A Look Back by Marjorie Martinez

Addendum

A Look Back           by Marjorie Billings Martinez 

Water skiing was very popular with the teenagers; I remember my older brother Bruce orchestrated towing five of us at once on skis around the Lake. Lynd Van Wyk’s visiting Uncle, who brought his beautiful wooden motor boat, pulled five or six of us, each on a slalom (one) ski, for a tour around the Lake. 

Besides official Junior Association activities, after we teenagers became acquainted, we often hung out together. I remember some of us swimming across Hatch Lake, beginning at the yellow camp dock, always with a row boat along for support. I believe James Christensen had the record time of 15 minutes while the girls took more than 20 minutes. Sometimes we’d play “king-of-the-mountain” on a square barreled wood float, it got pretty rough! Or we’d walk to the little variety store on Bradley Brook, where we’d sit on the store’s steps and drink, directly from the ice cold water cooler, an orange Crush or a frosty root beer. I once walked from my front porch to the Bradley Brook store on stilts, without falling off once (not to brag). We often walked to West Eaton or Morrisville, just to do something. I remember often driving to the dairy bar (possibly named Dairyland?) on Route 20, up the hill west of Morrisville. My friends and I would order french fries and just sit and chat for about an hour. I remember one time we hiked to Hamilton traveling the “backroads." Also I remember several times we climbed the hill behind the south side of Hatch Lake to a deserted, broken, run down house. Once on a return hike I stepped on a bumblebee nest hidden in the tall grass, and was stung about 15 times! Oh boy did I run, fortunately the bees were small so it didn’t hurt too much. In 1963, I along with others friends took “Typing” and “Drivers Education” at Morrisville Summer School. In the summer my friend Sherry Sumner and I would pack tuna fish sandwiches and we’d take her motor boat out to the middle of Hatch Lake and eat our lunch. 

Here is one more remembrance from those long-ago years. When I was 10 years old my sister Barbara obtained her drivers license, and she’d occasionally pile us all (whoever she was hanging around) into our family station wagon and we’d head out to get “half lost”.  Half lost meant you do not know where you are going yet you know how to get home. On these outings, after pooling our pennies, she’d first stop at the small grocery store in West Eaton (which has not been a grocery store for many, many years), and we’d each purchase a large dill pickle. Then we head out to the “wild blue yonder” to find a meadow with a view and eat our cold and crunchy dill pickles under a shady tree! I think this was one of the ways my sister gave my mother, who had five children, a well- deserved break.