that one special winter day, or two . . .

I told the 9TS that after lunch with my buds, I wanted to nest in front of a fire, imbibe some wine, and snuggle up. Turns out we did our snuggling first and fell asleep. Ate. And roasted. So nice as the temperature dives into the 20's. Remind me again what state I live in! And so it made me think about my childhood and that one special winter day . . .

It had snowed the day before and almost a foot and a half of the fluffy white stuff was all about. And then suddenly, it warmed and rained and just as suddenly, the temperatures plummeted again and the rain froze on the snow creating an ice crust. At first we tried walking on it and discovered to our utter delight that it held our weight . . . and we slip slided around. Then someone got the brilliant idea to put on our skates and see if we could skate on it. To our 11 year old collective amazements, we could and did. We skated down the road. We skated across the yard. We skated on the snow across the frozen lake. The very best was gliding down the slope of our backyard, picking up speed and sailing over the retaining wall onto the lake. Take that you southerners! We spent the entire day outside until frozen toes and red drippy noses demanded that we head inside for the waiting hot chocolate and cookies. Do childhood memories get any better?

Oh wait, another one just popped up to say 'don't forget about me!" Do you know what black ice is? If you don't, your childhood was severely lacking. Black ice forms on a lake that has frozen before the first snowfall. It's a rare phenomenon since snow usually falls long before the ice has frozen thick enough to skate on, making it bumpy and crusty and needing to be shoveled. And what skating it was. Smooth, unblemished ice from one end of the lake to the other, black as night. Lolly and I were about nine years old the day we sat in my basement lacing up our skates and duck walking on our scabbards down to the dock. What an enormous skating rink we had . . . one mile long and 1/2 mile wide. We spent hours skating up and down and across the lake . . . joining spontaneous hockey games, drifting along with the wind, playing whip, stopping now and then to collect or drop off more friends, scarring the ice with figure eights, doing a couple of proverbial face plants. It was the perfect day that winter and for many more to come.

One of the lovely advantages of getting long in the tooth is all the fabulous memories to keep your heart company while nestled in front of a roaring fire while the 9TS watches the Vikings trounce the Phillies . . .

perspective . . .

I grew up in the Garden State and as we would say in the 50's, "Golly, it was fine."  And it truly was.  Apple orchards, fruit farms . . . oh how I loved the fruit farms, especially in the fall.  We'd load into the family station wagon, wearing blue jeans, toe capped Keds, long sleeved waffle T's with pictures of Roy Rogers or Hopalong Cassidy

emblazoned on our chests and head over toward Wycoff and Franklin Lakes on the winding back roads. 

After parking in the dirt lot in front of the ancient faded red barn, we'd quickly unload and head for the basket table.  Each size basket was a different price.  There were pint baskets, bushel baskets and the in betweens.  In late September, we grabbed the ten cent bushel baskets and headed out into the apple orchards.  Once among the bountiful limbs, dripping with their red goodness, we would grab, pull and twist until the apples let go and dropped lightly into the woven wood baskets with their worn red dowel handles.  My sister and mother were both taller than I which meant I was often relegated to the less than perfect lower limbed pomes.  Not to be outdone, I would shinny up one of the trees, nest in an upper crotch where the pickings were better and drop my treasures gently to the ground.  Life was good.

Later at home, my mother would start peeling and coring the apples, measuring Crisco from the can, rolling the dough, and mixing until the end result appeared at dessert hot out of the oven.  I was however, not a connoisseur of apple pie.  What I did love was what was referred to in our house as 'squiggles'.  Little strips of dough, twisted and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and baked until light and crispy. 

Which all leads me to the debacle today of shows such as Jersey Shore, The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Jerseylicious and Jersey Couture. Who are these people and what have they done to my home state?  The Real Housewives of New Jersey is particularly irksome because it is filmed in my neck of the woods: Wayne and Franklin Lakes, right in the center of what was once my fruit farm heaven.  Progress?  I think not.

The women of Pines Lake did not speak as if from Brooklyn.  Not to knock Brooklyn, but really, let's get our geography straight.  I can't image the women I grew up with uttering the "F" word with the ferocity and complacency in which it is tossed on these shows.  And although that particular word has crossed my lips more times than I like to admit, there is a time and a place and on national television is not one of them. 

