Anthony's Pond

In the 50's and 60's, Anthony's Pond was one of the greatest places for a kid to be during the summer in Adams. Frigid cold water that ran from the top of Mt Greylock trickled into the pond and filled it. It had a small dam on one end with an overflow for excess water. The water was so cold that it was hard to get a body into it except during the hottest days of summer. However, when the dog days of summer arrived, it was a wonderful place to cool off.

Anthony's was a very special place for many reasons. First, the owner, Ralph Anthony, had built a concession stand for snacks, drinks, and pinball. It also had a men's and women's changing area so you could change out of your suit. Second, it had a diving board with lots of spring and also a high diving tower. The tower was a scary place because of its height and also, once you climbed up to the top, it was hard to go back down without looking like a big chicken. So you really had to suck it up and jump! Third: Anthony's had swings, a merry-go-round, and riding animals on springs. But my very favorite thing about Anthony's was the dance hall with the juke box. If you put a nickel into the juke box, you could play your very favorite songs. It was so much fun to dance to the music of the 50's and 60's in the dance hall: Beach Boys, Martha and the Vandellas, Beatles. It was such a fun place for teens and tweens to hang out in the summer.

Gram's House

Some of my favorite memories are from spending time at my maternal grandmother's house on Alger Street. Gram would let us roam down in the back of her property in the woods and along the brook. My brothers and I would spend hours catching minnows, small trout, and salamanders. The woods had a wonderful smell and we would hike through the woods to Bellevue Falls. In the summer, the brook was a trickle but there were many nice holes where the trout and minnows swam. In the spring, the brook was high with all of the melting snow and it could be dangerous...too many rocks and swift water.

We had a blast in the brook during the summer. We would use inner tubes and slide down the small falls. We would often watch the daredevil big kids jump off the rocks and ledges at the Falls. It was a dangerous place to play and kids routinely got hurt if they didn't jump into the right spots.

Across the street from Gram's house was a huge grassy hill that we climbed in the summer to stand at the top and fly kites. When the wind was just right, you could fly your kite all afternoon. My brothers and I and cousin Wayne would spend hours up there. When we were tired of kites, we would lie in the grass and stare up at the clouds. The smell of the tall grass and the warm sun was wonderful and I often thought I was in heaven. No cares...no worries...just warm sun and fragrant grass...wonderful!

The 50's

My under-10 years. The years of catching polliwogs, salamanders, and ladybugs. Wearing snowsuits to play in the winter and skimpy swimsuits at Anthony's Pond in the summer. Skirts and dresses to school!

Watching Ed Sullivan, the Little Rascals, Leave it to Beaver, Superman, I Love Lucy and Howdy Doody on TV. Staying overnight at Gram's and bathing in her huge bath tub with the claw feet. Riding bikes and playing with Bev next door. Cousins to hang with and get into trouble with.

Going to the Adams Little League Field and participating in the funny hat parade or the costume parade. All of the kids in town would be at the playgrounds to play games and try to win the contests. 'Arts and Crafts' day was my favorite, especially lanyard-making day.

I am what I am.

I am the product of the eras that I have lived through. Women in the 1950's were supposed to learn to cook, to clean, and to rear children. They learned how to sew and bake, how to plant a garden, and how to can the fruits of the garden. Many of them did not work outside the home and kids were used to having their mothers home after school. I watched my mother and grandmothers do all of these things. Was this the path I wanted to take? I was too young to know and as a child, I never thought about it much. It was simply the way life was.

In the 1960's, so many events were happening all around us...and women began to change. I saw it happening. Rock and roll music was beginning to emerge as a major art form. People were using drugs as a way to expand their minds and to have experiences they had never had before. Women chose to experience all of these things and to begin to take more control over their bodies and minds. The new wave of feminism across the US was very exciting and I began to think about myself in terms of the new feminism. After all, I was a teenager during this time...and impressionable.

Feminism was a term I thought about many times. Was I a feminist? I certainly thought that men and women should have equal opportunities for jobs and that they should be paid equally. I did major in a typically male-dominated field...science. Why? 1. I guess it was because even though my parents had never gone to college, they always told me that I could do anything I wanted. and 2. I was sincerely interested in my major...microbiology. I wanted to do something fresh and interesting. Was it male-dominated? Yes. But I never felt that my professors were discouraging any of the women in my classes. We were treated exactly the same.

