the highway nearby is ever-present, and the place has become a prime recreational area for locals and tourists. There is a beach where families go to swim and play, and people make their own beaches all along the shores of the pond. One can walk along the trails through the woods that Thoreau trod, but many other people are doing the same thing, and one is never alone.

The replica cabin is situated in the woods just beside the parking lot (five dollars to park), rather than at the original site, which is something I don’t really understand except out of a need to preserve the original site rather than make it into something it is not. Still, the original cabin site is a little more removed from the flow of tourists, so I have to wonder if the cabin would not be better placed where Thoreau actually built it.

I walked to the site of the original cabin. Besides several stones marking the boundaries of the cabin and its wood shed, there was a large pile of ordinary pebbles and stones that have been left there by visitors over the hundred years or so that people have been visiting the site. Some people have left messages on the stones. Others have made small cairns, piling stones on top of each other in a pillar formation. Only the top layer of rocks are truly rocks; there seems to be an underlying layer of crushed, pebbled stone, perhaps testifying to mankind’s futile attempts at preserving something of themselves.

I don’t know what Thoreau would think or feel about Walden as it exists today. I like to think he would be happy that it has been preserved, to some extent, even if there is no peace to be found there today. One can hear the sound of trucks and motorcycles and cars on nearby Route 2 even from the site of the original cabin, which perhaps might be the one thing that would most disturb him. Would he be bothered by the crowds of people swimming, walking, canoeing, and bicycling around and in his pond?

Probably so. He loved kids, according to what I have heard and read, but would probably find the hordes of people treading through his woods to be wholly overwhelming. And I don’t exclude myself from those hordes; I have no more right to visit Walden than anyone else, and if Thoreau’s ghost were to spring from the loamy turf and chase away the fools snapping photos of the rocks, trees, and water, I should be among the first fools he ought to scare away.

Probably there are a lot of things about Walden Pond that would disturb Thoreau. But the world is for the living, and we use it as we see fit, for better or worse. Walden as it exists today helps preserve something of the memory of the man and what he stood for.

We bought tee-shirts and magnets, bookmarks and postcards in the gift shop. I bought a hat with the word “Walden” and a dragonfly stitched across the crown. At least the money goes towards keeping the pond “reserved” for future generations. I thought that word the oddest way to describe Walden Pond, perhaps.

“Walden Pond Reservation.” Not “preservation, but “reservation.” I hardly claim to be any kind of Thoreau expert. I am no expert on anything literary, but the idea of “reserving” an area of the land seems anti-thetical to what I understand of Thoreau’s beliefs. It is just a semantic quibble, maybe, but Thoreau was a challenger of laws and government imposition on freedom. For example, he probably would have torn down the signs posted around the park warning people about what not to do: “Stay on the trails”…”Absolutely no dogs allowed at any time of year”…”Removal of stones and plants strictly prohibited by law”…

Would he have wanted Walden “reserved” for anyone, which by definition suggests some sort of vague exclusion?

But in the end, what am I fussing about? I am fully inculcated into modern life and the modern way of “reserving” the past. And what is the alternative? Allowing the place to grow wild, unvisitable by anyone but the hardiest of adventurers? Allowing developers to turn it into even more of an amusement park?

There was more to our day in Concord than Walden pond, but I find myself having written too much already for a blog post. I will have to resume this tale some other day, with some remarks upon the way in which we memorialize American history and literature. In addition to Walden, we also visited the Alcott “Orchard House” and walked the streets of this historic city, looking for some connection to the American story. There is much, much more to tell.