It seems to get swimming hot only in the month of July in the Hoosac Valley. The wind or breeze is blocked by Mount Greylock to the west and Savoy Mountain to the east, and the town of Adams Massachusetts bakes. If you live here you are 200 miles from the nearest ocean beach. But that’s OK because nestled just over Savoy Mountain is Duke’s Pond. Just drive up Orchard past the Polish cemetery, past where Danny Alibozek used to live. Stay straight through the Gulf past the dairy farms and through Savoy. You will go down a long decline and right there on your right you will see the sign. It’s in West Hawley, near the Windsor border.
It isn't a huge pond but it is warm. It is not freezing cold like Sand Springs in Williamstown or Anthony's in Adams. Here is where Dad took us one hot , steamy night after work to learn how to swim. He simply took my brother and I out over our heads and we had to swim back. Duke’s is also where I first canoed. The east end of the pond is where the dance pavilion and barroom were. Once you got off 116, the roads were just gravel.
White Birch was another area on the pond -- at the bottom of the hill and on the right. It was a very nice picnic area, with picnic tables and a stone fireplace at each site. It was first come, first served. Maybe you had to pay. You must have had to pay. Dad liked it because they had a small barroom nestled in the birches. You could get an ice cold beer, but you had to be 13.
The Bacon family would go up after church at Saint Stan's. My mom, Nora, would always buy the Polish rye bread at the Polish Bakery just across from the church. It is a pizza place now. I remember all of this mostly from old photos.
My mother and father would take their parents along. Much of the time Walter Lemanski (my mom’s dad) came along. His children referred to him as Pa.
His wife, Alexandra, had passed by then. They came from Poland, "the old country," they would say. Alexandra came first and alone. She was pregnant with her first of 9 children. She was 19, married to Walter who was drafted into the Russian Army. She walked for two days to get to the steamship that would take her first to Ellis Island. From there she traveled up to Adams Massachusetts where she had a sister living. What did she carry? How did she communicate? What was it like to see her sister in the United States of America? What type of transportation did she use to get to her sisters? Maybe the train? I don't know.
What did she think of Adams? If she stayed in the Polish section of town, she would have no problems. She would not have to learn the language and she never did. Sandy's Polish Grandmother never did either. You just didn't need to.
Alexandra was called Alice by her friends. There must have been a promise of employment. Hoosac Valley needed factory workers for the cotton and woolen mills. The Polish people filled that need.
Alice Lemanski 's favorite movie star was Buster Crabbe. In her heavy Polish accent, she called him Bustum Crap. You can't make up stuff like this.
My mother would dust our little squeeky clean house on Howland Avenue every Saturday. Part of her ritual was to take down her mothers photo, polish it in a circular motion, kiss it and put it back on the shelf. This is the photo of my Polish Grandmother in a wheel chair at Dukes Pond. I remember my mothers ritual clearly as if it happened yesterday.
It was March 19, 1944. The World War was raging. The five daughters and their mother were sitting at the kitchen table on Commercial Street, talking, when someone knocked on the front door. Oh my god, Billy was home from the war! But when my Aunt Steffie got to the door, no one was there. The very next day a letter came from Mr. Roosevelt. William Lemanski was missing in action over Italy. Rumor says it was over Austria. He was a tail gunner in a B-52 bomber airplane -- the one with all the glass, with the turret that swiveled. The next day, another letter. Billy was killed in action. Alexandra couldn't take the loss and had a stroke climbing the stairs.
It reads:
IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF
STAFF SERGEANT WILLIAM LEMANSKI, A.S. 31284582
WHO DIED IN THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY
IN THE NORTH AFRICA AREA , MARCH 19, 1944
HE STANDS IN THE UNBROKEN LINE OF PATRIOTS WHO HAVE DARED TO DIE
THAT FREEDOM MIGHT LIVE , AND GROW, AND INCREASE ITS BLESSINGS.
FREEDOM LIVES , AND THROUGH IT. HE LIVES-
IN A WAY THAT HUMBLES THE UNDERTAKINGS OF MOST MEN.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
President of the United States of America
Oh, you want to know why the name of this story is Duke’s Pond? Here at our house in Marshfield, we have almost no grass. I did that on purpose. We would spend all morning mowing the grass in Zylonite at Mom and Dad's. But I do have a strip between the old house and the pool fence. I would always advise my swimming pool customers to put some grass in their pool area for color. A landscaper told me I could never grow grass there but I did. It has been damaged periodically, with all the additions that we have done, plus house painting and new roofs. Finally the additions have ceased and I brought up beautiful thirty-nine year-old compost from behind the pool near the garden, and seeded, and the grass is finally coming back in -- very well, thank you.
Between the bar and the driveway is an area where you cannot grow grass for two reasons. It is too shady there, and the water from the long driveway swales right through there like a flood when it rains. We had pachysandra there for awhile, but it got trampled during my big fiesta. I decided to fill the area with round, smooth Rexame beach rocks. Then I dug a very crooked path through it for the water to flow. Abel and I named it Snake River.
Abel and Teddy, Abel' s best friend who lives across the street, love to play in Snake River. When it is not raining and dry, we run a garden hose at one end and the river comes alive. So much for all my water barrel and water pail conservation efforts. I enjoy washing the cars with rain water. Doesn't everyone?
There is a large rain barrel on the other side of the bar with a roof gutter running right into it. It is always full. Abel came up to me, covered in mud, with those big blue eyes, and said, "Grampa, would you mind if I turned on the spigot and made a pond, and then connect it across the lawn to Snake River?"
“Abel,” I said, “That is a great idea.”
Then he said, "We will call it Duke’s Pond."
I was kinda stunned. Sandy and I have been to Duke’s Pond only once in forty-four years. He's never been there.
Today he and Teddy found a dead chipmunk in a pail of rain water, and asked me what to do with it. I said, “We will bury it, but not right now.” Next thing I knew, they had dug a hole right in the middle of my new lawn! We had a little service, and bid the chipmunk -- and my new lawn -- farewell.
Your Friend,
Abuelo Tocino