The birth control pill was perfected in the 1960's and for the first time, women could experience the freedom to make the decision not to have children or to control the number of children they wanted to have. Of course the pill was not without controversy. The Catholic Church was against it. And women could choose to have more sexual freedom because they no longer had to worry about becoming pregnant. Our morals changed. We could choose to have several sexual partners and to not have babies. Wow! This fact certainly shaped my life...not in a bad, promiscuous way, but just to realize that this was truly a freedom for women.

The Viet Nam war affected all of us left behind in the US. In the late 1960's, the first of the men who went off to Viet Nam began to come home in boxes, to have their funerals as victims of the war. Chucky Hartlage's older brother was one of the first from Adams to come home in a box. It was so sad to realize that Chucky would never have his older brother to talk to again. We all felt the family's pain. The rock music of the Viet Nam era affected me. It was sometimes hard to listen to. The words hit me like a brick and even now, when I hear those old songs, the memories flood back to me. The war protesters I saw on TV also affected how I felt about myself. I wanted to join them, but because the violence was a part of what they were experiencing, I could never bring myself to do such a thing. In my heart I knew they were right. The Viet Nam war was a terrible thing.

The 1960's were also a time of racial violence. It was ingrained in my mind that we were all equal, blacks and whites, and my mind wrestled with the violence I saw on TV. After all, I think there was only one black family in Adams at that time. The mother was a teacher and we were taught to respect her. We didn't see them as different; the family did all the same things normal white people in Adams did. Why were blacks in Alabama and Mississippi different from us? It made no sense. I remember being horrified over the violence in the south and being so impressed by Martin Luther King Jr. He seemed to be so gentle and his speeches moved me.

All of the new ideas and the events of the 1960's shaped me into the person I am. I am fiercely independent, free-thinking, unconservative, nonconformist in many ways, and just as good as any man.

Softball Beginnings

I was the only girl in my family and I was stuck playing "boy" games with my two brothers. My Dad treated us as equals and at an early age, I learned how to play baseball with my brothers. My Dad practiced hitting, running, and catching with us and soon, I was as good as my brothers. I started playing softball with the girls at the Adams Little league Field playground when I was in the third grade. I was one of the smallest and youngest girls but, for my age, I was not half bad. My friend Bev and I would practice with the team and play games against other towns. It was always fun to play against the girls from Cheshire. It was a great rivalry becuase they were from the next town south of Adams.

I played softball on an Adams recreational league team until I was a junior in high school. It wasn't cool for girls to do this in the early 60's and less athletic girls always made fun of us. We didn't have regular high school leagues like the boys and it was difficult for girls who liked to play. I played on a high school "round robin" team...we had certain days after school when a couple of other high school teams would come and play shortened games. It wasn't really as much fun as "official" league games and the rules were bent slightly. But in the summer, the Adams playground teams either played each other or we played teams from Pittsfield, North Adams, Cheshire, etc.

I always wanted to play Little League and Babe Ruth baseball but girls were not allowed. It was very hard to watch my brothers do something that I could not. Discrimination was not fun and I definitely felt it.

More about elementary school

In the 50's and 60's, the teachers were scary. They yelled and pulled you aside quickly to make known what you did wrong. One of the scariest was Miss Holleran....1st grade. Her personality reflected her name...she was quick and sharp and she raised her voice a lot. Miss Holleran loved spelling bees. She would make us line up along the walls and spell. If we missed the word she gave us, it was sit-down time. We played until the very end...only one person standing. Sometimes it was me...I was a pretty good speller.

Miss McGrath was another scary teacher...she teased her hair and colored it brown to hide the fact that it was becoming gray. She became Principal when I was a 3rd grader and I had her for half of the day when I was a fourth grader. She wasn't a bad teacher but she was famous for being loud and scary. She taught mornings while Miss Brodeur taught afternoons. I liked Miss Brodeur better. She was young, pretty, and nice.

Bald Eagle was my 6th grade teacher. Some day I will remember her real name, but it escapes me at the moment. She was tall and had gray hair that she combed up to cover the bald spot on the top of her head. It was a sad fact that she was not well-liked and the class as a whole made fun of her. Poor Bald Eagle.

Elementary School

In the 60's, it was still the norm to have female teachers and my school was no exception. Mrs. Beaudin, Miss Holleran, Mrs. McGrath were just a few. Mr. Baker, the lone male teacher for the 5th grade class, was one of my favorites. I admired the way he tried to sing...he really had no talent but he tried so hard. He taught us the colonial ditty, "My Hat...It had Three Corners", a reference to the tricorn chapeau worn by men in the glory days of the 13 colonies. I still remember the tune and how we did the hand movements to go along with the words!

