Memoirs -
(preliminary) 
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The Mountains
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Elfenbaum's Dairy
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Baseball Days
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Mr. Countryman
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The Porch and Whiskers
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Jerry, Scooter and the Swamp
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The Funeral Parlor
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Our Neighbors and Friends, The Trupins
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Dan and The Blueberries
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The Vassmers
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The Woodlawn Villa and Worms
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A Few Other Landmarks in Kauneonga Lake
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The Wider World
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Amber Lake
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The Kinds of fish in Our Domain
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Black Lake
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My First "Ham Radio Station" in "The Mountains"
During summers we went to a
“summer place” in upstate New York that was real nice. My folks rented a
bungalow, in a town called Kauneonga Lake in the Catskill Mountains. It
was affectionately called “the mountains.” Kauneonga Lake was about 120 miles
from Brooklyn, and my father used to drive up for weekends while my mother, me
and my sister (for a while), stayed in the bungalow. These were idyllic days,
although our bungalow was only two rooms; a kitchen and a big room where,
believe it or not, we all slept.
The room was pretty big though, and my parents slept at one end while my sister and I at the other. My parents maintained what little privacy they could by setting up a screen (like a Japanese standing screen) by their bed. This would have been OK, except that I had to sleep with my sister. So when I was ten, she was eighteen, and this was not a very good situation. Obviously my parents had never heard of Freud and didn’t know anything about the things he taught us about childhood and psychology and sex. But eventually I remember some late night discussions (which I was not supposed to hear) about this, and eventually I had to sleep in a small fold-up cot. My sister stopped coming to Kauneonga Lake shortly thereafter so I soon got the big bed back - all to myself.
Aside from all this, I loved "the lake" and the times we had there.
Also, in the early days, the bungalow did not have a refrigerator. Instead we had an "ice box" which was a small insulated closet (essentially a large cooler) into which a large block of ice was delivered each week. In those days ice was cut from the lake in winter, and stored all year in cold storage. Then it was delivered to people who used ice boxes. I remember the ice man coming in hauling that huge block of ice, probably about 60 lbs. on a big hook. Later on I believe we got a refrigerator.
The bungalow was also heated (needed mostly in late August nights), by a kerosene stove. It stood right in the middle of the room and I suppose, was vented via a chimney stove pipe (or maybe we just left a window open).
I was a
kind of “Tom Sawyer” kid. I loved the outdoors and very early was off on small
hiking expeditions into the woods and to remote and mysterious places.
I
also became a fisherman as the name of the place implies, the town was on a lovely
country lake, which at the time was full of fish. Here, life was pleasant. We
had a few nice neighbors and relatives who also summered there. We also went
swimming in the lake. At the time it was crystal clear and there was no
chemical pollution, although, there was problem with “motor boats” which
sometimes left a film of oil on the water. But underneath the water was clean
and it was quiet, and safe.
The place
we rented belonged to a woman who lived in a big country house. Her name was
Mrs. Ramsey and the place had several acres and there were just three bungalows
spread out quite far apart. Apparently the woman’s husband, who had died before
we started going there, built the bungalows to give her some extra income. The
place was big enough so that you could not see one bungalow from the other. It
was also big enough to sometimes contain a very large garden, actually a small
farm, in which many vegetables were planted and grown. It was nice to be able
to pick your own salad and fresh beans and peppers. I will never forget the
fresh taste of green peppers and carrots picked and eaten (as I did) right
there in the garden. Good memories of good fresh tastes.
In the
front, and facing the small local road (Rte 55) part of the property fronted upon, we
had a big grass lawn with one huge maple tree and two small trees we called “umbrella trees.”
There was also a huge circular bush which grew white flowers.” The bush was called the “snowball bush” (it was a white Hydrangia) and was big enough to play
hide and seek in. A kid could just crawl in and disappear. Also, on one side of
the property and along the side of our bungalow there was a single line of
apple trees – sort of a mini-orchard. They were pretty big apple trees, and on
one of them my dad made a swing out of some chain and a board. I spent untold
hours on that swing which was just outside of the kitchen of the bungalow. I
would often be swinging away while my mom was in the kitchen preparing our
meals. The apples weren’t too good to eat, and rarely got red, but we picked them and
mom made delicious apple pies from them. On the rare occasion that I would
catch a fish big enough to eat my mom would also cook up the fish.
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Annette me and cousin Janet on the lawn – the snowball bush in
back – Mrs. Ramsey's house is on the left. |
After a few years the property adjacent to the row of apple trees next to our cottage was purchased by a man named Mr. Elfenbaum. Mr. Elfenbaum established a wholesale dairy business there and constructed a building about 30 feet across the property line from our bungalow. This wasn't so bad as only the side and back of the building faced us and it wasn't too busy. My swing was directly in line with the side of the loading dock which was raised.