And so I have trouble reconciling the image of Danielle Staub or Teresa Giudice scampering through the orchards singing, "A Tisket, A Tasket, my Green and Yellow Basket", while collecting apples to make homemade pies.  'It just ain't happening', she said, tongue in cheek!

And while I should end there, I cannot help but admit that I do stay glued to the TV during RHNJ.  It is my guilty little pleasure.  Something perverse in me has to see what they are up to now . . .

1958 . . . 2010 . . .

I think I told you somewhere along the line, that my parents went for a walk one day when I was in 4th grade and came home announcing they had bought a house and we were moving.  I was not enthralled.  I loved this little house:

It was built in 1942, a wedding present from my grandfather to my parents.  It was small and cozy and just perfect!!!  Both my sister and my rooms were on the second floor tucked under the eaves.  Remember the ever popular rose trellis patterned wall paper.  Yep, we had it.  Each room had a door to the attic and if we wrangled and wiggled all the storage stuff around, we could squeeze through from one room to the other.  Not something I think our parents had in mind when they sent us to our respective rooms.

But I digress.  Lets go forward to 1958 and that walk of doom and the house on the lake.  No more slow walks down down Cedar Road to The South Beach each summer morning.  No more hot footing it back over the baking pavement late in the afternoons.  I was devastated.

Now, let's fast forward to August 2010 with me cruising the web.  The house on the lake is once more for sale.  I found some shots.  Sorry they are blurry but I stole them from here.

Pretty sweet, huh?  Well, before you get all excited, this is NOT the house I grew up in from 4th grade through college.  This is what happens when you live in the land of McMansions.  Yes, they kept the footing of our house but everything else is totally different.  When my dad finally sold the house in 1990, they added a third floor, punched out huge windows and moved all the walls.  I barely recognized anything from the original structure.  Now, the yearly taxes are almost double what my parents paid for it originally.  EEK!!!

So what did it look like when we lived there.  Take a gander:

A little different don't you think?  I do miss all of those dogwoods.   And just for the heck of it, this is me in 1958:

and yes, I finally adapted to life on the lake.  We sailed, canoed, fished, skated and hot footed it down to The West Beach all summer long.  But the truth is, I still love the little house on Cedar Road and if any one came along and gave me a do-over, I wouldn't take it.  Life was just too good in the 50's.

1953 . . .

The year before I was to start elementary school, they finally began building a new facility, so unlike my sister, I would never have to be bussed some ten plus miles away to the Preakness School.  The best thing about this new school was its location . . .  a hundred yards, through the woods, behind our across-the-street neighbors house.  For four years, we crossed our dead end street, cut through the Burwell's side yard, up the now much trodden path and there we were.  Its playground became our playground with towering . . . now prohibited slides, huge swing sets, basketball hoops, sand boxes, hop scotch and four square areas.  A dream come true.

But what I really remember was playing there while it was under construction.  Our end of Cedar Road at that time, had all of nine or ten homes and twenty-four kids.  As soon as the workers left, we swarmed in, running down the halls, checking each room for the slugs punched out of the electrical boxes that we were sure would fit in the those old bottle holding Coke machines . .  . but of course never did.   We skittered, bent over, through the housings that would eventually hold the heating and electrical wiring, like moles in a newly laid lawn.  We giggled at the rows of toilets with yet to be built partitions, and danced through the would be cafeteria/auditorium.  A regular phantasmagorical kid heaven.

And as I was sitting here, reminiscing over the fun we had that spring and summer so long ago, I realized that while I would indeed be a member of the first kindergarten class at Pines Lake Elementary school, I was, until that September, all of four years old.  No one minded that I was away from home for hours or that we played in a construction site.  And, this was not neglect.  This is what it was like in 1953.  Hooray for growing up in the 50's!

on finding old friends . . .

I resisted Facebook for so long. Not that I object to new technology . . . it just baffles me until I figure it out. My kidlet is still doing the maintenance on my account but slowly I am catching on. It's fun to search for people. . . frustrating though, looking for female friends due to name changes, but I am, if nothing else, persistent.

First I accidentally found a listing for Kristen through Google which gave me her last name. YAY! But that was years ago. It took me nowhere solid other than giving a clue. Lolly I could not find at all. Who are these folks you ask? They are my childhood friends. I grew up with the two of them and lost contact after college. Gone with the wind. Poof!