Mrs. Hakes was the music teacher for all 5 elementary schools and she was the director of the infamous "4th Grade Concert". The concert was composed of the best singers from all of the elementary schools. Now, singing has never been one of my talents. I do not know how I was chosen; I do remember being terrified of auditioning in front of Mrs. Hakes. She alone chose the students who were to participate. To this day, I remember being in the alto portion of the group, singing patriotic songs such as "You're a Grand Old Flag!" in the 4th grade concert.

More Friends

When you are a member of a class of about 25 kids in a neighborhood school, everyone knows you and you automatically have many good friends. I grew up going to school with the same 25 kids from kindergarten to the sixth grade. By then, it was a refreshing relief to move on to the junior high where one was grouped with other students of the same ability and one could make friends with many of the other kids in town. I'll have to save the challenges of junior high for another day.



Like most of the students in my elementary classes, we knew each other well. We played games on the playground...hop scotch, dodgeball, tag, kick the can, marbles, wiffle ball. There are a few girls I remember fondly because we played together on a regular basis....Ann, Shirley, Linda, Patty, Cheryl, Donna, Frances...and of course, Barbara. The boys rarely let most girls play their games, but we didn't care. In the pretty cotton dresses and Keds that we all wore, we had our own fun girl games. We only played with the boys for "Red Rover" or dodgeball...and, we could hold our own. Only the slowest heavier girls could not dodge the balls the boys could throw at us.

Some of the boys I remember like Kevin, Wayne, Albion, Kim, Jimmy, and Stan were incessant teases and would only let the best, most athletic girls play with them ever. I was one of those girls. I could run, jump, and play wiffleball with the best of the boys. And, I loved that I was just as good as they were. It set me apart from the other girls and made me different. I knew I had the respect and admiration of the boys like no other girl did. I frequently played wiffleball with the boys after school...and I was never the last person chosen for the team.

Friends

When you grow up in a very small town, you make and keep friends for a very long time. I have been friends with Barbara since I was 4 years old. Barbara lived across the street with me and we walked to school together every day. Her parents had come to the United States from Germany after World War II. Barbara had an older sister and brother. Gaby was about 4 years older and Mike was just one year ahead of Barb. Barbara's parents had thick German accents and sometimes they were hard to understand, but they were wonderful people. Barb's Mom made all sorts of German desserts. The family was known for the parties they threw, mostly for their German friends. I was envious...they would stay up most of the night having a good time.

Barbara was so much fun. We would giggle and laugh for hours! She was the kind of friend you dream about...one who would stick by you, no matter what. We would talk for hours on the phone when we were in high school, about boys, clothes, school, friends. She has lived in Germany for 30 years and, during the few times we have been able to get together over the years, you would never know we had ever been apart!

Very Old Memories

What do I remember about my early childhood? Our old apartment with the gas stove in the kitchen, linoleum, and my very tiny bedroom. We lived there until I was 5...on the second floor of an apartment building on North Summer St. One of my best friends...Barbara...lived across the street. Slosek's Lumber Yard was just down the street. My brother Bruce loved the Slosek brothers; they used to take him riding in the delivery truck when they rode around town.

I walked to Hoosac St School when I was in kindergarten. The school was a two-story red brick building that smelled of wood and polish, that typical old-school smell. The principal's office was on the second floor and from her office, she could look down the stairs and see any misbehaving kids. There was a schoolyard in the back (for games of dodge ball, tag, and red rover) and two sets of swings on either side. Next door to the school was the Polish bakery...pastries, bread, and rolls that you could smell baking across the school yard...mouth-watering good!

The kindergarten room was on the first floor. We hung our coats and stored our winter boots in the old-fashioned cloak room. The cloak room was a long, narrow room with a wooden floor. It had rows of hooks for coats and hats. In the winter, the cloak room was crowded with kindergarteners removing hats, mittens, snow pants, coats, and boots. And it was usually loud with the laughter of friends and colleagues.

The classroom was filled with rows of wooden desks and chairs, the kind that were bolted to the floor. In 1957, they were the kind that still had an inkwell and an indentation in the top of the desk in which to put a pencil. The desk top was slanted and worn, in need of refinishing. The top lifted up and one kept books and a pencil case inside. The walls were standard issue: Abraham Lincoln and George Washington's portraits on opposite walls, the American flag at the front of the room above the blackboard. The teachers desk was large and wooden at the front of the room. The rear of the kindergarten room was the best part though...it had a table large enough for about 6 people and brightly colored chairs...the only bright spot in the whole room. It was at that table that we learned to read...my all-time favorite kindergarten activity!

