Concord, Massachusetts, 20 miles west of Boston, looks too good to be true. Especially in autumn, it offers a “steeped in history” display beloved of calendar-makers and tour-bus operators. Country roads converge among stone walls and furrowed fields. Historic homes of white clapboard cluster near the center of town. Old North Bridge, where in 1775 American militia fired the “shot heard round the world,” spans the Concord River.
Atop a ridge lie the graves of eminent Concordians: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and much of the Alcott family, including the redoubtable Louisa May. On Memorial Day, trumpeters on the ridge and at its foot take turns playing taps, one bar from on high, the next from down below. The history on display in Concord is real, but it is also suspended in time.
