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Its tough losing something that means a lot to you, especially when it played a large part of your childhood. There are many things out there that will shape peoples’ lives, no matter what age they happen to be, but things seem to have a lot more importance to a young child. And, when that thing is lost, a part of childhood goes away with it.
On May 3, 2003, I opened the Providence Journal to find out that The Old Man of the Mountain, five granite ledges that formed a face when looked at in the right angle, had collapsed. This came as quite a shock to me, as The Old Man of the Mountain was something that I held near and dear to me. My family went on vacation to New Hampshire every year until I turned 6 (though I think I may have been 7, but my memories are sporadic). Being the youngest of three children, I had to take the three hour drive from Rhode Island to New Hampshire uncomfortably riding bitch and getting aggravated by my two sisters. We usually did the same thing every year: stay at a log cabin (though I have vague memories of staying inhotels as well), go to the Dairy Freeze, Whale’s Tail, Storyland (though I don’t remember liking that) and Santa’s Village. My mom would also spend a lot of time at a Christmas store (she loves Christmas) and we would always drive by Clark’s Trading Post, leaving me wondering why we never went. My highlight of the trip
was forcing my parents to go see The Old Man of the Mountain (which was maybe a 20 minute ride from where we stayed) two or three times while we were there.
The Old Man of the Mountain, which was also known as the Great Stone Face (made famous by a short Nathanial Hawthorne story of the same name) or Profile, was my favorite part of the trip, as well as a face that stuck into my head like an overly catchy song. The look of it-a large face (40 feet long and 25 feet wide) that looked life sized due to it standing so high (1200 feet) above Profile Lake-was almost God like to me. It was comforting, yet so terrifying at the same time. It looked out with a stern yet caring face, almost as a guardian angel would. I didn’t want to disturb it, yet I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. It also reminded me of my grandfather, though I’m not sure why. I think the rocky cheeks of The Old Man of the Mountain reminded me of the old and saggy cheeks of my grandfather.
I stared at his wise and nurturing face until my parents said it was time to go. I would have stayed all day (or at least until the bugs started biting)
had they not pulled me away to themselves from boredom. I found it amazing that something so larger than life could resemble man, though it was not man made. I remember staring at it in awe, wondering how it got there (it formed between 2,000 and 10,000 years ago at the end of the post glacial period) and what it had seen.
As we stopped going to New Hampshire, due to our getting a pool and other things that got in the way, I always remembered the face of the Old Man of the Mountain. It is a site that I always held dear to me and would think about from time to time, like a distant relative or friend that I had been meaning to
contact but never did.
I did manage to visit the Old Man of the Mountain during college. If I went between the time I was six to the time I was 21, I don’t remember it, though I doremember going to New Hampshire several times (one time getting a second degree sunburn throughout my face while skiing for the first time).
I was going through some tough times and needed to get away from everything. I was close to losing my job (sure, it was a part time job at a gas station, but it was good while I was in school) because I wasn’t getting along with my boss, and I was battling depression. It was early November of 2001 (I
remember this because Give Blood from Bane had just been released and I listened to it several times on the trip), and I made the three hour trek up there bymyself with the intention of escaping everything and visiting a childhood memory that meant a lot to me.
I made it there after a relaxing drive of solitude and the comfort of music. I pulled off at a viewing area and just stared at its beauty. I only stayed at that
viewing spot for a brief period because it was off the highway and I wanted to get a closer look. I got in my car and drove to Profile Lake, something that I don’t remember from my childhood and can’t recall how I actually found it.
It was there that I parked my car and walked the 1,800 feet to the lake, only to again be totally awestruck as I saw this gigantic face overlooking a small lake, almost like it was a pool specifically designed for the Old Man to swim in and enjoy when no one else was around. This was one of the most beautiful spots that I have ever been to. Granted, I’m not a world renowned traveler, but I can’t imagine a location prettier than a lake being looked over by a Great Stone Face. I stayed there for a few hours relaxing, thinking, writing and feeling the presence of something totally extraordinary. There was a write up, as there are at a lot of tourist sites that said that The Old Man of the Mountain was where to go to forget everything. I left for home feeling quite
refreshed and ready to resume where I had left off before the trip, thinking about how true those words were.