But lo and behold, Kris turned up on Facebook and after two false starts, we connected and have been chatting for a few weeks now. But I wasn't happy having one without the other. We were the three musketeers. Nowhere to go on Facebook for Lolly. Stymied. So I headed in another direction. The white pages found me a man living in the same small town, whose first name matched her older brother's. Although he was not on Facebook, a younger version, same name, same general area, was. I sent him a message. Nothing. But through his "friends" I found a woman who might possibly be Lolly's brother's wife, Ruth! AND IT WAS!!! AND SHE SENT ME LOLLY'S email address, which means I immediately shot off a missive . . . and am waiting on pins and needles to hear from her.

So the moral of this story is. 1) I am a stubborn old coot. 2) You can't hide in this newfangled electronic world and 3) simple things, such as finding dear old friends, makes me very happy indeed.

home . . .

When I was seven, my parents went for a walk around the lake and came home having bought a house. One they assured my sister and me, we would adore. Wide eyed and in utter panic, I flew up the stairs and into my room tucked under the eaves. I hid under the covers, one eye peeking out trying to burn the rose trellis wallpaper into my brain for all eternity. How could they have done this? How could I leave my room, my home, my walk through the woods to school, the porch out back from which we fed Skippy the squirrel? It had taken months of perseverance to get that greedy gray rodent to eat from our outstretched fingers.

I won't go. I crept out of bed and put on my Gene Autry copy of Back in the Saddle Again, volume full blast. They can't make me!

But of course they could, unless I wanted to live in the woods and eat berries and roots. And Ricky, my very best friend, who had lived next door, had already been forced by his parents out of his childhood home and to the lake. Ricky and I were blood brothers, his grandfather having officiated. And now he was some endless five miles away. There was nothing to be done but grudgingly climb into the backseat of the teal on white, 1953 Plymouth and follow the van down to the lake.

My sister having not been quite so obstinate, had been with my parents to see the new house prior to the move. As we walked though the front door and down the hall, she pointed out my parents bedroom and then the next. She asked if I liked it and I admitted it was OK. "It's yours," she announced. "The next one is mine." And sure enough she had already staked out the lake front bedroom with her toys. Cross ventilation I would learn as summer consumed us, was tantamount to today's air conditioning. And the sweet breeze off the lake made me fume with jealously as I passed her room.

But the lake house did have its advantages. On miserably humid summer nights, when sleep was so elusive, my parents would walk us three doors down, to the sandy beach and let us swim in our pajamas, until our bodies were washed of the heat and sweat and could finally, exhausted, tumble into dreams.

Lolly, my sidekick and I played for hours in the lake . . . swimming, sailing or skating. It was, of course, the best playground ever. By the time we were twelve, we were invincible on the water. We'd wait for white caps before we'd raise the sail on the Snark and scream on long tacks across the lake, hiking out to keep the little boat a keel. Always up for impromptu games of ice hockey, we had matching scars under our chins from the many face plants on black ice.

But still, all these many years later, I remember that salt box house my parents built in 1942 on the dead end of Cedar Road. I can still picture the pine paneled rooms, the black charred bricks above the fireplace, even the eerie unfinished basement crammed with dusty jars of canned peaches, tomatoes and sweet relish. It was home.

EDIT:

We went north in the summer of 2003. There was no way, I was going to be so close and not visit my childhood home. The older shots are from the early spring of 1942 when the house was built. The other two, I took on site. It appears the current owners love it just as much as I did.

wood smoke . . .

There are certain senses that take you back to a different time and place. Wood smoke does that for me. Yesterday, it was chilly in the morning and so after having had a half cord of wood delivered last week, I built a fire. Wood smoke . . . that rich oaky aroma, wafted through the house, filling every space with its strong masculine scent.

Curled up in my recliner, buoyed by the warm air and the bouquet of roasting wood, I stared into the flames and slowly left for places remembered.



Our house on Cedar Road was a combination of salt box and Cape Cod. Small pine paneled rooms on the ground floor, bedrooms tucked under the eaves upstairs. The fireplace took up most of the south living room wall. Because of the forest behind our house, wood was plentiful and free and I'm sure augmented my parents heating bills.

Nothing better then to come in, half frozen, from an embattled free-for-all in the snow with the neighborhood kidlets, and be greeted with the warmth of a fire, a mug of hot chocolate and some marshmallows for roasting.

