As I was headed back to the apartment yesterday, I stopped at the park. I remember these lovely twinkly lights from a previous wintertime visit.
This is the way I walk to the library – on the other side of these apartment buildings is the Athenaeum – a wonderful museum – and the Hartford Public Library. It takes me all of five minutes to walk there from the apartment building.
What’s just beyond these trees to the right, out of picture range?
A skating rink! The city of Hartford makes an ice skating rink every year in this particular area. Free skating for all. You can even rent skates here.
Looks like someone took a tumble.
And there’s a staff member, checking to make sure the skater is okay.
I grew up in Michigan, as you know, and for many, many years of my youth, there was a big open field across from my house. Every year, the city would flood a certain area of the field and create an ice rink. I’d put on my skates, walk across the street, and skate to my heart’s content. My brother would play ice hockey. In fact, he lost a front tooth playing hockey! A wayward puck, I believe.
I haven’t skated for years, but this sure brings back memories and I couldn’t help smiling as I watched all the skaters. Don, a Southern California boy, is always fascinated by the fact that I ice skated. Every time it comes up – which isn’t that often – he quizzes me about the whole thing. But it was simply what we did in Michigan. We went sledding, we went tobaggoning, we went ice skating.
Of course, I always ended up getting cold and I’d troop back home for some hot chocolate.
That was the same field where I would gallop, pretending I was a horse.
And the same field where I played in the dirt with my pals.
And the same field I cut across on my homeward walk from high school.
And the same field where there were fireworks on the Fourth of July, which we’d watch from our porch.
A field of dreams.
Eventually, the city sold the land and a bunch of new houses were built there. I never got over that. They didn’t suit our neighborhood of very modest bungalows and ranch houses. They stuck out like a sore thumb. They took away my field.
Now, my hometown has been built up so much that it barely resembles the city I knew. Oh, it’s recognizable, but suburban sprawl and the endless ‘need’ to build, build, build has taken its toll.
Sigh.
I have a day off today so I’m going to be running errands and doing laundry. Exciting, right?
Happy Monday,
I remember that field. I thought it was great. What a great memory to start my day off. Enjoy your day.
Eileen
You too, Eileen! Did you go ice skating on the lake? xoxo
There are so many precious losses as a result of sprawling development. It pulls at my heartstrings again and again. Enjoy your day off,even accomplishing some tasks can contribute greatly to ones state of mind. Thanks for keeping in touch as you travel along. You are a welcome sight and inspiration here:)
Thank you so much, Grace!
We had a field at the edge of our neighborhood that was a paradise for us kids growing up. A neighbor used to plant vegetables on a small plot there. He would drive all of the neighborhood kids in the back of his pickup truck down the block, along with his gardening tools and buckets of water, and we would ‘help’ him tend his garden. Definitely a different era, but such good times for kids growing up.
Yes, the same here. Great times growing up, and times that are fast disappearing, I fear!
You are so right about growing up in Michigan – the winters were magical. My girls got to experience outdoor pond skating too because we have a pond behind our house on cold winter weekends the dads in our neighborhood would take snow blowers to it, string up lights and set up benches for the kids. Great memories!
Sounds wonderful, Vicki!
I have never Ice skated. I’m such a klutz I know that I would break something the first time I tried to stand up! I know what you mean about cities building. We’ve been here for 23 years and the city doesn’t look anything like it did when we moved here. I joke that Spokane will reach all the way to Canada before long. Enjoy your day off. Blessings, Betsy
I hate the sprawl that’s happening. The same thing is happening in San Diego and Orange County.
I am like Don and grew up in So Calif so no ice skating. It fascinates me also! Enjoy your day off and the sweet city of Hartford.
hugs,
Linda
I wouldn’t dare do it now, Linda – especially with a recovering ankle!
Growing up in Michigan sounds a lot like growing up in Wisconsin! I haven’t skated in years…but I do remember falling down quite a bit. I was a bit of a klutz on skates! Enjoy your day! ;)
Oh, I fell, too. That was part of the whole experience!
