"On Potato Pond"

"On Potato Pond"

Laurel, NY: Today is my Sister Claudette's (aka Claude, Sister Mary
Claude, Claudine, Colbert, and Claudie) birthday. Yesterday it snowed and
this week has been unusually cold for Northern VA. The cold weather and
thoughts of Claudette bring to mind 1960 in Laurel, NY, our childhood
home. Casa Del Oakwood was modest house on North Oakwood Road, designed
for summer use, which Joe and Jay Eugster purchased on time payments when
the family ventured out to the East End sometime around 1956. The family
lived together here from 56 until the year I left for college in 1964.

The house was placed on nearly an acre of land but bordered a modest dirt
road, two wooded lots, and large farm fields to the rear of the property.
"Laurel" as Jay and Joe sometime called it, seemed like a remote outpost
in comparison to what the family had seen when they lived in Nassau
County. The Eugster's wanted open space and access to water and in Laurel
they found more than they bargained for.

The farm fields were used to grow potatoes during the spring summer and
fall. The growing season always signaled the start of spring and the
harvest always drew attention to the fall and eventually winter. Potatoes
and farming were something the family knew well. Jay's family- the
Stazweski's were farmers from Poland, while Joe's clan were dairy farmers
from Switzerland. Living next to aglands gave Jay and Joe privacy and
afforded my sister and me a vast farming landscape to explore.

In the late fall and winter the trees in the hedgerow that divided the
property line between our property and the farm field would loose their
leaves and the winds would blow off the fields toward the house.
Temperatures would plummet to single figures during the December to March
time period and the ground would turn rock hard. On occasion during the
temperatures would grow warmer and snow on the fields would melt or it
would rain. With the ground frozen solid the water would create scattered
ponds on topographic depressions in the fields.

When the temperature dropped the ponds would freeze and my sister and I
would pullout our ice skates and head to the "Potato Pond" with a number
of other children from the community. Skating on the ponds was always a
treat and proved to be completely safe since these temporary ponds were
shallow and there was no fear that we kids would crash through the ice and
plunge to our demise. IN contrast to our attempts to paddle icebergs on
the Great Peconic Bay, a saltwater body, this activity was as safe as a
movie.

Our visits to Potato Pond in 1960 proved to be more exciting than usual.
Christmas had been generous this season and both Claudette and I had new
ice skates-a real treat compared to the usual yard sale hand-me-down ice
hockey skates, four sizes too large, Jay would usually offer us. New
leather figure skates, with shinny blades, were fun to put on let alone to
skate with. It made us feel like we were Olympic hopefuls who could skate
all day and all night.

Skating on these farm ponds did require that we walk across the frozen
rows of potato fields to get to the pond. They also presented us with
very thin ice along the edges of the ponds, due to the shallow overall
depth, and occasional potatoes in the surface of the pond. The typical
potato harvest captured almost all of the large and medium size potatoes
but would leave the small ones in the field to decompose between growing
seasons. When the farm field depressions flooded the leftover potatoes
would float to the surface and then freeze as they floated.

Frozen potatoes made skating in Laurel unique and a bit hazardous. We
never saw frozen potatoes on the ponds around Greenvale where our Aunts,
Uncles and Grandmother lived-so what did we know? These small frozen
potatoes at the surface of Potato Pond were insignificant as long as you
didn't hit them with you skates, flying at high speeds, as you whipped
across the pond. If, by chance you did hit one or more of the potatoes,
it either threw us into a laughable spasmodic style of skating which
amused the other kids, or catapulted us into a crash on the ice, or worse
a tumble into the frozen potato field turf. Both results dashed the
Olympian feelings and only the multiple layers of clothing we had on to
temper the cold saved us from serious bodily harm.

Normally we skated days but on this occasion we were allowed to skate into
the evening. The sun set by 5:00 pm in Laurel and on these farm fields it
was really dark. The only lights you could see where from the scattered
house along the tree line, a few streets lights far off in the distance
and the stars.

In a group the darkness wasn't a problem and some of the kids that joined
us were always looking for an excuse to build a fire-and put things in
it. The temperature and the darkness was a built-in excuse for these kids
to build a bonfire close to Potato Pond which gave us some light and heat
when we stopped skating and moved close to the fire. It also gave one of
the kids the opportunity to cook potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil for all
of us.

On this evening Jay was quite comfortable having us stay-out after dark
and we seized the opportunity. Claudette and I skated with the others in
a glorious, but somewhat monotonous circle, as the minutes turned to
hours. As the bonfire blazed and the stars came out we embraced the
evenings skate as some sort of self-proclaimed marathon. Round, and
round, and round, all of us went, seemingly obsessed and addicted with
this seasonal opportunity. With an occasional "pit-stop" for
hand-warming or to "feast" on the steaming potatoes that had been baked in
the fire, we acted as if we were racecar drivers at a winter version of
the Daytona 500.

Although our sense of time disappeared, and there wasn't a word from our
parents, our bladders proved to be the regulating force this evening.
Claudette was one of the first kids that felt the urge to visit the
bathroom. The combination of having to go and being cold proved too
difficult for her to persevere and continue the marathon skate.

"I have to go inside. I have to go to the bathroom", said Claudette,
mostly to me but to anyone else who would listen. It was not so much the
distance of the walk back to our house but the fact that the distance was
dark, dark, dark. "Glenn, can you take me in now", she said to me with
the seemingly sincere hope that her big brother would do the right thing.
"Glenn, I really have to go," moaned Claudie.

Unfortunately for Claudette I was born with an addictive personality and
that evening I was hooked on the marathon. "Can't you wait?" I said, as I
moved swiftly around and around Potato Pond. "I'm not ready to go in now,
if you want to go in go ahead. You'll be okay", I added.

Struggling with fear and a bladder emergency my sister whimpered off into
the dark, dark, dark space between Potato Pond, occasionally calling out
my name with pleas for sibling unity. Little did I realize as I moved
round and round Potato Pond that my sister's little head, that night and
for years later, was filled with fears of mad farm field spud-headed
killers who would slay kids with very sharp knives as they left the safety
of the group. Wobbling along quickly on her skates, Claudie staggered
across the concrete like furrows of frozen potato fields until she was out
of site.

As dedicated as we were to the pursuit of the Potato Pond marathon we were
ambivalent to my sister's plight. She could have been hacked to death by
Mr. Potato Head; abducted by the visitors from outer space that Jay spoke
of on occasion; or worse yet was lying frozen in pee-soaked skating pants
where she fell and her discipline was overcome with bodily function.

Claudette survived the walk to Casa Del Oakwood, made it to the bathroom
without embarrassment, and filed a formal complaint about me with Jay and
Joe. Without guilt, or any sense of responsibility, I continued to skate
that night until well after 1:00 am when directed screams from Jay snapped
me out of my self-absorbed stupor.

Luckily for me and many others Claudette survived Potato Pond. There
would be other visits for us to the frozen fields of Laurel to play hockey
and to skate in circles again but no day or night is quite as clear as
this one. I think Claudette has largely gotten over my abandonment of her
that night on the pond. She realized that her brother was possessed with
addictions, that she was not afraid of the dark, and she was far, far
stronger than she would have believed when she left the pond's edge.

Glenn Eugster
January 20, 2005
Fontana Free Press
Alexandria, VA