Even the journey there was brilliant. Started off with a Lenny's coffee, smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel brekkie and Charlie reminiscing about various things, including the car trips they used to take when they were little. Apparently billboards were still relatively new and exciting and they'd take it in turns to read them from a distance. Grandma Bea had such awful eyesight that she'd keep getting it wrong which would send them into hysterics.
Our first stop wasn't actually anything to do with dad - but we had lunch with a friend of Roberta and Charlie's who is a glass artist and does amazing work. He took us on a tour of his workshop, showed us his work which is heavily influenced by space because his wife's an astronaut. He was a really nice and interesting guy. Here's Charlie, Ethan and I with Josh in front of one of the huge machines which is heated at something like 2000 degrees.
So Josh was in Massachussets, about 30 mins away from Athol - we headed there next. I'm annoyed with myself because I should have written this post as soon as I got back, but wanted to spend the proper time on it - so I put it off and wrote notes to myself - only now to have lost them. So I can't actually remember the name of the couple that live in the house now - but they were very very sweet.
Up we rolled to 415 Pleasant Street, Athol:
It was actually beautiful - about 3000 square feet so quite big. And alot nicer than what I expected.Charlie did hasten to tell me it wasn't nearly as nice as that when they lived there and was actually quite decrepid...The couple that lived there now have done an extension which includes a terrace at the back...
And they showed us all around the house. Charlie showed me which one dad's room was. Mum asked me whether it was the smallest and actually it was :).
One thing I remembered dad talking about was the chickens they used to keep. The chicken house isn't there now - but this is where it was...
What really struck me when we were driving around Athol was just what a small sleepy town in the middle of nowhere it is... Compared to where the entire clan ended up and what they all ended up achieving, they came from very smalltown roots and I was imagining what it was like for them to grow up there.
Before we left Athol, we went to see a woman called Pauline Goldman (Jewish). She was apparently a good family friend of Grandma Bea's and Bernie's. Charlie indicated she wouldn't hear a bad word about Bernie (which is funny as Charlie's got plenty negative to say about him). Turns out Bernie was really generous with them. Pauline was quite old, sadly very sick and REALLY happy to have some visitors, and especially to meet me, knowing that I was dad's child. One of the things she remembered was helping Bea to cook for dad's barmitzvah lunch at the house in Athol. Another story she told us was when Charlie came to stay with them in his early teens, and snuck out to the fair when they'd expressly told him not to. When he got back and got caught, Pauline's late husband was so angry with him but thankfully didn't tell Bernie which Charlie remained forever grateful to him for.
After Pauline, we went to Mount Hermon for one of the Wantman State of the World talks which Charlie has endowed in dad and Joan's name. It was amazing to see Mount Hermon. We went into the cottage which dad stayed in.
Unfortunately I couldn't see his actual room as they've changed everything around. But I was told that he was in a single room (most people had a room mate) which may have contributed to dad feeling quite lonely during his time at Mount Hermon. I remember dad saying to me that he would never send his kids to boarding school. Funny thing about his cottage though is it's called London House..
The school's quite posh, and very international. We had dinner with some of the students and then went to the talk - a holocaust survivor talking about her experience at one of the camps. That was quite unbelievable in itself - it's great that the endowment is supporting such a worthy initiative to expose kids to topics like this (another one of these talks I saw by video was on man's interpretation of nature. Seriously interesting).
I had a really really great day. Very special time with Ethan and Charlie and an opportunity to see some of the things that I remember dad talking about. Tragic that dad couldn't take us down memory lane himself but Charlie was definitely the next best thing and I'm very grateful he made time to do this and spend 12 hours in a car over the course of one day. xxx
