Today our snow is gone and it's more like late October SHOULD be. I'm seeing a temperature of 45.5, but it seems much warmer now that the snow is gone. There are still a few showers in spots, but they are rain showers, not snow.

Just about the last of our summer residents have gone now. There are a few who always stay until after Thanksgiving, and a few others who will stay until after Christmas, but most are already enjoying the sun and warmer temps at their winter homes - or if they are Vermonters, they are busy with their winter life that probably includes work, kids, meetings, sports and bulky clothing.

This reminds me - going through the information we have gathered for the history of West Danville, I often find I have questions that  don't have readily available answers. I'm thinking about yesterday when I wondered to myself, when and who was the first to engage in water skiing at Joe's Pond. Not an especially important historic event, but still, I'm thinking, I'd like to know. I don't remember seeing anyone on water skis until the late 1940s. That would probably have been Bill Dimick - Grandpa Dimick, to our family. He was still snow skiing well into his 80s, as I recall, and he also enjoyed water skiing. It was certainly a big sport here at Joe's during the 60s and 70s - all the kids around learned and were pretty darned good at it. Just the other day Shelly Walker and I were talking about how many kids I towed with our inboard, "Raja" back in the 70s. I mean, all at once. Shelly remembers at least five or six at a time that we could name.  I was thinking I towed maybe four at a time, but Shelly remembered there being more.

What started me thinking about all of this was that in 1963, there were concerns at one of the Joe's Pond Association meetings about speed boats going too fast on the pond, especially those towing skiers. Whoever it was that complained about the noise and danger to other boaters probably isn't around today to see the pond on a busy weekend!

I found these old pictures - son Bill on slalom ski (he was a teenager) and probably Bill, Bob, Jamie and/or Tony Stewart in the SportYak - way before tubing was thought of. I cringe when I notice they weren't wearing life preservers in that thing! We had a different mindset back then, I guess. Sometimes I wonder how those kids survived. They did, and fortunately nobody ever got seriously hurt. They love to look back on their escapades. Bob is still a skier - both snow and water, but Bill rarely has time these days. Of course, none of these "kids" are youngsters anymore!