Talk about a niche profession

This may come as something of a shock to my readers - it does to me - but I have never been to Walden Pond.

Sure, I read Thoreau way back in the way back. And I've been to Concord plenty of times. I've been (multiple times) to the Old Manse, where both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne lived. (And where Hawthorne and his wife, Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, charmingly etched messages in the windows using Sophia's diamond ring.) Multiple times to the Louisa May Alcott House, where you can see where and how Louisa and her sisters - the O.G. Little Women - grew up. Multiple times to the North Bridge, my absolute favorite Concord tourist site, "where once the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world." And multiple times to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, wherein lie the bodies of Ralph, Nathaniel, Sophia, Louisa - and Henry David Thoreau. 

But never have I ever been to Walden Pond. 

And if I were to rectify this and put a visit to Walden Pond on my bucket list - which surely I should - I would miss the opportunity to see Richard Smith, who had been Thoreau's resident impersonator since 1999. Smith, a historian, hung up his tall straw hat for the last time on Septemer 6th, fittingly commermorating the day in 1847 when Thoreau himself left the pond, saying:

...I feel I have accomplished all that I set out to do. I have discovered what living is all about. I have discovered a great deal about solitude, independence and self-reliance. (Source: The New York Times)

Having been Thoreau for 26 years, Smith pretty much dittos these words. 

Richard Smith didn't start out to be a Thoreau impersonator, where his work consisted of hanging out in the one-room cabin and educating all sorts of groups - high school kids, Thoreau buffs, and Unitarian church groups - about Henry David. All while in character. 

A history buff from his childhood in Cleveland, and a history major at the University of Akron, here's how Richard Smith tells the story:

“I got really involved in Akron’s punk scene and started singing in bands,” he said. “It was the Reagan ’80s, and we were standing up to who we thought was this immoral clueless leader. That’s when I started reading Thoreau.”

“Thoreau questioned everything, and that really resonated with the punk rock side of me,” he said. “I became drawn to the transcendentalists, their belief of nature being divine, and it’s still part of my spirituality today.” 

In his thirties, Smith worked at a living history museum in Akron, where he played a brickmaker and a schoolmaster. He took a weekend off and trekked to Concord. There, he was delighted that people understood what he ws talking about when he told them that he was a transcendentalist. He found his way to a job at the Minuteman National Park (home of Concord Bridge) and occasionally came to work dressed up as Thoreau.

The Walden Pond park rangers knew a good thing when they saw it, and soon enough Smith was spending his days there in his little cabin, or outside in his big straw hat. 

The gig had its challenges. Besides having to wear an itchy frock coat on sweltering summer days and forcing himself not to utter contractions, the job meant setting some Thoreau fans straight about certain things. He was not a hermit, for one thing. The cabin on Walden Pond was near train tracks, and he often visited his family in town, where his mother did his laundry for him.

I am not a big fan of historic impersonators. I find the staying in character - not uttering contractions! - cringe, and have always tended to avoid reenactors. I don't mind a guide dressed in period garb talking about whatever went on in whatever ye olde house. But once they start in on the I vouchsafe to impart to thee the receipt for button and wattle soup I tend to lose my shit. 

A while back, my sister Trish and I went to the Farmers' Museum (now the  Fenimore Farm & Country Village) in Cooperstown, NY. We were in Cooperstown for the Baseball Hall of Fame (of course). But we had very fond childhood memories of a visit to the Farmers' Museum (when our family took a long weekend vacation to Cooperstown for the Baseball Hall of Fame (of course)). So we went.

It was on the cusp on the off season, so all the houses didn't have impersonators present. But we looked in every window, and if we saw someone who looked hell bent on impersonating, we took a pass.

But even I might have enjoyed meeting Henry David Thoreau.

Seriously, what's not to like about fringies, eccentrics? And I suspect Richard Smith topples headlong into this category.

Congratulations to him on a job well done in his very niche profession.

Tomorrow is Halloween. I'll be at my volunteer job, doing my customary candy give out. I was thinking of going as an old lady, which doesn't require much of a costume, and maybe adding a witch's hat to complete the look.

But if I had a nice tall straw hat and an itchy frock coat I would consider dressing up as Henry David Thoreau. 

Happy Halloween to all who observe.

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Image Source:  Metro Daily News