Transcript for the Piece Audio version of X-Town

X-TOWN/COLE ? 9-7-03

Track 1 ? THE QUABBIN RESERVOIR SERVES 46 CITIES AND TOWNS IN MASSACHUSETTS, MOSTLY IN THE BOSTON AREA. ON AN ALPHABETICAL LIST OF THOSE CITIES AND TOWNS... NUMBER ONE IS ARLINGTON... WHERE I HAPPEN TO LIVE.

[SFX: WATER TURNING ON IN MY BATHROOM.]

Track 2 ? WHEN I FIRST HEARD THAT 4 TOWNS WERE FLOODED TO BUILD THE RESERVOIR I IMAGINED A LITTLE ATLANTIS DOWN THERE... THAT THE WATER COURSED THROUGH SOME INTACT VILLAGE ON ITS WAY TO MY FAUCET. AND IT WAS KIND OF HAUNTING. BUT THE REALITY IS EVEN MORE HAUNTING, PARTICULARLY FOR SOME OF THE PEOPLE THAT USED TO LIVE IN THE TOWNS. AND THE LONGER THEY TALK ABOUT DANA, GREENWICH, PRESCOTT AND ENFIELD... THE MORE THE 4 TOWNS TEND TO MELD INTO ONE TOWN... AN IDYLLIC PLACE THEY CAN STILL REBUILD IN THEIR MINDS.

Ax 1 ? [MONTAGE ABOUT TOWNS.]
EARL: it was a very interesting little town.
BERTHA: I remember a Doubleday Store.
EARL: they had a store we had a hotel.
BERTHA: I remember the common and church?
EARL: they had schools?
BERTHA: ?school.
EARL: they had?
BOB: a congregational church?
EARL: churches. They had?
BOB: ?a?
EARL AND BOB TOGETHER: ?town hall.

Track 3 ? THEY TALK ABOUT THE FARMS... AND THE MILLS... AND THEY TALK ABOUT THE RIVER...

Ax 2 ? BOB: ?the swift river...

Track 4 ? IT?S THREE BRANCHES DEFINING THE VALLEY... GIVING IT ITS NAME.

Ax 3 ? BOB: The train that ran parallel with that river right through the towns was called the rabbit. /////// So we had the rabbit and then the rabbit left in 1936 and then we knew we were doomed then?

[MUSIC UP.]

Ax 4 ? BOB: this is where grandmother my father?s mother lived. And this little house right here? [AX 4 DIPS DOWN AND RIDES UNDER AX 5.]
Ax 5 ? BOB: my name is Robert wilder. I was born in enfield Massachusetts. I left there in 1938.
Ax 4 cont. ? BOB: now this is all under 107 feet of water so in order to go home again I would have to have scuba gear.

Track 5 ? BOB WILDER WASN?T EVEN BORN YET WHEN PLANS FOR THE QUABBIN BEGAN. IT WAS AROUND 18-90 THAT BOSTON STARTED SEARCHING FOR A SOLUTION TO ITS WATER SHORTAGE. THE STORY GOES THAT AN ENGINEER WAS FISHING IN THE SWIFT RIVER VALLEY AND NOTICED IT MADE A PERFECT BOWL. AND IF THE RIVER WAS DAMMED IN JUST TWO PLACES THAT BOWL WOULD FILL UP.

Ax 6 ? BOB: and the altitude was over 500 feet above boston. so an engineering mind says very quickly well if you can deliver that to boston you won?t have to pump it.

Track 6 ? THE QUABBIN WAS IN THE PLANNING STAGES SO LONG THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE THOUGHT IT WOULD NEVER BE BUILT. BUT THEN IN LITTLE MORE THAN A DECADE THE STATE FORCED EVERYONE IN THE VALLEY OUT OF THEIR HOMES, SHORT-CHANGING THEM ON THEIR HOUSES AND LAND.

Ax 7 ? LOIS: That was my childhood is listening to people talk about who was moving.

Track 7 ? THIS IS LOIS BARNES, FORMER RESIDENT OF PRESCOTT AND GREENWICH.

Ax 8 ? LOIS: How soon they were moving, where they were moving, who didn?t want to move. It made me a radical. It really did.
ME: HOW SO.
LOIS: well because it made me feel that the state could not be trusted.
Ax 9 ? BOB: and it will always be that way in my family. Always. We will? I never go to Boston I would never go to Boston if my life depended on it. Because there?s so much anger at what they did and the unfeeling? there was no safety nets we were just thrown out.