We lived on that dead-end road until I was seven. At which point, my parents went for a walk and came home having bought a new house . . . but that is fodder for another story.

Cedar road had only ten or so houses on the section south of the Drive . . . and 24 kidlets. Lots of playmates although we usually played with those exactly our own age. Who knows why. But the sledding in winter was fabulous. We'd start at the top of the Burwell's lawn across the street from us . . . it sloping beautifully down to the street. On the other side lay our very steep driveway, then the abrupt and harrowing fall through the woods and down to Haycock Brook and across to the gentle upward slope on the other side . . . where we came to a rest.

We would beg, entreat, plead and generally whine to our parents to stop the sandmen from dusting our street. Big crocodile tears would form in our eyes, only to be swept away by frozen snow clogged mittens . . . we developed wailing to a fine art those winter days. Finally, after one particularly perfect-for-sledding snowfall, our father and Irv Klein . . . our next door neighbor and father to three rather rambunctious kids . . . stopped the truck and chatted in earnest. We leaned in as far as we dared to hear the conversation and waited for the results. And waited, and waited until finally, the dreaded sander started his engine again and continued on down the street. We wept copious tears until we finally noticed he had left a six foot long area free of sand, right along our path. Such joy that day . . . such cheering and reveling and grabbing of Flexible Fliers. A line formed at the top of Burwell's lawn as one by one we waited our turn to rocket, belly down, through the course and down the other side.

Heroes were made that day and the men who left for work so early in the morning and returned often as not, after bedtime, grew in momentous stature in our eyes. Actually, until my father passed away in the summer of 1998, he remained my hero, my sounding board, my friend.

Such was life in the 50's.

the first line says it all . . .

"We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known;
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing,
Sing praises to His name: He forgets not his own.

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine
So from the beginning the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, wast at our side, All glory be thine!

We all do extol thee, thou leader triumphant,
And pray that thou still our defender wilt be.
Let thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!"

I still remember sitting on folding chairs in the gym/cafeteria/auditorium of the Pines Lake Elementary School, watching the lyrics up on a screen and following along, eyes glued on the bouncing ball. We sang with vigor, we sang out of tune, we sang with joy. Life in the 50's was good. I am thankful for growing up in the era.

I am thankful that today I got to sit at the table with the 9TS, Katie, Ryan, Jackie, Joe, Craig, Stephanie and Kaitlyn. That the 9TS is healthy. That there was bountiful food. That we are all safe.

Doing a little happy dance in my head while everyone else is at the car show.

indian summer . . .

Those wonderful autumn days when the temperatures warmed for the last time before winter closed in. Wearing red flannel lined jeans, toe capped Keds, someones hand-me-down college sweatshirt . . . Raking leaves with the neighborhood kids in Ricky Klein's yard, piling them on 'taters wrapped in tin foil. Watching the flames lick high into the sky warming our faces. Breaking into those chestnuts of goodness, plumped with goblets of butter. Best taters ever. Or baked apples dusted with cinnamon and sugar, eaten on the stoop with a spoon . . . still hot from the fire . . . my mouth watering.

Those wonderful days of scampering down into the Glen trying to scale the shale walls or searching for fossils or clumps of soft moist moss. Digging in the clay, making homemade pots and dishes. Picking Jack-in-the-Pulpits and skunk cabbage . . .

Pulling apart our roller skates and nailing each section to the bottom of a scrap of wood scavenged from a newly constructed house, we'd tear down Green Knolls Drive on our bellies. Skinned knees and elbows a badge of the warrior in us all. Over and over again until one by one our parents beckoned us in for dinner.

Florida is not quite the same as growing up on the lake but was reminiscent. Bright clear skies, cool breezes, a kiss of warmth in the air. Sigh.

snooping the net . . . .

I admit it. I spend way too much time snooping around on the net. But once in a while I find a gem or two that either cracks me up or takes me back down memory lane. Yesterday, I found both. This little goodie comes from an online version of The Handbook of Private Schools, 1920 edition.

KENT PLACE, Summit, N.J. A School for Girls. Mrs. SARAH WOODMAN PAUL, A.B., Wellesley. Miss ANNA SOPHIA WOODMAN, A.B., Wellesley.

Kent Place is a home school and a working school, providing an attractive home life and sound academic training from primary through college-preparatory work. There is individual attention and close contact between girls and teachers.

