Grown-up kids on the lake in July

Brazen Broads of the Sixties

FROM WHERE I SIT   Brazen Broads of the Sixties   JULY 3, 2013

PAT DEKOK SPILSETH

Fireflies light up the night around our screened porch where I sit relaxing, enjoying the calm waters on the lake.  You can’t beat lake living, especially in the summertime!  Tonight, I can see the constellations Orion and two Dippers, and hear a pair of loons crying their haunting calls as sailboats drift lazily past my dock.  Finally, summertime has arrived and the livin’ is easy.

Balmy evening breezes have my thoughts drifting back to school days in Glenwood.   I remember the stone wall at Mount Lookout overlooking Glenwood.  Fireflies lit up the dark skies as friends about to graduate sat reminiscing about our school days, sharing dreams of what we were going to be when we grew up.  Back then, we still believed those tales of Princess Minnewaska, who, supposedly, was buried at Mount Lookout.  We believed that treasured, though painful, ritual for brides to collect a stone to wear in our wedding slippers when we marched down the church aisle.  It was supposed to bring good luck to brides.  Sometimes the stone worked... 

Summer meant grabbing one of Mom’s old bath towels, a swimsuit and riding my 3-speed Schwin bicycle to the beach to meet my pals.  Swabbing my body with baby oil to tan, I’d get a great burn.  The lifeguards used a real tanning cream like Coppertone and swabbed a white paste of zinc oxide on their noses to keep from burning.  At that time kids knew that we needed to first get a good burn in order to get a deep tan.   We didn’t know about skin cancer in those days, and we looked soooo good with a tan as we danced at Lakeside’s Teen Hops.  At the Ballroom, popular bands played the twist and the stroll on romantic, moonlit evenings.  How exciting to be dancing with our latest “crush”. 

Remember those musty, moldy smells of wet concrete floors and sticky, damp swimming suits in the changing room at Glenwood’s beach?  Around the corner, the snack bar always drew me and a crowd of candy lovers to the melting chocolate Snicker and Milky Way bars.   A flash from the past jolted me as I recalled the panicky feelings in my tummy when it was my turn to dive off the high dive.  I remembered diving in, doing a magnificent belly flop.  Ouch!  Part of my bathing suit was missing!   What a miserable embarrassment for a teenager.   Drowning seemed like it would be a lesser evil. 

After working one Friday evening at Setters and Stradtman’s Corner drug stores downtown, Diane, Jan and I met friends at the beach to cool off by swimming out to the farthest tower at the beach.   Giggling, we’d dare each other to skinny dip.   Ohhhh...  We shed our modest one piece suits and dove in with the spotlight shining directly on us.  Our shrieking squeals must have been heard for miles.  What brazen broads we were back then in the sixties!

The Danter twins, Dean and Dale, created a place they called Rockin’ Tree Canyon, where they’d escape to adventures the rest of us wanted so badly to share, but hadn’t the courage to enter the dark woods near the golf course road.  But I loved swinging on those scraggly Tarzan vines at Monkey Vine Palace where I became a swingin’ Jane of the Wild Jungle.  That was my favorite getaway until some bigger kids discovered it, and their weight pulled down the vines.  Why couldn’t they have stayed picnicking at the Giant Chair and Table up the hill?

Canoeing out to Priests’ Point in Jimmy Gilman’s canoes was another summer treat.  We’d paddle out to the Point and shiver with thrilling chills recalling the stories we’d heard about the priest who had lived there with his housekeeper.  We earnestly believed tales of the lonely housekeeper, who hung herself in the rafters of the attic when her love was not returned by the priest.  I wonder how many of those tales were true.

Gas was so cheap in those days.  I could get around Lake Minnewaska from Glenwood to Starbuck in Dad’s little, white, Ford Falcon on 25 cents of gas.  What a deal!  My friend Lu and I would check in on Dad’s two-way radio to hear any police calls coming in.  After all, we didn’t want to be caught by the cops at the party on Halvorson’s Point, where our friends were waiting for us around a bonfire, playing guitars and probably drinking a bit of beer.   Lu and I were on our way when we heard Dad’s voice on the radio calling the highway patrol cars to meet him and raid the party at Halvorson’s Point.  Someone had snitched or been broken by parents to fess up about our party.  

We HAD to warn our friends.  Pressing the foot petal to the metal, we flew that car out to the party on the lake!  Julian, my cohort at the drug store, grabbed the keg and ran into the woods; his sidekick Marv nervously tried to start his boat, but it flooded and stalled.  They were sitting ducks for the cop cars speeding onto the Point.  Our little Falcon passed the raiding cars as we sped down the dirt road, away from the party.  Dad didn’t even notice us in his Honda car.  Later, Dad laughed when he heard about our escapade.  

What a great world we grew up in during the fifties and sixties.  We swam in Lake Minnewaska, swung on Tarzan vines at Monkey Vine Palace, skated figure eights at the football field’s ice rink, and met pals at the Carnegie Library where Mrs. Serrin shushed talking kids and told me certain books were off limits until I was older.  We were so lucky to have two parents and neighbors who cared that each and every kid was safe and grew up with good values and a good work ethic.  LIfe was good. 

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