Real World Stuff™
Collected Memories
of Ben Woodbury
October 28 – November 30, 2016
Program Room
Gale Free Library
23 Highland Street, Holden, Massachusetts 01520
Come see a piece of the Berlin Wall, a piece of Space Shuttle, a piece of the Moon, and hundreds of other memories collected and curated by me, Holden’s Ben Woodbury. There are Holden things, too: a piece of Scorched Brick from the fire in 1980 when Holden Junior High School burned; old wires, now buried under our new Main Street; and a piece from the Ribbon Cutting at the recent Grand Opening of the New Mountview Middle School.
For more than half a century I have been collecting memories in new and unusual ways. Come travel with me — around town and around the world — and learn how easy it can be to preserve cherished pieces of your own history.
Opening Reception
Thursday, November 3, 2016 · 6:00 pm
Time for More Questions
Saturday, November 26, 2016 · 10:00 am
If you are old, like me, think endless slideshows at the neighbor’s house; if you are younger, like my children, think obsessively sharing selfies. But unlike those selfies and slideshows, I’m not going to bore you with hours of stories. You are welcome to travel with me at your own pace as I give you just a hint about each of these – my – collected memories. After these few examples, you can fill in the rest.
Number 13 is A Canopy, Finally. Mobil Station, Holden Massachusetts.
This scrap of siding was found in the gutter along Main Street in front of the Mobil station. Earlier that day, they were putting the finishing touches on the new canopy over the gas pumps, and I remembered the years it took the owner, Jack, to convince the Town and the Historical Commission and the Local Historic District Commission that the world wasn’t going to come to an end if his customers could be protected from the rain, just as Mobil customers had been for many years before the earlier one came down … and before the high hurdles promulgated by good-intentioned governmental regulations made it so difficult for him to put a new one back up.
When I walk or drive by the Mobil station or see my piece of canopy, I think of what it took to build it – not of what it is.
Number 78 is a Piece of the Moon. A gift from my child, August 2000.
What do you think that means? Have you ever collected a piece of the moon? Has anyone ever given you one? My family knows that I collect stupid stuff™ and that I had always wanted a piece of the moon. Mindful of this, one of my children took one of my collection bottles (made of borosilicate glass with a Teflon® F-217 cap liner to keep things fresh for hundreds of years), waited for the full moon to rise over Kennebunk, and scooped up just that little bit of Atlantic Ocean where the moonbeam reflected off its surface. I cherish my piece of the moon.
I choose to believe that every item in this collection was gathered legally. I accumulated most. Some were given to me. And others I solicited from friends and family as I learned of their impending travels.
Number 64 is Crack. The Liberty Bell, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1999.
My niece collected this for me during her trip to Philadelphia that year. I had thought long and hard about how I might collect my piece of the crack in the Liberty Bell. But I wasn’t there when this one was harvested. So I don’t know what the reaction of the National Park Service Ranger – or the machine-gun-toting Homeland Security Guard – was as she approached the bell with her uncapped borosilicate vial to collect this piece of the crack.
All these memories are mine and they are how I choose to remember them.
Number 190 is What My Camera Saw. Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina, August 18, 2012. Number 191 is What I Saw. Same Place, Same Day.
It took me nearly three years to make the photograph that now hangs on my wall in Number 191 from the image captured by my camera in Number 190. Every time I tried to print it out, it never looked like what I remembered. Time, education, and some very powerful computer software let me finally pull out the fantastic colors I witnessed that day.
This show is the brainchild of Nancy Richards, the Gale Free Library’s Local History Librarian. I was just looking for a place for the executor of my estate to donate some of my Holden-related memorabilia to when the time came. My family has never much cared about any of this. She suggested this exhibition. Enjoy it in your own time. Think about your own memories and how you preserve them.
Ben Woodbury
Holden, Massachusetts
More than sixty years ago, when I was two months old, my family moved to Holden. I still consider myself a newcomer.