Upon hearing that the Old Man had collapsed a little less than two years later, I was quite stunned, feeling that I had lost a part of me. I still have
that section of the paper folded away in a notebook, as that article was not something that I wanted to part with. It felt like someone close to me had died,
and I wasn’t able to say goodbye. Its strange who we take things for granted, thinking that they will always be there because they mean something to us.
Just over two years have passed since that day, and I again found myself in deep thought about The Old Man of the Mountain. I knew that it was something I would never forget, but his memory gets pushed further and further to the back of my mind with each passing day.
Sarah and I had planned a trip. It was originally going to be to Virginia to enjoy Busch Gardens, Water Country and Sonic Burger, but that fell through. We then had our sites on Maine (my mortal enemy, but Sarah wanted to go) to visit her family that was vacationing there. We nixed that idea after her mom told us not to go because Sarah’s cousins wouldn’t be there and a motorboat (a good source of entertainment from what I’ve been told; plus, who doesn’t love tubing?) was broken. We thought about Cape Cod, but I suggested New Hampshire after realizing that I’m not a big fan of sitting at a beach. Plus, I would be able to take advantage of buying CDs at Newbury Comics without the burden of sales tax.
We headed up there the next day. Upon arrival, we ate lunch, played mini golf (we skipped two holes because we were stuck behind two groups of eight people-mostly small children-and one group of four), and went to Clark’s Trading Post (the bear show was awesome, though I was disappointed that Sarah wouldn’t let me smuggle a bear as a pet) before heading to see what once was The Old Man of the Mountain.
I had been preparing myself the whole trip for what I was about to see. I wasn’t sure what type of reaction I was going to have once I saw the face that wasn’t. I didn’t know if I would be able to spot where the face had been. This unpreparedness (you can never prepare enough to say good bye) left me quite nervous. I mistook a stone ledge for The Old Man before someone pointed us down to the 1,800-foot path to Profile Lake that I had forgotten about. We made the walk down to the lake and I saw what once meant so much to me as a child. I barely took my eyes off of it the whole time we were there, looking at what looked like a small tombstone instead of a face with sadness and deep thought. Sarah commented that The Old Man had lived longer than Christianity, which is quite an amazing feat. We stayed until the mosquitoes started making us their Thanksgiving feast, but not
before using my cameraphone to take some pictures for my memory.
As we were leaving, a strange thing happened. As we neared the parking lot, we walked by a family who asked me if any part of the face could be seen. I showed him the fresh pictures that we had just taken, and all the members of his family looked at it. They decided that, since there were no remnants of his face, that walking the 1,800 feet down to Profile Lake would not be worth it. They thanked me for showing them the pictures as we heading towards my car. I noticed that they were heading towards their car as well. I wanted to tell them about how much The Old Man meant to me and that it was still a site worth seeing even if his face wasn’t there. I wanted to tell them that his spirit still was, and always would be. I regret walking to my car without saying anything.
That family made me wonder if The Old Man would be forgotten as the generation who remembered him past on. How many people are going to take their kids to see a lake where a face once stood? Would the awesomeness of The Old Man be written off into the wind? All you need is a memory to keep something alive, but how long would his memory last?
Every good thing must come to an end, and the demise of The Old Man of the Mountain is a wake up call to everyone who believes otherwise. Nothing should be taken for granted, even though just the opposite happens. But, as I wrote in the above paragraph, nothing is truly dead until the last memory fades away. I plan on telling my kids about The Old Man, talking about how much he meant to me and showing them pictures in addition to taking them to Profile Lake to see the site on vacations. By doing that, I hope to keep his memory in tact, keeping him alive forever, even though his physical presence has descended into the lake.
Written by: RF