Places we remember....

I still live in the town I grew up in. I went away to college and after college I lived in New York City for awhile but then I returned to the sand and the sea and this is where I raised my own family.

One of the interesting multi layered things that comes from living in the same place so long is how places change along with you. Lately I have found myself returning to this place time and again....

This is a pond where I came as a child when I was in a family "summer camp" while my mother worked. I learned to swim here, learned to catch frogs and toads, how to canon ball off a raft and how to swing out over the water on a rope swing. The woman who had the "camp" brought us here every day that wasn't raining and even some days that were....she let us run pretty free and we had a blast here.

Over the years the pond became a place where many people wouldn't go because it was rumored to be unsafe. Homeless people lived in the woods (some still do) and drugs were sold in the parking lot and other such things. The town bought it as conservation land a few years back, cleaned it up, put in trails and now it is a place where a lot of people walk every day. We come here often. It is quiet, peaceful, close to our home and full of birds, flowers and other wildlife.

And I can't help it, every time I stop and look out over the water I remember one of my little friends telling me how if I swam out to the middle of the pond snapping turtles would bite off my toes. He knew this was true. His sister had told him so.....He has since passed away but it always makes me smile to picture him as the little freckled, tousled hair boy who was always getting into mischief here but who was afraid to swim in the water outside the ropes because that is where the snapping turtles were....and he was right, there were snapping turtles but as far as I know, all the many people who swam across this pond retained all their toes.

Over 40 years, almost 50 years, have passed and still, those voices from childhood remain....

The pond is Hathaway's Pond in Hyannis.