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“I can still picture Look Park as it was when I was just a wee lad. My brother and I would spend summer and winter breaks with our father in western Massachusetts, and Dad was always good about finding things for us to do.
“We spent a lot of time at Look Park; some years Dad would enroll us in a summer camp there.
“There was, at one time, a huge community swimming pool, and just down the hill across the road from the entrance there was a large barren hill, flanked on both sides by acres of rhododendron, which we would play hide and seek in with other kids during the summer.
“In the winter months, we would occasionally sled ride on the hill with whatever old toboggan or sled my dad had picked up at yard sale and polished up for us to use.
“During the summer, we would feed the ducks by the stream that bordered the park or ride the kids’ train that meandered through the park. There was a large area that had peacocks and we would gaze at them in amazement.
“Sometimes my brother and I took our bikes and Dad would walk while my brother and I tore through the park looking for an exposed root or some other improvised lip on the ground to use as a jump to propel us in the air on our bikes.
“Swimming was always high on our list of summer activities as well, and if we were not going to the D.A.R. (Daughters of the American Revolution) State Park, about 20 miles away from Dad’s home in Northampton, we went to other places.
“The D.A.R. was great. It was up in the mountains of western Massachusetts, away from the concrete jungles of Northampton and Amherst, and was an almost daily activity for my brother, Dad and me.
“There was a long dike, which my younger brother and I would often set up our towels on before sprinting into the water as if we had springs attached to the bottom of our feet.
“The roped off swimming area was anchored by a giant boulder at the far end and was big enough that if you stood on it, you could jump off it, if you could get the courage to swim out that far where the water was quite deep. At least it seemed that way to someone who was probably four feet tall at the time.
“Every once in a while we would go to the other side of the lake, where there was another swimming area for the campers, which was never as crowded as the main beach, but it was very rocky and could prove tough to negotiate at times.
“If we didn’t go to the D.A.R, we went to visit my dad’s friend, ‘Old Derek,’ my younger brother’s namesake, and he would take us to some of his secret local swimming spots outside Amherst. The kind of place that you only knew about if you had been there; giving directions simply didn’t work given all the unmarked country roads.
“If we were really lucky, Dad would want to drive about an hour north to Brattleboro,Vermont, where we would go and swim in the same river where he swam as a kid. The West River, if I remember correctly, was its name, and, boy, was it fun to swim and fish in. Sometimes we brought inner tubes as well.
“Our spot on the river was perfect and had a great cliff to run and jump off of. I can remember just laying on my back in that water, letting the current take me a little downstream before fighting the current back into deeper water.
“If we were not going swimming that day, my brother and I would take off on our bikes, sometimes for hours at a time ,and I am still amazed at the distances we traveled by ourselves. At one point, a former rail line was developed into a rail trail for bikes and pedestrians that stretched a good nine miles or so from Northampton to Amherst and we would ride all the way to the ‘dirt mall’ and go see a movie for a dollar. Dad would slip us a couple bucks to buy some candy at the convenience store so we could sneak it in and not have to pay outrageous prices for a little piece of candy. We rode everywhere we could, including some places we probably shouldn’t have.
“We spent a lot of time in what was known as the Oxbow area, where there were cornfields and woods that bordered an oxbow – go figure. Sometimes we would fish or just ride around and enjoy the solitude of being away from that concrete jungle again. In the winter, little ponds would freeze over in the Oxbow area and we would ice skate, while dad would build a huge bonfire (which probably wasn’t legal, now that I think about it).
“I can recall one year there was a large fluffy snowfall and we went skating, we didn’t even bother shoveling the snow off the pond and we glided effortlessly over the ice. Dad brought marshmallows to roast over the fire. It was a good day.”