What I remember best about the dairy is that the men who loaded the trucks for delivery used to wave at me and were friendly (we were on friendly terms with Mr. Elfenbaum and his uncle Jake, who I remember, candled eggs). And - this was important - on real hot days the men would toss me a small container of ice cold chocolate milk. - Yummy.
When
they didn’t plant the garden, the field (in back) was just rough grass and
thanks to the Mrs. Ramsey’s grandson, became a baseball diamond. Although we
never had enough kids to make even a single team, we did a lot of batting and
fielding out there. Mrs. Ramsey’s grandson (John) was a great hitter. Generally
we used softballs but one time we had a hardball. John took a swing and the
ball went over everything we could see and into some distant trees. We didn’t
bother looking for the ball. I also remember one of us (probably John) hitting a
line drive straight through a window in his grandmother's house.
The Lake
Actually
the part of the lake (and the town) near us was called Kauneonga Lake. Then there was another part called White Lake. But in reality it was one lake but
with two wide parts and a narrow part in the middle. We had two particular
swimming holes – one in White Lake and one in Kauneonga Lake.
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The one
in
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Annette, Larry G., Mom & me at the
rocks |
Annette, Janet and me in a boat at the rocks |
The
other place we swam was actually a beach, called Barber’s Beach, which was on
Barber’s beach was up by Lapidus’ corner, so named because a man named Mr. Lapidus owned a big bungalow colony up there. Lapidus’ corner also had a movie house we sometimes went to. I don’t remember anything about it other than that it was there.
Bungalow
colonies were somewhat common around there, and the big ones consisted of
dozens of bungalows crammed together like mini housing developments.
Fortunately our place was nothing like that which is why it was so nice and why
we just came back every summer.
Mr. Countryman was a sweet man we knew who owned a house and also had a few bungalows like Mrs. Ramsey. His first name was Chauncey and we called him that. In addition Mr. Countryman was the justice of the peace. Thus he could probably marry people and do other civil law duties. I believe he was related either directly or indirectly to Mrs. Ramsey. He also owned a gas station and I believe he had a daughter named Henrietta. Henrietta was friends with my sister Annette because she was around the same age, and we used to go down to the gas station and hang around there. Because of that, I still love the smell of gasoline fumes!
The Countryman gas station was on the north side of town and Mr. & Mrs. Countryman owned a nice spread across the street from the gas station including a large house and one or two small cottages. This is where my Aunt Pauline Shernicoff and her family (husband William and children Mark and Janet) stayed. The Countrymans lived there during the early years, eventually moving to a house near us just up the road from our cottage past Elfenbaum's dairy.
Unfortunately (for her and Chauncy) Mrs. Countryman was a Christian Scientist
(who don’t believe in medicine and don’t go to doctors) so she died of a tumor
that was benign and could easily have been removed.
Chauncey
was beside himself and very vulnerable after this misfortune and as we saw it, got taken advantage of by an out-of-town woman who
probably saw a chance to grab his property and maybe what money he had. She got
him to marry her and in just a few years Chauncey himself dropped dead,
possibly leaving the whole thing to her. We always suspected she did what she
could to help him to his grave!
The Porch and Whiskers
(check for green photo album)
Our
bungalow had a porch which was very small and screened-in. There were two old
rocking chairs on our porch, and I often got up early and sat out there with my dog. I
never had a dog in
Jerry,
Scooter and the Swamp
In the far cottage (probably about ¼ of a mile away) there was a woman and her son who was my age. His name was Jerry, he was a nature boy like me, and we became pals. Jerry also had a dog whose name was Scooter. He was a cocker spaniel and of course hung out with me and Jerry.
One time Jerry and I decided to take a hike into to “big swamp” which seemed like a intriguing place. Of course Scooter came tromping along. This could have turned into a disaster had we not had the know-how and courage to deal with our miscalculation. What we did not know was that the swamp, which had once been a beaver pond, had been drained (the beavers removed) because the town used that remote stream as a sewer (Yuk!). This was before they built a modern sewage treatment plant, so all raw the sewage from the town was dumped raw into the stream.
As such
the swamp was not polluted, but you did not want to set a foot in the stream.
The stream flowed along the side of the swamp, solid ground on one side, swamp on the other. So when we got down there we walked
along the solid shore until we found a place we could jump across. We had no
idea what the swamp was like until we got there so, with Scooter under one of
our arms, we jumped. What we found was that the drained swamp was just a bunch
of “hummocks” - small patches of tall grass that had originally grown partly
submerged in the water. With the water drained the hummocks stood several feet
high growing now out of mud at least one food down. We contemplated our error
and tried to backtrack, but found that the place we jumped from was not a place
you could jump back to. So we were stuck.
