Random Thoughts |
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Because I lived in the Wyoming corner of Melrose, Ell Pond did not figure in my childhood until I got to Melrose High. My freshman homeroom, 203, overlooked the pond. Any S-period daydreaming was done gazing past the knoll at the sunshine on the water. My favorite senior classes, Miss Damon’s English and Miss Kershaw’s Latin, also faced Ell Pond. The great scenery is a lovely background to happy memories. I had done my early skating at Lincoln Rink and the little ponds in the Fells woods. In an article titled “Skating Season”, I remembered Ell Pond in the following way… …“But the greatest fun was skating on Ell Pond. We would play Snap the Whip or skate from shore to shore with our friends. When the boys finished playing pond hockey, they would come to find their girlfriends for a final skate. Holding on to the end of a hockey stick, I would glide across the ice with the cold wind in my face making my eyes water. Freezing fingers and toes were forgotten in the thrill of speeding in the darkness, living in the moment, making an indelible memory of my teen years.” In my college years Ell Pond came into my life in the aftermath of Hurricane Carol. I recorded it in two articles, “Remembering a Great Building” and “Wading through the Flood Waters”… …“As the storm quieted, a friend and I walked from her house on West Emerson Street to see what had happened. Ell Pond had grown in every direction. We walked around to Melrose High, wading a good deal of the way. The pond and the school were one entity. We waded waist deep into the cafeteria. Everything was floating. Each of the stools made a circle on the surface of the water. That was the last time I entered that lovely old building, and I guess the last time I ever will.” …“Do you remember those little wooden stools held together by heavy wire? Always a little too low to be comfortable. Just the right size to fit under the long cafeteria tables. Narrow enough to allow one more late-comer into a group. Wide enough for an average student to relax during a quick lunch of sandwich and conversation. All those stools were floating. Round brown polka dots on still gray water. Some gently touching one another as friends. Some stuck in corners, not bothering to try to escape. A few in the corridors where they did not belong. Most contained by the cafeteria walls. All acting like the teenagers that used them. Had they resided in the high school so long that they had assumed the personalities of the kids? My friend and I waded thigh-high through the cafeteria. We located "our" table where daily we piled our textbooks and purses until the tabletop had disappeared. Lunches in our laps, we settled down to hear the latest from our friends, the five W's of teen life in the early fifties -- who went where with whom. Monday noons were most animated rehashing the weekend, with Fridays anticipating the weekend to come. The custodian told us it was time to leave the hall of floating wooden circles and tons of water brought by the Hurricane named for my friend – Carol. We bade goodbye to the cafeteria knowing that waters would recede and relief would come. We never did return. It was our final farewell to the lunch room of our youth, three feet of water and hundreds of floating stools.” As time went on I returned to Melrose to decorate gravesites each year. I would pass the nursing home near the hospital where my father-in-law enjoyed the scenery of Ell Pond from his room as I had done several years before from my classrooms. It is amazing how a phrase like “Ell Pond” will pull long forgotten tales from your mind. July 6, 2012
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