There are now on the ten acres of grounds four buildings,— the House, the Gables, the Gymnasium, and the School House,— with earth tennis courts, a hockey field, a basket-ball field, and adequate room for other out-of-door sports.

The Gymnasium is modern and well equipped. The School House was built in 1913. Especial attention was given to providing in the best possible way for the four important requisites: space, heat, light, and ventilation.

The House is devoted exclusively to the home and has room for thirty-five girls. The Gables, a modern private house opened in the fall of 1918 to meet the needs of the growing school, provides a home for ten of the older girls and contains an isolated infirmary under the immediate care of the registered nurse.

The school offers a college preparatory course preparing for the comprehensive and old-style examinations, and a general course which is largely elective and may include work in the Home-making Department.

Write Mr. Sargent, 14 Beacon Street, Boston—See pace 767.

MAY FESTIVAL IN THE SCHOOL GROUNDS

Here I am, some 47 years later . . . it's a graduation ritual.

Don't I look thrilled??? Not. Definitely, a "I think you had to be there" item but it made me chuckle. And just as a note, our class did them in. They closed the boarding department that summer. The day school is alive and well.

I also found this little description of my one and only venture to summer camp:

STAMBERG: Yeah. No electricity in the cabin, no running water in the cabin. They were cabins, and when it rained, you pulled a canvas curtain across the windows and you had to go down a little boardwalk to the facilities, and you brought in pitchers filled with water and poured them in basins in order to brush your teeth. So it was pretty rugged.

Trekking down to the latrine in the dead of night, in the rain, was not one of my most favorite memories. (We soon discovered it was easier, if not less sanitary, to sort of balance our bottoms out the windows.) Nor was, come to think of it, the poison ivy . . . a favorite memory. But it was the summer camp my mother had attended and so, that summer after her death, I too attended Camp Po-ne-mah. It closed down some 25 years ago. I was not responsible. For all that I didn't like and for all the homesickness, they had horses. Put me and a horse in the same sentence and I was, as they say, a happy camper.

My mother (on the right), as a happy camper . . . I don't think her butt ever hung out a window . . .



See the notorious windows????



And here I am circa 1962


All I need to complete the ensemble is an over sized pocketbook with a huge can of hair spray and a tube of white lipstick hanging out and I'd be the epitome of Jersey Girl style. In case you didn't catch it, I'm the tall, skinny, slouching one, second from the left with her mother's cankles.

Then, I found this guy's description of his drive around the lake where I grew up:

". . . I think I should take it once more around the lake. Then I think, no, that may not be a good idea. Let's be more specific about why it's called the Rust Bucket. The tires are cracked, under inflated. The chassis is sagging from rust. . . . So, I get in, and I'm off. Decide to head toward the bridge first. I figure if it's gonna melt down, it'll be after a ways, so I better get over the bridge early. Shouldn't clog up the bridge for my neighbors. That wouldn't be good."



Insert: The bridge is a single lane "road" running across the top of the damn at the end of the lake. Very narrow and very creepy. Water on one side and a sheer drop on the other.



"Well, over the bridge and off past West Beach, head poking out of the little thing like George Jetson. . . . Then it's off up around the bend, through the woop-dee-do over by Columbo's house. With thirty-five year old shock absorbers and tires maybe nearly as old, let me tell you, it was one heck of a woop-dee-do. Roller coaster class. Then down around the north shore. There it is, Indian road. I come to a stop and consider whether I should venture out onto a main road. Should I stay or should I go. The car is unregistered, uninsured and no plates. A wise man would have turned around and gone back the same way rather than keep going. I am not a wise man. I look both ways, then onto Indian Road for the 900 feet before I can get off onto the east side of the lake for the rest of the trip around. I should be worried, but I'm not. Wisdom is a burden. Stupid people are happier. I'm smiling my way down Indian Road like a bobble-head doll in a Tonka truck.

