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Summertime in the BelgradesContentsfor Printing
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The View From Powderhouse Hillby Don Watson Albert Sproul was glowering at the old cannon as I arrived at Powderhouse Hill. He came up here from time to time to vent his frustration at never being able to fire off the cannon. While he was planning and scheming someone did it first. Then the town cemented up the bore. Made Albert mad. He was looking down over the hill toward the east. "Condos," he said. I saw the river and the town. I saw the gaslights and the brick. I saw the boats in the now clean water and the people on the street. Albert saw condos. It had rained for five days and the leaves gave up and fell before the tourists could get a good long look. Down across Granite Hill, past the radio tower and toward the big lake you could almost see where Manchester used to be. There's a sign that tells when the town was established. It sits at the four corners framing an asphalt-paved shopping center. Across the road is more parking and less living. It seems the road keeps getting wider and the center of life smaller. There used to be a store at the crossroad that sold groceries to people who live thereabouts. Heading down the Pond Road or out to Readfield. The store got sold and then the store got torn down and the old bakery across the street where people gossiped and ate cookies and warm sticky buns just up and closed. And they made the road wider. People who had lawns didn't have them anymore. Outside from their houses where the store was and where the bakery stood with blind unused eyes was a view of red, yellow and green lights, some with a Big "X" to show cars where to go. Where the roads used to cross, sending folks down to the lake or up to the orchards, they murdered a tree in order to make the road wider. The tree was 150 years old. Albert Sproul stood beside the old cannon, his back to the river and looked down across the hills to the big cross of pavement. I looked at Albert and he looked at me. "Looks like they made the place hard to get to and easy to get away from," he said. Then he kicked the cannon. Don Watson, Hallowell resident and observer extraordinaire, is the author of The View from Powderhouse Hill, in which this short story appeared. All rights are reserved by the author. Read another short story by Don Watson | ||