Belmont, Massachusetts

Belmont, Massachusetts has a motto. It’s “The Town of Homes.” Not very jazzy, but appropriate. We’ve walked for miles around this small town on our two trips here and one must admit there are homes everywhere. Nice homes. Lots of two story colonials with white as the prevalent color. The streets meander. There is no grid and Belmont seems to have more than one business district. We are located on the side of Belmont Hill, a low ridge that rises up from the Charles River flood plain onto a plateau that leads to Concord, Lexington and Carlisle where This Old House is doing their big project this year. Architecture dominates our setting on the hillside.
First there is a view of the Boston Skyline five or six miles distant. Down the hill is the Gothic looking town hall and other municipal buildings including the police station. The train station is a short distance away providing quick access to the city. In Belmont Center there are five or six banks, a fire station, pharmacy, Filene’s department store, a handful of restaurants including Starbucks, an independent bookstore, toy store, women’s clothing, realtors, dry cleaners, hair dressers and assorted professionals. Belmont Center serves the homes. There are no tourist stops. On the other side of the train tracks (both sides of the tracks are nice in Belmont) there’s a library, Post office, more offices and churches and a small town square. On the hillside, old frame houses are scattered randomly on side streets and along Concord Road. This is a fairly posh neighborhood. The Governor of Massachusetts lives up here somewhere.  The narrow track that runs uphill is a “private lane.” I think this means “unmaintained.” Lots of chuck holes. Along the way lives a lethargic old dog who lounges outdoors in all weather on a doggy mattress. Just past old dog is a black, cocker-looking thing with a bad temper who lays in wait for poor leashed D. who is frustrated twice a day in her thwarted desire to rip that black dog into little puppy pieces. There are two connector trails, walking easements that get us from one neighborhood to another without having to cross busy Concord Road. The second one takes us through a vacant lot to the entrance to  Belmont Day School a K-8 private school which doesn’t advertise its tuition on the website. Apparently, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. We often walk through the school grounds at pickup time when the mother/chauffeurs line up in a wonderful collection of new SUVs and vans to collect the kids. The campus backs up on the woods owned by the McLean Psychiatric Hospital which is affiliated with Harvard Medical School. They have many, many acres of woods and fields above their large campus. Apparently they have not always invited the public to walk and ski through their grounds but now they are courting the favor of Belmont citizens in a desire to get approval for expansion. After wandering the trails of McLean we can cross Concord Road and make our way to the Audubon Sanctuary, 87 acres of “urban oasis” with two and half more miles of trails. The Audubon has a big sign asking visitors to pick up dog crap. They even have a dispenser that distributes very nice plastic pick up bags and a garbage can for disposal. Yesterday there was a fresh pile of poop right next to the sign. We are very good about picking up the poop and leave the house with a pocket full of plastic bags—shopping bags, produce bags, bags that cover the newspaper. Even special biodegradable dog poop bags. A walk with dogs is all about poop. Will they poop? How much will they poop? Where will they poop? Will we have enough bags? How far will we have to carry the poop? There is a technique to picking up the poop, turning the bag inside out and double bagging it without getting anything on your fingers. Snow adds to the problem because you end up with poop filled snow balls and, thus, a bag of ice to tote for miles. We can return downhill the way we came or loop around through an even fancier neighborhood with large house on another private lane, muddy and full of holes. This route takes us past several large estates and back into town. On the return trip the dogs, having pulled me for several miles, are now calm, no longer making gagging noises as they strain against their choke chains. They are glad to be going home where they will begin waiting for their next walk in the Town of Homes.