Lake Days

One of the perks of my father's job as a corrections officer at the Somers, Ct, maximum security facility in the early to mid sixties was the use of the lake on prison farm land. My father worked third shift and following his after work nap we three kids who were barely in our teens would all load into the 1950s black coup that served as our family's second car and with our father behind the wheel we would make our way to the lake. It was a couple of miles from our house and located down the end of a dirt road that snaked its way pass unsupervised laboring inmates, grazing dairy cows, rows of carrots and lettuce, and acres of corn fields. Around one tree lined bend in the road there were numerous coops twice the size of dog-houses where inmates and trustees raised pheasants that would later be used to stock hunting grounds. We would hear the pheasants gurgling and cooing as we passed by.

At the final bend in the dirt road the land opened up to reveal a volleyball net, two baseball diamonds, a basketball court, picnic tables and plenty of tree shaded parking. My father would park beneath the pine trees and we would pile out of the car and head for the water. There was a sandy shore some fifteen yards wide that bisected two picnic areas featuring grills and picnic tables. Thirty yards from shore was a floating raft constructed atop eight empty fifty gallon drums.

As we kids attacked the water my father would have a go at his pipe and shoot the shit with other off duty guards. An hour or so later he would take a dip, peacefully floating on his back as if he didn't have a care in the world.

I was an imaginative boy and one afternoon I practiced swimming with only one hand in case later on I became a lifeguard and had to rescue someone from drowning. The next day at school this cute girl told me she saw me out at the lake the day before. Her father was a prison guard too. She asked me why I was swimming with one arm. When I told her why she said I was weird. It made me wonder if I was.

Another afternoon as we three kids and the Shea brothers waited in the coup for our father to come out of the house Crazy Alice happened to be walking by. She was a neighborhood teenage eccentric who once kidnapped the fiberglass Big Boy Bob from the front of the Abdow's Big Boy restaurant. We taunted her and she snapped into attack mode cussing and hollering and clawing at the car doors. Feeling perfectly safe with the doors locked and the windows rolled up we teased her some more. This ticked her off royally. She threatened to kill us, and smacked at the car. When my father appeared Crazy Alice turned her attention his way. They exchange heated words before Crazy Alice stormed off. When my father got in the car he said we should know better. We shouldn't make fun of crazy people. We said we were sorry and off we went.

On weekends my mother who worked during the week joined us at the lake. She would pack a voluminous picnic basket and we would at dinner time cook up hamburgs and chicken on the grill and later roast marshmallows. Afterwards we'd play volleyball and take a last afternoon dip in the lake before heading home with the sun was sinking in west.