NE CHRISTMAS was quite like the others in those years in our town well outside of Boston our town that was much like the other towns outside of Boston But they must not have been ordinary or unimportant those Christmases since all these years later I see something hovering in darkness as I am falling asleep in December that forces me to ask Did it snow two feet when I was ten or ten feet when I was two and if it is the latter case did my parents simply tell me about it since I could not really know it for myself What do I remember and what is imagined All the Christmases roll down to visions of snow or hoped-for snow and to lights Where did you live my young daughter asks We lived early on in West Chelmsford where most of the houses including ours were snug against the street which was called Main Street but saw no traffic They were so close to the road because they had been built so very long ago before our country was a country and the posts for hitching horses were still standing here and there Behind the houses were expanses of land in front nothing in back everything and back there we had in warmer weather forest poison ivy grapes that one year we harvested and drained in cheesecloth sacks dripping to make grape jelly and once a bobcat A young bobcat cried and screeched each night for a week and its presence was news enough for the Lowell newspaper That made us proud our local bobcat in the Lowell Sun The bobcat didn’t scare me I’m surprised to say it excited me It was like a nightly fireworks show expected and fun Human forces unknown trapped and probably killed the bobcat no doubt working under cover of darkness Those who were in authority did not transport and release animals back then Suddenly in any event the bobcat was gone The nights were quiet again quiet star-filled nights 5