There’s an ice skating rink in downtown Chicago, too. Though I believe they charge to skate. What a surprise (said sarcastically). Like you, as a child I skated through many winters. My dad was Canadian and played semi-pro hockey when he was young. When I was growing up, my dad coached boy’s hockey teams. So, he was always taking me and my sister skating on Saturdays (huge frozen pond in our suburb) or I’d be going to hockey games with him (the ones he coached) and then skating afterwards. I do remember him lacing my skates so tight I thought my feet would pop off. He told me I had weak ankles, so he had to tie my skates tighter. Hmm. Anyway, I couldn’t skate now to save my life!
Sounds like a wonderful memory! My ankles were ‘weak’ too – at least that’s what I as told.
I’m lucky. The neighborhood I grew up in is part of some type of historic district along the shore of Lake Ontario. People actually CAN still build new houses, renovate older ones etc – to an extent at least – but there weren’t many lots available when I was a kid, and there are even fewer now. So my neighborhood is much like it was when I was little – except for the natural environment where there’s been significant changes. At least IMO. We had many more big trees when I was younger, and thick green grass, and flowers and shrubbery of all kinds in every yard. Our house had a chainlink fence [to corral 6 little kids I’m sure] and a privet hedge and my Mom’s flower beds. But the area experienced a massive ice storm in 1991 which took a fair amount of trees, including one of our 2 huge oaks. And when I was a kid, the area was about 85% young families then, and 15% Summer-only people. Now it is much more year-round living, and more diverse – singles, couples without kids, retirees – with more people who apparently have less time for/interest in gardening – which is a real shame.
I’m betting that almost all of us have seen changes to the towns we grew up in – some good, some not-so-good.
We went skating every day after school on the pond in my hometown’s only park. There was a skate house with potbellied stove where we left our shoes and put on our skates. Mr Mahana,”The Popcorn King” was always at the edge of the pond selling popcorn, hot chocolate and birch beer. In high school, the town reservoir was just below the playing fields of the boarding school I attended. Again, every day after school we went skating, the only group of teenaged girls there chaperoned by a nun!
Sounds heavenly, Margaret.
Growing up and living in Canada, skating is a very popular activity in the winter. Now that we live in the country, we’re achieving a dream, which is to have our own rink. It’s now built and ready to go. Just waiting for the water truck to bring us a big load of water. Almost there and then we can go right out our back porch to the rink.
Glad your trip is going well and you’re finding some neat things to photograph.
That’s going to be such a wonderful experience and memory for your family, Chy!
The small outdoor ice rink, called the Little Ice Rink, my town puts out annually for the holiday season will be taken down soon. There are plenty of people who try it out, many using the “Bobby” ice skating aid to help with balance. Enjoy your day. I actually like doing errands in places that I don’t usually do them.
Me too. Though not in this frigid and windy weather! It’s crazy out there! Free Skating in the Park is only until January 24th, I believe.
We’re between rain storms. It rained all night steadily, which is good. The SF Bay Area, all of California actually, needs the rain. I took advantage of mild weather to return to garage clean out. There is yet another haul soon to the hazardous waste disposal facility, and to the donation places. Hope you’re done with errands, thinking about or eating dinner, and settling in for a cozy read tonight.
Glad you’re getting rain, I know you need it out there! I’m in after a crazy day running errands in equally crazy weather. I’m happy to be here. Laundry is done, I’m sipping hot chocolate, and I’ll soon start dinner.
So much fun tobogganing!! Some of the best of laughs we ever had was doing that! And the hot chocolate following that and skating tasted SO good. I don’t see many parks used for skating any longer. I’m sure the villages have to worry about insurance and people suing. And, as you said, we surely did fall down a lot!!!! Now they would have to staff each little park and be sure no one got a scratch or bump. Sad. I guess they were simpler times, but when I fell and skinned a knee or cut my hand, I don’t ever remember my parents questioning me to find out who was to blame. Stuff just happened.
Hope you had a nice day off and finished your “to do” list!!! Plus still had some time for the fun stuff, too!
We’re in such a litigious society that I bet they’re ALL worried about being sued! I fell all the time and my parents thought – as most parents did – it was part of being a kid!
What a nice post; I enjoyed your recollections and also the photos of sparkly trees/rink.
