It was 35 years ago this month that I moved to Arlington.  At that time, I was completing my undergraduate degree at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and getting ready for grad school.

After leaving home in Grafton, I had never lived in any one place for more that a couple of years.  And such were my expectations about Arlington.

I thought it was a nice town, though I didn’t really see all of the qualities that it had.  But as time went on, I found that this town had everything that I was looking for – a diversity of people from all different walks of life, interesting shops and restaurants, easy accessibility to the urban center of Boston as well as to the rural northwest areas, a good town government. 

And it had a sense of history – oh, the history.  New England through and through!

I’ve lived in 3 different places here – two in East Arlington, and the past 17 years have been in the Heights.  During that time I’ve witnessed many changes, but I’ve also seen the constancy of a population that’s welcoming and friendly.  Neighborhoods that feel exactly as a neighborhood should – good, helpful people.

There’s a spiritual quality to it all.  It’s a town that feels like a good place for anyone to lay down roots.  For me, there’s an almost tangible atmosphere of thinking, of feeling – one that is a rich, fertile ground that nourishes those roots for the fruition of aspirations.

I may have spent my childhood in Grafton, but I consider Arlington my hometown.