Letter: Memories of Warren and Henry Thayer

I enjoyed reading Ms. Betty Cotter's column "Yankee ingenuity collides with the motives of big business" in The Sun on May 20. I can distinctly recall the first time that I ever saw Betty's father, Warren Thayer. Her mother, Ms. Crandall, was our second-grade school teacher at the old Pawcatuck Valley Grammar School on the site where the Charlestown Elementary School is now located. The old school had eight grades with huge windows to let in light. One day while we were in class, Ms. Crandall looked out the window, let out a scream and went running outside to greet a soldier. We learned later that it was her fiance, Warren Thayer, who had just returned home from World War II. As I grew older I knew Warren as a smart, hard-working man who always bought Studebaker flatbed dual-wheel trucks for his lumber business. Sometimes he would go out with my father and older brothers to the old Knotty Pine Lounge to share a couple of beers. He was as tough as a railroad spike and there was never any trouble when he was there.

I also knew Betty's grandfather, Henry Thayer. Now he was a dyed-in-the-wool "lumberjack," who would tell us kids such extraordinary stories about being in wood-chopping contests that we would fall over laughing. One story was that he appeared in Boston Garden at a wood-chopping contest and he chopped so fast and hard the chips flew up and blocked out the lights so the contest had to be called off because the officials couldn't see to determined who won. Henry would look at one of us and say, "Little boy you look like a weed that grew in the shade!" There was always an argument over who was the biggest liar, Henry or "Ole" Pop Jackson. Pop was never without a White Owl cigar between his lips, but that didn't stop him from telling tales. My favorite was about the time he was playing baseball down at Old Mountain Field in Wakefield. He said he came to bat and the count was 3 balls and 2 strikes. The pitcher threw him a fastball and he hit it and it went out of sight and no one could find the ball. A few months later Pop said he went to Block Island and happened to look at an apple tree and lo and behold, there was his baseball caught in the tree.

I can still remember riding horseback with my friends past Warren Thayer's sawmill listening to that big saw blade singing as he ripped though a log. Betty is right, big business is colliding with Yankee ingenuity. It has also collided with the neighborhood kids and interferes with them having the same kind of fun we had. As a native of Charlestown, I know that the old days are gone and they are not coming back. However, it's been said that growth is our only sign of life.

James M. Mageau

Charlestown

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