That
left us no choice but to negotiate our way out to the not-so-near forest by
jumping from hummock to hummock. And we had to carry poor Scooter who was too
small and with four legs, unable to negotiate the hummocks. We could barely do this ourselves but given no choice we slowly worked out way
out. When, in an event that nearly gave me a heart attack, we surprised the
local deer herd who apparently spent the day laying in
the mud between the hummocks. Maybe they were sleeping or maybe they simply didn’t
hear us, but we just about walked into them.
Not having any idea that a herd of deer was laying in front of us,
when we were within 10 feet, the buck bolted
into the air. That was a pretty big animal and he had a nice rack of horns too.
I guess we just looked at each other for a minute and he decided to leave and
up stood the whole herd, maybe ten or so deer, who
made their way off leaving two very scared kids still in the middle of the
swamp – hearts pounding. Eventually we got to the forest and dry land and hiked
home after finding the local road. I don’t think we ever mentioned this caper
to our parents! We also had no further interest in “the swamp.”
In
addition to Jerry there was Michael, who actually lived in one of the nearby
bungalow colonies. Sometimes the three of us would go out together, but Michael
was not a nature boy so most of the adventures were just Jerry, me and Scooter.
One
time we hiked way far away on the road to a real river (see "The Wider World"
below), to the Mongaup River. It was quite beautiful
and had some real rapids and small waterfalls. We probably were looking for
(and hunting turtles) which I kept in a little “zoo” I made behind the
bungalow. Turtles were my favorite animals so we went on a number of “turtle
hunts,” usually in ponds nearby, where we learned how to catch them with
fishing nets. These were generally moderate to fairly large American Painted
Turtles (8 – 10 inches long). They sat on logs in the sun and when they dove in
we either jumped in after them or caught them trying to swim away. Jerry and I were a pretty stealthy pair.
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The Mongaup River was in the Mongaup
Valley, |
Our trip to the river was another thing though and I believe we were in fact, hunting snapping turtles. Snappers do not sit out on logs and sun themselves, they usually crawl around on the bottom catching fish and other edible morsels. We figured there would be a big snapper somewhere in this river so I prepared a lasso on a stick with which we hoped to be able to hook the creature and somehow haul it home in a bucket. We expected to find snappers that were perhaps one foot long.
As we
progressed out of the rapids we came to a part of the river we were unfamiliar
with. It was quite wide almost a pond
and someone had built a small dam out of small flat rocks, sort of a one foot
high wall across the river. The water was
about knee deep and crystal clear. When we got to the wall, and looked into the
pool, we saw what we could not have imagined. A snapper only describable as a
monster was sleeping there. His shell was probably three or four feet long and
we knew that a snapping turtle had a striking range of about ½ of its body
length given its compressible long neck. However the beast was asleep, so Jerry
and I started discussing how in the world we might capture it. Probably we made
too much noise, and anyway there was no way we could ever have hauled a monster
this big home, but we though it was so unique we should try to catch it a give
it to a zoo. During this discussion the turtle woke up and slowly began turning
its head in our direction. Now, we knew that a snapping turtle this size could
have snapped off any of our legs, and possibly eaten us. You never saw two boys
run through knee-deep water as fast as us. After that we lost our interest in
hunting big snapping turtles altogether.
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Snapper about the size of the one Jerry and I came across in the Mongaup River |
Easily could bite a leg off |
The
Snapper on The Lawn
I don’t
know if this happened before or after the river incident but one day a big
snapper somehow showed up on our front lawn.
How it got there was a complete mystery, since these creatures are water
residents and our place was at least a quarter of a mile from the lake, and
across the road and over a hill or two. But there it was, not as big as the
river monster but a formidable beast too. However out of water a snapper can
barely walk. So we knew enough to stay behind it and ran and got my mother’s
wash basin. In those days most women had no washing machines - at least not my
mother, and she did her wash
using a basin that was large enough to require lifting handles on both sides. I
would say it was between two and three feet in diameter. This turtle just would
fit into such a basin, and somehow we got the basin over the turtle, then slid a board underneath and up and away we hauled the
poor creature to my “zoo.” This was to be a major acquisition, but we were
quite unprepared to house the thing. So
we went to the local store where they gave us a bunch of “melon crates” which,
in those days were made of strong wooden slats about two or three inches wide.
We got these to the “zoo” and immediately constructed a holding pen using these
strong slats to make a fence. Having completed the enclosure we released the
turtle into the pen and called it a day.
