Spring Meeting Photos & Childhood Memories

 Joe's Pond Association's Spring Meeting was held last Saturday and Jamie took pictures and I thought people who were not able to attend might be interested to see our Ice-Out Contest winner this year, Stuart Ramsdell, of Danville. The photo shows JPA President Joe Hebert presenting the check to him at the beginning of the meeting. What the photo doesn't show is that Mr. Ramsdell donated $1,000 back to JPA! We think this may be the first time a winner has made a donation beyond whatever was spent on tickets. Mr. Ramsdell said he bought several tickets and gave most away, but kept one for himself - which turned out to be the winner! It was a very lucky guess - April 14 at 4:02 a.m.!

The meeting was well-attended, as you can see - our meetings are pretty casual, and while shorts are the normal attire every year, the weather for this first meeting of the season doesn't always cooperate. However, it was very comfortable on Saturday, and everyone was in "summer mode."

New members, Grant and Kim Currie were introduced. The Curries bought Walter Ruf's cottage on Meadow Lane and have named their cottage, Camp Machaire - a nod to Grant's Scottish heritage, he told me. I learned that a meadow in Scottish is "machair" which means "marsh" or "meadow," and Grant added the "e" to aid in pronunciation, he said. Our other newcomers to the lake are Steve and Kathy Demars, who bought the Keating cottage on West Shore Road. They were not at the meeting, but I hope we will meet them soon.

Grant was curious about the seaplane landing and taking off this weekend. Joe's Pond residents are quite used to seaplanes coming and going. There have been a few instances over the years when someone with a seaplane has visited. There was Warren Weatherell, founder of Burke Mountain Ski School, back in the 1970s, and for several years our neighbor on the West Shore, Ned Hamilton, had a seaplane, so we often watched him taking off and landing. When the Corleys were on Channel Drive, they had a seaplane and gave rides as a fund raiser for the Joe's Pond Association at least one summer. Then there was the plane that towed water skiers during the annual Boat Parade and promptly got a bunch of tickets from the State Police who were marshaling the parade that year - I think it was in 1973. Apparently they were doing more wrong than just interrupting the boat parade. Grant took these pictures this weekend as the plane taxied up the lake and then took off.

So having a seaplane drop off and pick up passengers here at the pond is fairly commonplace; however, it is always fun to watch. They are in and out pretty quickly - and it sure beats driving in holiday traffic! 

We finally got some much-needed rain on Monday night. It's funny how certain things trigger memories, and the rain reminded me of how my cousins and I loved a good rain storm that left lots of puddles in the yard at the farm. This was especially exciting for me because my mother was adamant that I not go barefoot, especially around the farm. Now, as an adult, I can certainly understand why. There were cows, horses, chickens and a few other creatures using that yard, so as I look back I shudder to think of all
the bad stuff I was probably playing in. But my grandparents had no reservations about us playing in the mud puddles, and I swore my cousins to secrecy as I joined in. I remember feeling the cool mud oozing between my toes, and using my hands and feet to carve channels from one puddle to another rearranging the mud to create new waterways. We made boats out of pea pods from the garden or bits of wood from the woodshed. We built dams and created bridges. Our fantasy mud world lasted only until someone drove a pair of horses or a milk truck through our creations. 

 This picture is of some of the younger Bolton clan of 12 children my grandparents raised. The two little girls in the front are probably my twin cousins, Jean and Janice Buffam, who were a year younger than my youngest uncle, Bob who is next in line in the photo, followed by his brothers Bill and Jack and sisters Harriet and Mabel. This would have been around 1925 or 26 and as you can see - nobody wore shoes!! I didn't come along until later, but I grew up on that farm. My mother was a school teacher and I was left in my grandmother's care each day Some of my father's younger siblings, my aunts and uncles, were still living at home, so I never thought I really qualified as an only child. 

I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for the my mother and grandmother to find some common ground; two entirely different women with vastly different ideas about  raising children, I expect. My mother grew up in East Barre and was very much a city girl, so farm life was entirely foreign to her. She learned quickly, but she held her ground some things - like me wearing shoes. We lived on the farm with my grandparents for about three years until our house was renovated and ready to live in.

As a kid, I also loved spring rains when there was still lots of snow on the ground and we'd get a really warm spell with rain and water would collect in muddy ruts on the road. I spent hours "turning water" to open up culverts or drain big pools of water into ditches. That was a solitary pastime for me as my city cousins only came in the summer. Shoveling snow slush was a challenge because sometimes there was a dam of snow and ice and it was best to  stay out of the way when the gush of water and chunks of snow erupted. I sometimes still got pretty wet. In this picture, taken at my grandparents' farm around 1934 or 5, I was well equipped with boots, and I bet even at that young age I was playing in the water in that same farm yard with the family dog, "Betty" as my companion.

I guess kids and water (and mud) just naturally go together.