Mrs. Beaudin, my teacher, was scary. She was tall and had a very loud voice that became sharp when she demanded attention. On Valentine's Day, she told me, dressed in my red velvet skirt and white blouse, that I looked good enough to eat. I took it literally and was not sure I liked her at all! We girls all wore dresses to school and, in the winter, pants under our dresses to keep our legs warm. My best friends were Patty and Barbara, girls who lived close to me and with whom I walked to school every day.

My Mom did not always have an easy life. Early in their marriage, after I was born, my Dad was laid off for various lengths of time. He worked at the Arnold Print and later GE. Blue collar workers had it rough and when the GE did not need you for a while, you were gone. So my Mom had to go to work. She worked mostly as a secretary, for Sprague Electric and then for a lawyer in town. My Mom is a very good cook and she used what she had to make creative meals. I loved her spaghetti, roast beef, and chicken soup. Later, she learned the art of Polish cooking from my Babciu and she makes wonderful golabki and pierogi. She learned how to make pies from Other Gram and how to make nut rolls from our neighbor, Mrs. Mecher. Mom taught herself to sew and made numerous outfits for the two of us; later, when I was in high school, she taught me how to sew.

My Dad has always been one of the most patient people I have ever known. He was always handy with whatever needed to be done around the house. He fixed cars, did plumbing and carpentry, put up wall paper, scraped the woodwork, repainted, and stained furniture. He taught us how to play baseball and how to fish and swim. We took long hikes around Mt Greylock and other local places. He worked the second shift at the GE and we rarely saw him during the week but he always made time for us on the weekends.

I was born in 1952, about 11 months after my parents were married. My brother Bruce was born 2 years later, to the very day...October 26. Bruce was a funny kid who had the most awful tantrums if he could not have his own way. I remember him as always having a bandaid on his forehead as a 2-3-year-old because he banged his head on the floor during those tantrums. When I was 5, we moved into a house and just after we moved, in 1958, my brother Paul came along. Paul was a sweet baby but he did not want to speak until about the age of 2. He has not stopped talking since. Jason, the last of the clan, was born in 1968, when I was already almost into my junior year of high school. Though he was a great baby, it was almost embarassing to acknowledge that my parents were sexually active. Needless to say, babysitting became one of my sisterly duties.

My mother, Pauline, according to my parents' stories, met my father at a mens' league softball game. I guess they hit it off quickly and were married within 2 years of meeting. She was 3 years younger than my dad, having graduated from high school in 1949. She worked at Woolworth's and later as a secretary at Sprague Electric.

My paternal grandmother, Helen, was also an accomplished needle-worker. She crocheted and embroidered. One of her favorite things was to embroider tablecloths, bureau scarves, and pillows, and then to crochet a pretty lacy border. She had learned well the art of Polish cooking and helped Babciu make the kapusta, borscht, pierogi, kielbasa, and golabki. I loved to eat at their house during the holidays...the unmistakable smell of cabbage in the air. My grandmother always had orange soda and cookies of some sort for the grandchildren. Helen was a small woman with tight curly gray hair and glasses. She was an adventuresome sort, having lived with my uncle in Boston for several years. She and Babciu had an apartment at the top of Victory St hill on the east side of town, just past the PNA and ZPRK Halls, across the street from Zepka's florist.

All of my grandparents and great grandparents had worked in the Berkshire Mills. The Berkshire Mills were involved with cotton manufacturing, owned by the Plunketts and run for many years as the major industry of northern Berkshire County. The trains would bring cotton from the south and the mills would spin cotton thread and manufacture cloth. The looms were massive and filled the mills to capacity. Everyone in town worked at the mills at one time or another and my family was no exception. Even my Dad had worked there for a time. However, in the 1950's, the cotton manufacturing industry began to leave the area, bound for the cheaper mills of the Carolinas. Several of the old mills still stand, though they have been long empty of the old looms. Many remain as apartment housing for the locals; some contain new businesses.

My parents came from two very different backgrounds. My maternal grandmother, Esmeralda, was English and her family had lived in New England for several generations. My maternal grandfather, Henry, had come to New England from Germany as a young man. My grandparents' children included my mother, Pauline, and her sister Jean, who was 6 years younger. They all lived with my great grandmother, Elva, in a large farmhouse in a very small town in northwestern Massachusetts. Elva and her sister, Burt, lived in the old farmhouse together, but separated by the walls of their own living quarters. Burt lived on one side, in an apartment connected to the rest of the house. Elva and her family lived in the larger part of the two-story white house at the top of a hill.

