From the LOC "American Memory" collection

The Old Powder House on Green Street in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Used as a powder store during the American Revolution, the same sorts of stores the British Army was seeking at Lexington and Concord.





I walked past this building 3-4 times a week on my way to-and-from my grocery store job.

It brings up complicated memories. That was a long walk--a good mile and a half, from my house on Sunset Road, uphill and cutting through a neighbor's yard into Waterside Cemetary, across West Shore Drive and past the grade school, to Turner Road and onto Green Street, down Mugford Street past the Me & Thee Coffeehouse to the Old Town Hall, right on Washington Street to the market.

Back the opposite route--and the recollection I have is of sadness and alone-ness. My dad's business had already failed and his drinking accelerated, he'd moved out and my brilliant elder brother was off in Europe--and I was slogging back and forth to this dumb job when I wasn't sitting bored stupid (and exuding resentment and disdain, no doubt) in high school classes.

A lot of memory attaching to that little building.