 |
 |
A GATHERING OF
MEMORIES, SAUGUS 1900-2000
Author: John Burns, Chief
Editor
Genre: Non-fiction
(Approx. 575 pages with pictures.) |
One
day when two long-time Saugus, MA
residents were talking about the town
they loved so dear to both of them and of
its people, some of them departed, they
observed that it is easy to drift from
those memories indelibly fixed in their
minds to recollections over which a haze
is gathering, memories on the soft edge
of being forgotten-shortly not to be
memories at all. Their conversation
turned to the millennium, to the
celebration planned for Saugus when the
year 2000 is reached-to the part that
memories must play as the town gathers to
honors its past.
They wondered how they could respect and
honor what they have forgotten. How could
they stay the flight of those scattered
memories that have such a flimsy hold on
life?
Their response was to produce this book:
A Gathering of Memories, Saugus
1900-2000. Here they have collected those
cast-in-iron events from those years,
never-to-be-forgotten, and those more
fragile claims of their memories, offered
as a living, breathing account of a
century in the life of Saugus.
By its nature and its purpose, this had
to be a collective effort, and indeed
that is what it is. The response to their
effort has been overwhelming, from those
still residing in Saugus, as well as
transplanted Saugonians from Oregon, New
Hampshire, Maine, Florida, and scattered
places throughout the country. All of
them looked through their separate lenses
at their stores of memories and imparted
to this book an enchanting variety of
moods, of styles, and of viewpoints. The
stamp of their individual experiences
merges in a kaleidoscope of these hundred
years.
Their voices span seven decades of
speakers, describing their neighborhoods,
each voice distinct in itself, telling of
changes in our land, in our people and in
our way of life. And yet, in the midst of
these changes we hear a common chord. As
they speak of their heroes, of what it
was like to grow up in Saugus, of the
teachers who touched them, of the rock
'em, sock 'em politics they have
witnessed through the years, there is a
constant element in all of it that makes
Saugus Saugus, unique in its character, a
proud town, without pretense.
Here in this book is offered not a
history but a gathering of memories.
People long gone come shining in
recollection. People of great and varied
character rise from the past. Touched are
a future Pulitzer Prize poet who spent a
year at Saugus High School; a former
Saugus high player who participated in
the 1958 Giants-Colts overtime game, just
voted TV's top game; a Baker Hill boy who
won a Medal of Honor in the rugged
country of embattled France too soon
after D-Day; two noble brothers of the
10th Mountain Division who died within
two weeks of each other in the mountains
of Italy; a Campfire leader who took her
charges on a night camping trip and woke
up in the morning with all their pup
tents pitched on the fifth green of the
Cedar Glen Golf Course. Here there are
voices that sing and swing and carry
nostalgia and doings too important to
leave behind. Here are glimpses and
anecdotes and character portrayals. Here
is the hotbed of Saugus politics.
And names and pictures and maps and
long-gone in-sights, and a most splendid
cover painting of the Town Hall and
Soldiers Monument by renowned artist Bill
Maloney. |
| |
|
|
