The Hills Of Easton

"Steep hill to climb."

Popular maxim describing adversity

My mother grew up in the small town of Maynard, which is a western suburb of Boston.  Maynard borders Concord, the town in which my dad grew up.   Living in Easton, something my mother missed about her childhood days was the slightly hillier and more undulating terrain that Maynard and the surrounding area had than we have here.   

Now, for sure, all of Eastern Massachusetts is fairly flat.  It is when you get out to Western Massachusetts and the Berkshires that you find plentiful numbers of hills of appreciable stretch and height.

Easton is flat.  But not totally flat.   We have some rises and hills here. 

Having run thousands of miles in Easton, over its roads and paths and trails, I recognize and experience hills – as have other runners – where the motorist (who is not a runner) would probably miss them. Hurt makes you sensitive to hills. Hurt and hills are bedfellows. 

If you are running, Lothrop Street – from Center Street to – is a hill.  It can be an agonizing hill. 

As well, if you are running heading northwest on Summer Street, about a quarter mile beyond Center Street, you pass the opening to Shady Rest Road on your right, and in about 100 yards a hill starts and continues up along a curve until you get to the bend in front of 53 Summer Street – the Muscato family abode for more than 30 years – where a slight decline begins for about 50 yards before the road rises again.   Summer Street can be a tough hill.

We have , the name which is derived from the stately 50 room mansion on the campus that sits on top of a hill of bedrock.  Frederick Lothrop Ames had the mansion built in 1905, and it was the centerpiece of his estate which he called “Stonehill House Hill House.”

There is the hill in front of Oakes Ames Hall which was a favorite skateboarding venue when we were kids. 

Richard Hill was a longtime teacher at the . Mr. Hill is still busy in education and the arts in his role as the Music Director of in North Easton. 

I think the steepest hill in town is the “Town Pool Hill.”  I long harbored fears of riding down that hill on my bike and the brakes giving out.  

Yet it was going up that hill – actually running up the hill – that caused me the most distress.  

You see, when I was in high school, I was on the cross-country team, and back then the OA cross-country course, which began and ended at, included a loop through the woods and along the bike path behind the Town Pool, and up the Town Pool Hill before heading back to the park. 

That was not fun, running up that hill in a race. 

“Suicide Hill,” the base of which begins maybe 50 yards or so from the bank along the west side of Langwater Pond, was prime sledding territory in the 1970s.  Here is an excerpt from a “Muscato’s Musings” column from last winter in which I describe the Suicide Hill experience: 

… when you sled Suicide Hill treachery and spiking of adrenaline continues after you reach hill bottom.   For when you get to the bottom, there are about 50 feet remaining to the pond.  At pond's edge is a bank that rises a couple feet above the water, which, depending on the temperature and other factors, is either liquid or frozen.

If you sledded on a day, or on a night, when you were sure of the safety of the ice, you could hurtle down the hill and across the short expanse of level ground and off the bank and … whoomp!!!! (the landing was bone jarring) … onto the ice, or snow covered ice, and continue on for maybe 30 or 40 feet.  You didn't travel far across the pond because the fall from the bank slowed your snow craft considerably.

There was “The Old Man on The Hill” – which was the nickname that locals would eventually assign to the Bridge Street Package Store that was run by John Camara.   Mr. Camara, a Portuguese immigrant, founded the store in 1946, and would run it until 1984 when he was 81 years old and he sold the license to Peter Gomes. 

The Bridge Street Package Store promoted itself as having “The Coldest Beer in Town.”   John Camara and his wife, Isabel, also from the old country, lived in a house next to the store.  For many years, Mr. Camara’s day job was selling groceries door to door, and during that period Isabel would take care of the store during the day.   Oftentimes, the business operated in a novel fashion, in that the store would be open, but locked, and a customer would ring the bell on the front door of the store, and either John or Isabel would hurry over to wait on the customer. 

We have a “Hill Street” in South Easton.   It is a short street that connects Pine Street and Turnpike Street, with the incline running from Turnpike to Pine. 

My mother often admonished me not to “make a mountain out of a molehill.”

This brings me to “Mountain Road,” which runs alongside parts of Borderland State Park, and from Bay Road into Sharon.   Somewhere along Mountain Road is found the highest point in Easton.  And not far from that point, within Borderland, is a site that the National Weather Service uses for tests and observations. 

It is interesting how perspectives can change dramatically. 

From infancy to the autumn of my sophomore year at OA, my family lived at 11 Andrews Street, a stone’s throw from Shovel Shop Pond.   I always thought we lived at the top of the hill that was Andrews Street.   

Yes, for many years, I thought of Andrews Street as a hill.

Yet when I return now to Andrews Street it doesn’t look like much of a hill at all.