Then it's off Indian, back onto Pines Lake Drive, past a couple more walkers, a dog with a man on a leash, a nice old lady out picking weeds. Up the hill towards the school. Come on lil' Red, you can do it. Drop it to second. Fingers on the choke. But red puffs his way to the top without the need for extra oxygen. Past Pines Lake school. Then down the hill. This part could get tricky. Needs brakes. Real ones. There's a turn at the bottom. Oh boy, and there are cars parked on either side for someone's barbeque. This'll really make it interesting. Obstacle course. Well, I'm all in. Pop it into third. Head down the hill. Tap the brakes to make sure they're there. WeeeeeEEEeeeee!!! Lil' Red's tail is swingin' around like the town hussy at church, headed for a communion wafer and a sip of wine, knockin' down chairs on both sides of the aisle . . . Whew. Made it through the gauntlet. All parked cars intact. Then a nice leisurely spin down along the park to the Vale road entrance and safety in the driveway . . . . "

Excerpt from Jim Buonocore's blog "QBaroque". I finally found some one more loquacious than I. . . . wish he had more posts on his blog.

Did you catch his mention of the turn at the bottom of the hill? It was that hill, with my sister riding shotgun, that I first realized, at age 17, that braking was a requirement to successfully navigate that corner alive. It is also the hill I got called out for in the middle of 4th grade social studies for riding without hands on the handle bars. We all rode that way?!?!?!

And one last blog called: The Pines Lake Redhead:

"Growing up in Pines Lake was truly the perfect childhood for me. I couldn’t have been happier and I have only the fondest memories. Everything in Pines Lake revolved around The Lake. The social hub was South Beach. No, not that South Beach. During the summer there was every possible activity to do outside! Swimming, diving, sailing, kayaking, canoeing, windsurfing (does anyone do that anymore?), fishing, tennis, frog & turtle catching, basketball, gossiping, picnics, parades, arts & crafts, knock-hockey (anyone know what that is?), and summer jobs. In the winter, if we were lucky, we got black ice and could ice skate, play hockey, and ice fish."

"Needless to say, I was very active. I was out the door from sun-up to sundown. In the spring and the fall we played in the woods and I would come home with leaves and twigs in my hair. When the weather got warm and The Lake wasn’t officially open yet (open season was Memorial Day to Labor Day) we would go down to The Glen. We had to climb down a rock-face wall to get down there and no, we weren’t allowed to go down there. But it was so much cooler down there in the shade! We would catch crayfish and just dangle our feet in the ice cold stream. Looking back through the eyes of motherhood, I would have killed my kids if they hadn’t fallen and broken their necks first."

"There were two drawbacks to being the Pines Lake Redhead. First, I was the Pines Lake Redhead! There were two redheaded brothers that were a few years older than me. But as far as I can remember, I was the only redheaded girl my age. I was my family’s calling card. People wouldn’t have any idea of my parents’ names but they knew that they belonged to me. I could have never have misbehaved and gotten away with it. Well, at least it forced me to keep my nose clean." Boy can I relate to this!!!!

"Then there’s the obvious problem with being a redhead and spending so much time in the sun. I may not have tanned but I sure did freckle! Not much could have been done about it though. SPF 15 didn’t even hit the shelves until I was in high school and lifeguarding. Yes, lifeguarding. I’m in my 30s now and I’ve already had one piece of skin cancer removed and several other pre-cancerous spots."

The Glen:



What's truly weird about her blog as I read through it, is that not only do we both have red hair and grew up at Pines Lake, but we're both shooting with Canon D series cameras, have migrated to Florida and ruined our skin. Things that make you go hummmmm.

Anyway, that is Katie, me and the 10TS a couple of years back. I dragged them down to the Glen since we were up that way. That's the brook and the rock face behind them. Sweet huh?

No wonder I love snooping the net.

O & H . . .

Some friends of mine are sharing childhood memories . . the warm and fuzzy type . . . and it really brought me up short. When you spend 60 years creating 'life moments', it is sometimes difficult to zone in, on command, on something specific . . . which is rather odd considering I am a world class daydreamer. But selecting just one memory that sums up your childhood is as elusive as wood smoke wafting through the forest canopy.

I grew up with Ozzie and Harriet. They lived next door. Heck, they lived in my house incognito. Roger and Dorothy/O & H . . . one and the same . . . except Roger had a job and Ozzie never did. In the early years before I turned seven and we moved to a house on the lake, we lived on Cedar Road . . . a dead end street with a row of rusty mailboxes sitting haphazardly down at the corner. Twelve houses and 24 kids. Paradise. Behind our Cape Cod salt box house was a forest. Deer came up to the salt lick nailed to a tree behind the house . . . Skippy, the squirrel, ventured up the back porch steps to retrieve peanuts from our hands . . . long before anyone was scared of rabies and the like.

