To the Editor:

Spring takes its sweet time arriving in the North Country. In 1950s Potsdam the first sign of spring was the crowds of students sunning themselves on rooftops of frat and sorority houses around town. There were no sun blocks then, and to get a little color, baby oil mixed with iodine and a reflector did the trick. Your face might be red and swollen, but by gosh, it had color!

The arrival of warm weather in Potsdam for us campus school kids brought a host of new fair weather activity options like bike rides to Allen’s Falls, trips to the Dairy Queen for a soft ice cream treat, scrutiny of transitioning tadpoles in local streams, movies at the Moonlight Drive-In, and the annual ritual of shooting marbles. On Diaper Hill (the Clarkson faculty housing complex where I lived) it also brought the dreaded and predictable flooding of cellars.

Of course, spring also meant college graduations and the mass exodus of hundreds of students. Potsdam had an entirely different feel to it in the summer. It was peaceful and quiet—an idyllic place to be.

When that precious and all too fleeting really hot weather finally arrived, and the harsh winter was a distant memory, that’s when we headed for Postwood Park out in Hannawa Falls on the Raquette River. When you drive into Potsdam from the south on route 56 and look far over to your right across the Raquette just after you pass what is now “Jake’s” restaurant, you can just make out a patch of white sandy beach. That is Postwood Park.

Postwood opened in about 1952. I was there pretty much all the time in summer as my father, a humanities professor, was a Postwood lifeguard, supplementing his Clarkson paycheck and keeping the townsfolk safe. (He also gave tennis lessons on the side.) I would ride out with him and spend the entire day there, so I got to know the place real well. The town also provided transportation to Postwood. Kids were bussed back and forth from the Civic Center.

Often I would bring a friend to Postwood with me for the day—along with a blanket, radio, and Coppertone. We would pass the entire day soaking up that precious sun listening to the Everly Brothers, Elvis, Pat Boone, and Paul Anka sing the hits of the day—and, of course, talking about boys—who was cute and who was square. If I was lucky my companion would be my best friend Diane Lawrence and we’d spend the day lying on a blanket talking girl stuff and listening to my new two-toned green RCA transistor radio.

Postwood had its own loud speakers mounted on poles to broadcast music and to make emergency announcements. Critical announcements would include a lifeguard’s birthday, or the discovery of a lost flip flop in the shower, or a 2-for-1 sale on Dixie Cups at the snack bar. But more seriously, the speakers were used to order swimmers out of the water when lightning was in the air.

At the top of the hill before you made the trek down to the sandy beach, there was a kids’ playground with swings and teeter-totters. There was also a circular merry-go-round of sorts that spun on a central pole. It was round and divided into wedge shapes by metal railings to hold on to. Someone (usually of the young male variety) would grab one of the railings and run along side it to make it go as fast as possible. When it was ready to launch into space, the spinner would jump on for the ride. All we could do was hold on to a railing for dear life and wait for the spinning to stop. I seriously doubt this type of merry-go-round would meet today’s safety standards.

There were also a water fountain, snack stand, bathrooms, and showers at the top of the hill. The snack bar offered a sufficient array of treats for any sweet tooth. My favorites were the neopolitan Dixie cups and the Sugar Daddy caramel pops. Sugar Daddys took a long time to eat and often ended up dropped in the sand. This was remedied by a quick dip in water to clean them off. Nobody had money back then to buy extra treats. I once lost a front tooth to a sticky Sugar Daddy. I plucked it out of the sticky bar and salvaged it for the tooth fairy who in that era usually left a whopping 25 cents. The stand also sold grape and root beer Popsicles, Turkish Taffy, and salted pretzels and popcorn in boxes.

Along with my father there were lifeguards Kathy Champney and Clarkson professor Brad Broughton. The men sported a white sailor hat with the back turned up, an orange tee shirt with the arms cut off, and white noses coated with zinc oxide. In the early days when I first started to go to Postwood, there was also a lifeguard who was a local beauty queen--Robin Sisson. Her positive attributes were not lost on the men, and I remember my dad saying the beach was more crowded when she was patrolling the docks. She had two younger sisters, one of whom, Judy, was in my class at the Congdon Campus School. (The Sisson mansion on Leroy St. was the most elegant home in town. It was grand and imposing with huge stately columns. Years later it became the O PI O house and quickly lost some of its grandeur.)

It was there at Postwood Park early on Saturday mornings (rain or shine) when the Raquette River was at its chilliest and the bottom slimy and mucky, that I learned to swim. Group lessons were given far over to the left of the pristine docked-in swimming area and white sandy beach in an area of reeds, driftwood, and turtles. For me, those lessons were a nightmare.

There was a raft at Postwood which as a child seemed so far out in the water it was unattainable. I stared down that raft every time I was there, and I vowed I would conquer my fear and be able to swim out to it by the summer of 1959 -- and I did make it -- with my father rowing beside me in the lifeguard’s rescue boat. What a feat that was for me—like Sir Hillary conquering Everest.

Being a lifeguard at Postwood was not too demanding, but I do remember my father telling me this story: the son of a local Loblaw’s manager had to be rescued when he went under one day. Whenever we shopped at the father’s store, he would give us a very friendly greeting and shake dad’s hand.

As a child in Potsdam the summer stretched out as endless as the horizon. Of course, that was just a child’s perspective. Now as adults we know how brief North Country summers are — and that they are all the sweeter because of it.

Sandra Sorell

Formerly of Potsdam