Next
day when I went out to see our new turtle, alas, all that remained was the pen
with a bunch of splintered slats. No turtle in sight. Oh well, we don’t know how
he got there nor where he went, but we did “catch” him, if only briefly.
I think
that is the end of my turtle stories.
The
Funeral Parlor
We
learned about funerals and dead people, because adjacent to (and
essentially on the Ramsey property) there was a large funeral parlor. It was
owned by a man named Spencer who was also related to Mrs. Ramsey. He might even
have been her younger brother. Spencer owned two such businesses, one there and one in the nearby
town of Liberty,
We
liked Spencer and he hung around that place a lot, probably more than he should
have, but that is another story. Spencer
also had a big German shepherd dog who, when Spencer was around would come down
the hill and visit with us kids. We liked the dog because he was very friendly
and we often borrowed him for a hike in the woods while Spencer attended his
"business" in the funeral parlor. Hiking with this dog we felt pretty safe.
It was almost as big as us.
The
funeral parlor wasn’t of particular interest to me and I might have been inside
the place (the parlor) once, but I spent a lot of time in the basement! Yes I
hung out in the basement of a funeral parlor, among the caskets and other
undertaking paraphernalia. You figure there must have been a reason for this
and there was, but it was not a morbid perversion of any sort. It was simply
the fact that on a hot summer day, the basement of the place, which itself was
on a hill, was very cool, essentially being underground except for the open
side which faced our lawn. So on a hot day I would take a book, go inside, sit
on a casket, and read. Perverted? You decide.
Our Neighbors and Friends, The Trupins
At that time my sister Annette had a boyfriend named Bob Trupin (whom she later married). She had stopped coming to the lake to stay and only visited.
The Trupins were neighbors of ours in Brooklyn and I got to know the family very well. They were extended family and I visited and hung around with Mr. Trupin (senior) - Dan, and his wife Sophie, as well as their daughter Joella who I am still in touch with and see often as she now lives in Berkeley. So, when it turned out that the small cottage behind Mrs. Ramsey's house was available, we told the Trupin family and they took it.
After that for quite a few summers the Trupins were our immediate neighbors in Kauneonga Lake. We hung out together a lot now, and especially during extended vacations both families would hang out on the lawn together.
Dan and The Blueberries
One of the nice things about the wild fields way back behind the property was the wild berries, many blueberries and huckleberries (similar but smaller). Dan Trupin, who was a civil service worker for the City of New York and therefore got long vacations, perhaps as long as a month, was therefore up there a lot.
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Dan Trupin: NYC License Inspector |
And while not in New York City inspecting licenses, he was in Kauneonga Lake picking blueberries.
Dan was the blueberry king. While we all partook of the blueberry pickings Dan went out almost every day. Blueberry picking required a lot of patience and time, something we had lots of, especially Dan. So Sophie equipped him with a huge pot, probably a gallon cooking pot with handles on both sides, on which he would tie a cord so the pot could hang on his chest and into which the plucked berries were thrown.
As a result Dan would come back almost daily with a this load of blueberries, as I said, maybe a gallon. The result was delicious home baked blueberry pies - which both Sophie and my mom made. Wow, that was some time for eating delicious stuff.
The Vassmers
I have
to mention this family simply because they were part and parcel of the town of
The
Woodlawn Villa and
On the
other side of town was a hotel that had a casino out on the lake. I think it was
either on a raft or on a pier of stones but it had a balcony outside all around
and was out on the lake. It was a perfect place to fish from and we spent many
a night (we liked night fishing) casting and catching bass from there.
The
hotel lawn also had a special attraction for us. It was lush,
and wet and the perfect environment for nightcrawlers,
a species of worm that is good bait and that comes out of its hole at night. If
you use a red light the worm cannot sense the light and if you are fast you can
grab the worm before it can escape down its hole. Jerry and I would frequent
the Villa lawn at night walking around, heads down searching. One night some
guests came out of the casino and joined us. They asked us what we had lost and
if they could help find it. Well, we had to explain to them we hadn't
lost anything and were catching worms! Actually we also did this on Mrs.
Ramsey's lawn, but before long we had caught most of the worms there.
A
Few Other Landmarks in
The
town of
Two of
our favorites were the drug store and the boat rental place. I can't remember
the name of the drug store, but the boat place was "Fricke's."
This was a particularly good dock since after Fricke's
closed for the day, we could go out there and fish at
any hour of the night. It was also pretty extensive so if there were no fish on
one end we could try the other. We caught some bass and a lot of pickerel off
of Fricke's' dock.
Eventually Jerry and I were big enough to take long hikes and also to drive (Jerry got a license). Here is an aerial view of our territory:
Aerial view of most of our
territory including Amber Lake and Black Lake.
The Mongaup River was on 17B just at the right hand end of the image.