I live in a hilly town in a river valley and hillside development has sickened me over time. I formerly had several spots I could drive to, where I could eat my lunch and gaze over the landscape from up high, but those little turnouts have now all been taken over by development as the rich people who can afford those lots want to live above town and have a view. We also used to have large citrus ranches but the succeeding generations don’t want to put in the work of farming…they just want the money, earned and compounded on the backs of their great-great grandfathers in the 1800s and early part of the 20th century…and, so, the land of Southern California orchards, especially oranges, has disappeared. When I was a kid, the trains rolled all night long, when the men and women would be busy sorting and packing fruit to ship out by rail. I miss the sound of the train whistle; that unmistakable rumbling of the train on the tracks. Our town is basically dying now. We have no industry once we lost the agricultural business. I shouldn’t say it’s dying…we’re a commuter hole; it’s just where people live as they get on and off the freeway…except for the fact that, other than industry, we also have few stores, restaurants, etc. and there’s really nothing to draw you to Main Street anymore. So sad, because I’m old enough now to remember the town when it thrived and we were quite self-sustained to where we had ‘everything’ and didn’t ever really need to go to other towns to get what we needed, which is not the case now.
For all the progress made in a world, we lose too much other stuff. Like manners and civilities, for instance. I am so disappointed in a relative of mine to whom I recently gave an antique table that belonged to my grandmother. It was completely restored and I hadn’t even used it since it was returned from the restorer. I even dropped it off to where she didn’t have to come retrieve it herself. And I’ve heard not a word. She wasn’t there when we dropped it off; another family member took it in the house. I expected her to call and exclaim how beautiful it was, and what a family treasure. Again, nothing, three weeks later. It makes me wonder, did they drop it and it broke? Did she think it was ugly? Makes me mad; makes me sad; makes me feel hurt . Maybe I’m wrong to expect a thank-you and I shouldn’t have given a gift with a ‘condition’ (expecting some kind of reaction, any reaction!). I wish now that I had just kept it, but I felt I was doing the right thing by passing along a small family keepsake.
But I get this a lot these days; so many of the younger generation don’t know how to pick up a phone for a ear-to-ear actual [vocal] conversation…nor a pen. If they do anything, they text. I really think with some of them, if they had to go buy a greeting card and write a few words, it’s like a major ordeal for them and, of course, they can only write in block letters (we’ve also seen the death of handwriting/cursive/penmanship of course). This pissed off an elderly auntie of mine enough that she cut people out of her will; seriously. She wasn’t going to waste her time or her things on ungrateful, unmannerly descendants. Did that make her a bad person? Well, if I’d been putting away money for a great-grandson since he was born, gave it to him as a lump sum when he turned 18…then heard, nothing? I’d have been in a turmoil of emotions, too. I was raised to express gratitude when somebody did me a good turn, no matter what it was…and I believe in reciprocity. My husband doesn’t agree; he feels you should give a gift unconditionally and never look back.
Oh gosh I’m writing too much again; sorry! Just had to laugh when you spoke of Don and the foreign thing of ice-skating…and anything ice/snow related being such an unknown for Southern Californians, like him, like me. In my 20s, the first time I tried on a pair of ice skates, I skated like a dream. The first time I strapped on snow skis, I skied like a dream and the instructors put me in an intermediate class by the end of the first day. There is no explanation for this because I am the least active/athletic person on Earth. The joke in my family was always that I was living in the wrong place and that I was born to be an East Coast person instead of a West Coast one.
Oh, I know. Civility and manners are sometimes lacking. Perhaps that’s always been the case, but now, with all the social media and computer and phone keyboards taking over, we’ve lost the art of letter writing and thank you notes? I must confess, I’ve always been a terrible letter writer, so email has been a godsend for me. But I do always say thank you! I’ve seen that my adult nephews communicate with us more often than not on Facebook. I don’t mind it so much, but Meredith has taken them to task a time or two! Lovingly, of course.
I think you are great about always acknowledging the various things your readers send you. I’m sure it means a lot to them.
OMG, I just saw a headline that had me exclaiming aloud (no, no, no): Glenn Frey of the Eagles dead at age 67. How can this be happening. But it is.
I just saw that, too. I’m a big Eagles fan. I can’t believe he’s gone – much, much too young!