Young Wayne’s Burlington Adventure

Here is Wayne, with Freckles.

And father Max and mother Marge.

They live at 12 Francis Wyman Road, across from St. Marys Road.

Sometimes the whole family comes to visit. Grandpa Walter likes to read Little Red Riding Hood to Wayne.

But today, Wayne is leaving his yard with his Schwinn from Neilsen’s Cycle Shop. He’s going on an adventure. How far can his bike take him?

Up the hill to Cambridge Street? No, too busy up there.

That’s too bad, because Hubert and Mary Price at 5 Francis Wyman wanted to say Hi. Oh well.

The other way is easier. We’re passing by Manning Street, a dirt road.

Phew — a long ride across town. We’re all the way to South Bedford Street. Here’s Jon Graham. “You can’t ride this big horse, but there’s a place where kids like you can ride little horses. It’s in Burlington, but it’s kinda far away. It’s almost in Lexington. Look for the letter ‘J’ on the sign. That stands for me, Jon.”

Found it! On the corner of Middlesex Turnpike and Adams Street. That’s enough bicycling. Time to ride something else.

Ahhh. Much better. Let someone else’s legs do the work.

Hey — this pony is trying to say something to Wayne. “Better enjoy this while you can. Someday this land will be home of the Whopper.”

Home of the what? Wayne doesn’t like the sound of this Whopper thing. Time to go.

Fred Haviland will give him a lift home.

What’s that huge thing on the ground? Looks like a crashed airplane. And what about that big sand pit way over on the top right?

Fred says it’s not a crashed airplane. It’s a school. They’re building a new school in the wild woods where Francis Wyman meets Bedford Street. Wayne will go there soon. And the sand pit will become a bigger school, a junior high school with the same name as Wayne’s street, Francis Wyman.

Okay, now we’re almost home. There’s the top of Francis Wyman Road on the left. And then Cambridge Street going up and right. And that’s the new Leroy Drive neighborhood on the upper right.

Same area, different angle. Van Norden and Douglas are snaking through the woods on the right.

Now we’re REALLY almost home. That’s Francis Wyman Road going across the bottom. That nice house on the huge corner property belongs to Dr. Walter M. Wing, a dentist. He built that road next to his yard, the road going upward, for his family members. That’s why it’s called Wing Terrace. And there’s the brand new Morrison Road neighborhood, top right.

Home at last. There’s Wayne’s house and garage on Francis Wyman, across from St. Marys.

Well, that settles it. Wayne is pretty sure, definitely sure, he’ll work with planes when he grows up . . .. . . and here he is in Vietnam, third from right. He’s in the Air Force.

 

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Wayne Higden graduated BHS in 1966 and served as an aircraft mechanic during the Vietnam War. He now lives on Foster Road, walking distance from his childhood home on Francis Wyman. If you ask him if he’s lived in Burlington his whole life, he’ll say, “Not yet.”

Fred Haviland, the pilot seen with young Wayne, died in the mid 1960s in the cockpit of an airplane he built for himself. When it malfunctioned in Hollywood, Florida, he managed to steer it away from a playground full of children on the way down. 

All photos by Max Higden, Wayne’s father, a photographer in WWII who never gave up photography, war or no war.