CHAPTER 2
SUMMERS IN NEW ENGLAND
This is a recent picture of Grandpa/Uncle's farm...my aunt/cousin and I used to sit on that front porch and eat ice cream. It's been updated since I was there in the 50's and 60's
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The field here is where the garden was. It was at least an acre of vegetables. My Grandpa/Uncle had a very green thumb. He even grew peanuts!
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In 1956, Grandpa/Uncle retired to a farm in New Hampshire. This became my summer refuge as my parents shipped me up to my Grandpa/Uncle and Step-Grandma/Aunt as soon as school ended. I spent beautiful summers there, catching pollywogs in the brook that bordered his property, chasing fireflies to keep in empty jars, raiding Grandpa/Uncle’s garden (nothing will ever be as sweet as peas picked and eaten right from the vine). We’d ramble through the brambles, plucking wild raspberries and making them into “jam” to spread on crackers for Cousin/Aunt to serve at our tea parties.
Grandpa had a dozen chickens in the coop under the barn, and we would let them out and then chase them around the yard, trying to catch them just for the fun of it. As the summer wound down, we’d help Grandpa/Uncle harvest his field. Then we’d watch him can cucumbers to ferment into pickles, tomato sauce from his tomatoes, catsup he made himself (I didn’t like it...give me Heinz any time!) and all sorts of beans, as well as what was left of the infamous peas, corn, etc.
I taught myself to swim in the cold Pemigewasset River at a dammed up swimming hole called “The Eddies”…I was never sure why it was called that, but when I was young and naïve, I thought that probably a family named “Eddy” lived nearby. I never learned the "proper" way of swimming, with your face in the water and alternate breathing. My kids, who all had real swimming lessons, always made fun of me because I never put my face in the water. I always told them it was hard to learn how to swim under a fire hydrant in Queens. That was not true, but it made for a good story.
Our afternoon routine involved going up the hill to Avery's General Store in this picture (it's not what it looked like in the 50s and 60s) and checking for the mail in the PO Box, and usually stepgrandmother/aunt would give us a couple of dimes to get an ice cream from the freezer they had there.
There was a little porch and a couple of steps and sometimes that's where we'd sit while we licked.
We made some friends, one of them being a French Canadian girl who loved horses and taught me how to count to ten in French. The three of us had many exciting adventures, including finding an abandoned shack at an inactive quarry that had piles and piles of magazines from the 1940s. We’d climb fences to pet cows, who apparently did NOT want to be petted and would run away severely frightened by this terrible trio.
My cousin attended a one room school house, which featured an out house. I know I would not have survived being in school so confined. .. and with no "indoor facilities." Not to mention the piles of snow that you used to plough through to get to it. I can only wonder the condition of the kidneys of the kids who went there until 8th grade.
Grandpa had a dozen chickens in the coop under the barn, and we would let them out and then chase them around the yard, trying to catch them just for the fun of it. As the summer wound down, we’d help Grandpa/Uncle harvest his field. Then we’d watch him can cucumbers to ferment into pickles, tomato sauce from his tomatoes, catsup he made himself (I didn’t like it...give me Heinz any time!) and all sorts of beans, as well as what was left of the infamous peas, corn, etc.
I taught myself to swim in the cold Pemigewasset River at a dammed up swimming hole called “The Eddies”…I was never sure why it was called that, but when I was young and naïve, I thought that probably a family named “Eddy” lived nearby. I never learned the "proper" way of swimming, with your face in the water and alternate breathing. My kids, who all had real swimming lessons, always made fun of me because I never put my face in the water. I always told them it was hard to learn how to swim under a fire hydrant in Queens. That was not true, but it made for a good story.
Our afternoon routine involved going up the hill to Avery's General Store in this picture (it's not what it looked like in the 50s and 60s) and checking for the mail in the PO Box, and usually stepgrandmother/aunt would give us a couple of dimes to get an ice cream from the freezer they had there.
There was a little porch and a couple of steps and sometimes that's where we'd sit while we licked.
We made some friends, one of them being a French Canadian girl who loved horses and taught me how to count to ten in French. The three of us had many exciting adventures, including finding an abandoned shack at an inactive quarry that had piles and piles of magazines from the 1940s. We’d climb fences to pet cows, who apparently did NOT want to be petted and would run away severely frightened by this terrible trio.
My cousin attended a one room school house, which featured an out house. I know I would not have survived being in school so confined. .. and with no "indoor facilities." Not to mention the piles of snow that you used to plough through to get to it. I can only wonder the condition of the kidneys of the kids who went there until 8th grade.
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It's now a seafood restaurant, and when I visited last summer we all had fantastic seafood lunches, including this lobster roll that was a 10 on my gastronomic scale for such items.
As much as I enjoyed being there, I was really always a city girl and was happy to return to the concrete and asphalt of Queens.
As much as I enjoyed being there, I was really always a city girl and was happy to return to the concrete and asphalt of Queens.