Water Closet for June 3, 2016

[pullquote]”In a bushy thicket down Lake Street near Aunt Betts Pond bog a large flat natural stone had been stumbled upon by her husband while exploring an old cellar hole. Danvers and Middleton graciously said the stone could be used for Chitose’s bench.”[/pullquote] Last November a couple weeks before she died Chitose Yamaguchi Messenger from Japan, who lived here in Middleton for 55 of her 86 years, asked her family that there be a stone bench near Middleton Pond to rest on in passing. She and good friends had hiked the three miles around the pond almost daily for 40 years. Chitose and another survivor of the group of four to six walkers often wished they had such a place to rest. After Chitose’s death on December 3, 2015 her husband asked the Danvers Water Department which owns most of the land around the pond if a bench would be allowed. Danvers officials said that one could be placed on the old pumping station lawn just a few feet from the pond and from Lake Street where pond-‘rounders pass. In a bushy thicket down Lake Street near Aunt Betts Pond bog a large flat natural stone had been stumbled upon by her husband while exploring an old cellar hole. Danvers and Middleton graciously said the stone could be used for Chitose’s bench. Stream Teamer Leon Rubchinuk who has a tractor and trailer moved the handsome five by three foot, one ton stone to its new place on the Pump House lawn. Later Chitose’s sons, Ben and Kenji, with long planks as pry bars raised it to comfortable seat height and placed it on two natural stones; one from their mother’s yard.

Members of Chitose’s family and close friends resting on her stone bench after a hike around Middleton Pond. – Donna Bambury photo

The late Chitose, Page Campbell, Jean Stewart, Rita Kelley and others now dead who joined them now and then on their early morning Monday through Friday hikes around the pond will be remembered with a bronze plaque mounted on the ground near the bench that says:
In memory of
Chitose Messenger
and her around-the-pond
hiking friends whose spirits
invite you to rest here
This story of the young and then old ladies who hiked around Middleton Pond was renewed for us again this month when cousin-in-law Karlene Johnson of Salisbury found a poem written by Chitose about 20 years ago in English for fellow hiker Jean Stewart’s 50^th wedding anniversary.   Chitose recited it at the anniversary party. Last Sunday it was read before family by Chitose’s granddaughter Olivia at her Obaa’s* Buddhist ceremony beneath the beautiful oaks of Oakdale Cemetery. Zendo monk Eishin Ikeda performed the ancient rituals near another natural stone from the woods, now a gravestone given the family by John Caulfield. Here is Chitose’s poem.
 Around the years we’ve walked
                           The secret places of Hepatica Hill
                           The magic field of white flowers
                                         on bloodroots,
                            And where the mayflowers bloom.
                               We watched a baby owl grow
                           ducks and geese raise their families.
                             Blue herons have
                                     their favored places too.
                             Deer and foxes, wild turkeys
                           Watch us from deep in the woods.
                         Lives of joys and sorrows we share
                             We all live in harmony
                          As round the pond we walk.
* obaa, Japanese for grandmother
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WATER RESOURCE AND CONSERVATION INFORMATION
FOR MIDDLETON, BOXFORD AND TOPSFIELD`

Ipswich R. Flow Rate (S. Middleton USGS Gage) in Cubic Feet/ Second (CFS):
For May 31, 2016  Normal . . . 47 CFS              Current Rate . . . 5.4 CFS
*Danvers Water Filtration Plant, Lake Street, Middleton is the source for actual precipitation data thru April.
** Middleton Stream Team is the source of actual precipitation data for May
Normals data is from the National Climatic Data Center.
THE WATER CLOSET is provided by the Middleton Stream Team: www.middletonstreamteam.org or         <MSTMiddletonMA@gmail.com> or (978) 777-4584