[retrack] Track 8 ? LOSING YOUR HOME MAY BE ONE OF THE MOST TRAUMATIC THINGS THAT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU?RE A KID. STILL, AFTER 65 YEARS, I THOUGHT EVERYONE WHO WAS THROWN OUT OF THE VALLEY WOULD HAVE GOTTEN OVER IT. BUT SOME OF THEM HAVEN?T. AND HEARING HOW THE QUABBIN WAS BUILT I CAN KIND OF UNDERSTAND WHY. THE TOWNS WEREN?T JUST DESTROYED. THEY WERE UN-MADE. BY 19-36, HUNDREDS OF WORKMEN FROM BOSTON WERE SWARMING THE VALLEY, FELLING NEARLY EVERY BUILDING, EVERY TREE.

Ax 10 ? BOB: At the end of it we would go over and watch and they would pile up the piles not only of buildings that were knocked down but of the brush that had been cut down
Ax 11 ? LOIS: They would push brush buildings anything that was left into a pile and light a match.
Ax 12 ? BOB: and I think the best description would probably be it was like stepping into hell. Because the whole valley was afire.
Ax 13 ? LOIS: It was fire, fire all the time and smoke. There was a real feeling of this is the end? this is the end.

[MUSIC UP.]

Ax 14 ? BOB: it was heartbreaking too because now for first time looking at denuded land you could see where bed of the railroad track you could see the foundations of houses. you could see the Path of river. So clear so well defined. and didn?t look so large. It looked smaller then. the valley looked smaller cause wasn?t filled with things.

[MUSIC UP.]

Track 9 ? IT TOOK 7 YEARS FOR THE VALLEY TO FILL UP WITH WATER. A LOT OF THE PEOPLE FORCED OUT OF THE VALLEY SETTLED IN THE SURROUNDING AREA. MOST OF THEM ARE DEAD NOW. THOSE WHO REMAIN TEND TO HOLD TO WHAT?S LEFT OF THE LOST TOWNS AS MUCH AS THEY CAN. SOME OF THOSE ARTIFACTS ARE KEPT AT THE SWIFT RIVER VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY IN NEW SALEM, MASS.

Ax 15 ? HARVEY: We made a little school room here.

Track 10 ? FORMER GREENWICH RESIDENT HARVEY DICKINSON SHOWED ME AROUND THE MUSEUM.

Ax 16 ? HARVEY: But anyway there?s some school bells. This is the bell that used to bring me back to class. [BELL RINGS.] So a lot of the? a lot of the? I can?t say a lot? people who did live in the valley like to come back and see these things. ///////// They can relieve some of their childhood here.

Track 11 ? AND SOME OF THEM CAN RELIVE THEIR CHILDHOOD BY VISITING THE ACTUAL LAND THAT SURROUNDS THE QUABBIN. THAT?S SOMETHING I WASN?T EXPECTING TO HEAR. MOST OF THE LAND THAT WAS TAKEN TO BUILD THE RESERVOIR IS STILL ABOVE WATER. SO SOME PEOPLE WHO LIVED IN THE VALLEY WILL GO BACK AND VISIT THEIR OLD ROADS AND CELLAR HOLES... THEY VISIT CELLAR HOLES THE WAY SOME OF US MIGHT DRIVE BY OUR CHILDHOOD HOMES. AND THE THING THEY SAY ABOUT THE VISITING THE QUABBIN... ALONG WITH HOW NOSTALGIC IT MAKES THEM... IS WHAT A BEAUTIFUL PLACE IT IS NOW... FULL OF TREES AND WILDLIFE, CLEAN SHORELINE. AND HOW THEY WOULDN?T CHANGE IT BACK IF THEY COULD.

Ax 17 ? LOIS: it?s very hard for people to change? and I find that I adapted to that whole concept that?s what life is all about. Is Change. And therefore I?ve seen life as a challenge rather than as a fixed place. Even though I long for that fixed place sometimes.

Track 12 ? EVEN BOB WILDER, THE ANGRIEST OF THE FORMER VALLEY RESIDENT?S I?VE TALKED TO, SAYS HIS ANGER?S BEEN DILUTED BY THE WATERS OF THE QUABBIN. HE SAYS HE?S REALIZED OVER TIME THAT WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS HOMETOWN WASN?T SIMPLY A TRAGEDY. AFTER ALL, HE SAYS, 2-AND-A-HALF MILLION PEOPLE IN THE BOSTON AREA NEEDED WATER. AND WHAT WOULD HE RATHER HAVE DONE? LET THEM GO WITHOUT?
BOB: it was almost the most you could give. When I join the service and we had a hot war going I thought that was the greatest contribution of my life until later in life when I realized no it wasn?t. that was my life this was two and a half million lives we were affecting. There?s the contribution.

[MUX UP AND X-FADE WITH SFX OF WATER RUNNING INTO SINK. WATER SHUTS OF AND DRAINS.]

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