Tom McLaughlin: Remembering autumn

There’s a familiar feeling I get in the fall when the air is cool and the wind is blowing. Fond memories are triggered from over 43 years ago when I moved my young family to rural Lovell, Maine, from Massachusetts. We got to our new, old house in August 1977 and by early October we were settled in. I had a few weeks in my new job behind me and took my shotgun into the woods after school to hunt partridge.

It was only a short walk to the overgrown farm land down the street that was promising habitat, but I only had about 90 minutes before the sun set and I would have to walk home for supper. No one freaked out to see a young man carry a shotgun down the road. In the Massachusetts I had left, some might have called police but that wouldn’t happen in Lovell. My formerly rural town 25 miles outside of Boston had turned into a suburb while I was growing up. It changed and I didn’t belong there anymore. Rural Maine became my home and I’ve been here ever since.