Haycock Brook formed the back property line and rambled on to feed into Pines Lake. Hours were spent splashing in that brook and canvasing it's banks, upturning stones, catching crayfish and newts, salamanders and efts . . . digging in the mud shoals to make 'pots' and other assorted crockery . . . scooping up hand fulls of clear cold water to quench ones thirst on hot summer afternoons. In the winter when the surface of the brook froze, we would grab our skates and dodge among the rocks following the brook upstream and deeper into the woods where here and there little ice rinks appeared in widened areas. Such was my playground.

Then one day, my parents returned from a walk to announce that we were moving to the lake. While I loved walking barefoot down the other end of Cedar Road to the lake, leaving my home to actually live on the water was daunting. But there it was, my new backyard . . . . liquid . . . and a dock. Over the years we acquired two sailboats: a Nike and a Snark; a canoe and a row boat. The Nike was little more than a bath tub with a mainsail and a jib; the Snark, an ironing board with a sail. While my sister commandeered the Nike, Lolly and I lived for summer storms to tear across the lake on white caps, tacking back and forth, hiking out, the sail of the Snark inches off the water. We went turtle hunting in summer and played ice hockey in the winter.

Ozzie and Harriet has nothing on us.

memories . . .

I was starting to reply to my friend Sue's comment, telling her I am a complete sucker for fireworks, parades, and family bbq's and got off track, lost in my own memories. When I was a kid growing up in the 50's, we used to have a Fourth of July parade every year. I'm not talking about the whole town, just the neighborhood. All the kids would dress in red/white and blue and weave r/w/b crepe paper through their bicycle wheels or clip playing cards to their spokes with an old clothes pin. It was a race to see whose bike made the loudest clacketety clack. There were little kids being pulled in little red wagons waving American Flags, old men in uniform, ladies bearing homemade cakes and pies. We would all march down Cedar Road to the lake, neighbors hanging out in lawn chairs in front of their homes to watch the festivities and cheer us on. Final destination . . the club house on the lake. Now, about this club house, don't be thinking fancy smancy, it had four wooden sides and a roof atop a cement floor . . . screened windows with wooden covers hooked back to the ceiling flanked one side and it sported one of those old creaky screen doors on a spring that closed with a resounding thwack! The work areas had been painted over so many times and blistered from the heat but those women would scrub them til they darn near shined. There were hot dogs and hamburgers cooked over an old round red charcoal grill, dripping with homemade relishes and chutney from someones spring garden, spicy potato salads, and coleslaw ripe with celery seeds. But those desserts. Oh my. Apple goo bubbled over the sides and out the air holes . . . blueberry crisps oozing with goodness . . . and homemade ice cream straight from the churn. Only the dreaded rhubarb pie sat forlornly and unappreciated in our eyes. We'd spend the rest of the day in the water until our lips were blue and our finger tips shriveled and water logged. We had sparklers when the sun finally went down but nothing so expensive as fireworks. No matter. We'd drag our tired bodies back up the hill and into bed, dirty feet and all. Those were days worth remembering.

i heard them before i saw them . . .

instantly I was transported back to those long lovely Indian summer days of the 50's, dressed in flannel lined blue jeans rolled at the bottom, soft plaid peaking out, purchased big enough, if we were lucky, to last two seasons . . . scuffed up red Keds with those big rubber toes that I still managed to tear through in nothing flat and just a stretched out hand-me-down sweat shirt over an old Carter's size 5 short sleeved undershirt . . . bobbing into and out of the woods gathering prizes, a newt on a good day or a crayfish hidden under a stone in the brook that ran behind the house . . . sometimes it was seed pods I stuffed in a mason jar . . but coming home, if I was lucky, I would hear them, that dry brittle scutter of faded leaves dancing in a circle, caught by the wind, rattling it's tuneless song embedded in my heart with the sheer joy of it. I would stand and watch them spin hoping they would stay forever and sometimes, not being able to help myself, I would join in the dance, arms out wide, spinning in the sun. But they never lasted long, just as quickly as they started, they stopped and lay as forgotten summer shade. I loved those dimly colored leaves and their dance.

So today in the vast parking lot of Publix, my head jerked up from packing the car when I heard the first rasping notes of the dance and the old familar tune, tucked away for so long in a pocket of my heart. For just a moment, as I watched, I wanted to dance with them once more.