My maternal grandmother was a tiny, gray-haired lady whose gray tresses slowly changed to an incredibly shiny silver and finally to snowy white. Esmeralda walked with a very quick step and she could walk from one end of town to the other. She never developed a passion for cooking but she could click the knitting needles with the best in town. Her crocheting was superb and she made everything from hats and scarves to skirts and tablecloths. Esmeralda made so many hats with metallic bangles crocheted into them that before long, everyone in town had one. My favorite teacher Christmas gift was one of her hankies with the lacy crocheted edges. She made so many crocheted sweater vests for me that I had one in every color. When I was in high school, she made me a dark green matching crocheted vest and skirt (with a satin underslip made by my mother)....a mini-skirt, course...it was the 60's...one-of-a-kind...I still have it.

My maternal grandfather was tall, had thinning gray hair and blue eyes, and wore small round wire-frame glasses. He worked at the Arnold Print Works when I was little and he always brought home Hershey's chocolate bars when my brothers and I visited. We loved him for that. What a great treat! My grandfather became blind when I was in late elementary school and he would sit on the front porch for hours, listening to the Red Sox on the radio. I liked to sit with him and listen. He died when I was in the ninth grade and then I missed those warm summer days on the porch.

My great grandmother Elva has always been one of my favorite people. Because we did not understand the words, "great grandmother", we simply called her "Other Gramma". An extremely patient person, she would often take time from her daily chores to play with us...dominoes, "Go Fish!", Crazy 8's, War. When we were little, the special game was "Button, button, who's got the button?"...we would play for an hour. Elva loved to walk from the house to the brook and back, picking wild flowers the whole way. She would take us with her and would show us where the violets, buttercups, and daisies grew. We would delight in finding a "Jack-in-the-Pulpit" or a red or white Trillium. The lily of the valley was my favorite, fragrant and delicate, the small white bells cascading from straight stems. Sometimes, when the season was right, we would find rhubarb in her garden, pick it and eat it with sugar back at the house. Elva always had a good-sized garden for fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, and corn in the summer. She grew dill and canned pickles. An old-fashioned New Englander, she made baked beans often, and was fond of brewing dandelion wine and root beer. She was a stout woman with long gray hair that she braided into a long thin braid which was wound around into a bun at the back of her head. Always in a cotton dress, the staple of her wardobe was a full cotton apron for protection. She made quilts, crocheted, tended the plants, and was the house cook. Her apple pies were to-die-for-good, sweet with a perfect crust. When I was in college, she would send me one via my parents. My friends and I would devour it! She also made wonderful wedding cakes...hers were applesauce-raisin, more like a fruitcake, but very moist and soft...dressed up with a buttercream icing...wish I had her recipe!

My paternal great grandparents were Polish and they arrived in New England from Poland in the early 20th century. They too settled in the same mill town in Massachusetts. I only remember my great grandmother, my great grandfather having passed away before I was born. Her name was Mary, but we called her "Babciu", grandmother in Polish. She spoke almost no English, but she understood more than she let on. I remember that she always seemed to be happy. She laughed easily and often. Her cure for rambunctious kids was to open a closet door and remove a big box of old toys for us to play with. We were always anxious to see what was in the box and we were always happy to play. She was a wonderful Polish cook: her pierogi were to-die-for...perfectly soft dough with many different fillings. My favorites were her kapusta, a mixture of sweet cabbage, sauerkraut, onions, and butter...and her prune, thick and sweet with a hint of lemon. Smothered in butter...oh, I can taste them! She made many other kinds of pierogi: farmer's cheese and onion, blueberry, cherry. We loved them all and they didn't last long with hungry children around.

Mary was a round chubby robust woman who lived to the age of 92. She broke a hip in her 70's but it healed well and she continued to walk to church until she was in her 80's. Like my great grandmother Elva, she had thinning gray hair that was wound into a braided bun at the back of her head. A devout Catholic, she would walk down the steep hill to the Polish church for daily mass. Mary also was an expert at the needle and she would sit and crochet while rocking in her chair on the front porch. She would make cotton doilies of all sizes, colors, and shapes.

Let's Start at the Very Beginning...

I'd like to write a book some day...probably about some of the funny and poignant things that have happened to me over the course of my life. So, as a prelude to writing the book, it occurred to me that I should at least start by writing things down before I forget them. After all, I am no longer in the prime of my life and I want to put as much of my life together as I can. I will try to keep ideas and happenings in a chronological history but as the title implies, there may be random babblings.