Back when it froze solid

Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

‘When I was a kid we used to skate for several weeks each winter on a little pond in the woods near our house on the Massachusetts South Shore. It froze remarkably solid, especially considering that from time to time some salt water would get into it from a nearby marsh behind a beach.

We’d skate around in phases of  euphoria and  then sit by a fire we built along the shore, sometimes cooking hot dogs and marshmallows,. It’s surprising that we never ignited the thick stands of  very dry-looking high sedge nearby. The boys would from time to time play chaotic games of hockey, using boots as goal markers.

In one of these  games I fell on my  right elbow, and was rewarded with a compound fracture. That in turn necessitated a hospital stay over the Christmas holidays of 1963 and some rather exotic procedures, presided over by a Dr. Mayo (!), whose first name is long lost  to me.

Ah, the joys of morphine!

To hold my arm in the proper position for maximum healing, I had a cast around my chest for several months, with my arm stuck out as if I was about to shake hands. I still vividly recall the discomfort of taking tests with my left hand.  And the itch under the cast…

I didn’t join in pond hockey games after that, though I went  skating on the pond a few times, but its charms had faded for me.

Back in 2020, I lunched with a neighbor from those times, since deceased, who told me that no one skates on that pond anymore. The weather doesn’t stay cold enough, long enough anymore, he said.