Bantam Lake, Litchfield, Connecticut

Written on 8.9.08

We have been without internet since Tuesday, hence no blogging! We left Utica on Thursday, after a nice visit with my mother and a chance to have dinner with my sister Helen and her husband, Don. My mother is doing remarkably well in the nursing home and actually seems quite content there. It was wonderful to be able to take her out to visit the campsite one day and to lunch in one of her favorite little luncheonettes the next day. Utica and New Hartford, the small town where I grew up, look very pretty in the summer, with flowers everywhere and green trees and lawns, owing to practically non-stop rain this summer. But we quickly got tired of the high humidity and the mosquitoes, and now we’re thoroughly sick of the daily deluges.

The city of Utica is just plain depressing. The once prosperous downtown area is mostly vacant now. A large part of the city is multi-family frame houses in neighborhoods that have been allowed to deteriorate. Mom wanted to drive down Neilson Street, where her parents, who came from Scotland in the 20’s, lived at 1304. They worked menial jobs, but saved enough money to buy, with another family, a two-family frame house on a nice street. Over the years, the neighborhood had deteriorated, and on one of our drive-by’s a few years ago we saw that the house was literally falling apart. A year or so later, it was gone, completely, along with the houses on either side. A vacant, but mowed, lot now stands on the north corner of Neilson Street where there were once neat houses with porches and little lawns. The little grocery on the corner is boarded up, it’s sign faded but still legible. All in all, though, the neighborhood looked better this visit than it had. I hope it comes back.

An interesting observation: One thing that really annoyed us about Utica, that I had never noticed before is that there are stop lights on every single corner, and they are all no-turn-on-right. And they’re not synchronized. There is hardly any traffic there, compared to Boston, or Hartford, or Washington, or LA, and the constant stopping actually compounds any traffic that builds. What is up with that?

We arrived at Bantam Lake in Litchfield, Connecticut on Thursday, August 8. Bantam Lake is one of the many small lakes in the area, and a portion of its shoreline is owned and administered by the White Memorial Foundation, which runs the camping program. Point Folly, a little peninsula in the lake, where we are staying, is one of their campgrounds. There are no hookups or showers, but the lake is accessible to all the campers. Dogs are supposed to be leashed, but everyone looks the other way when the dogs go for a nice swim. We camped here, in tents, for many years when we lived in Southbury, about 20 miles away. We often came with another family who had two boys. So…we had our girls, Carol and Ann, their friends, Ernie and David and their friends, the kids sailing buddy, Jimmy, and our friends Lavonne and Jules. We brought a minimum of two Hobie Cat sailboats, a wind-surfer, and when Carol was too little to sail a Hobie by herself, a small blow-up row boat. All the kids were expert swimmers, and each also had a bicycle, so they pretty much could do their own thing while we were here. We sailed, swam, and cooked delicious gourmet meals over camp stove and an open fire (a skill which has completely lost its attraction for me). Every night we made some-mores. We had one of those screen houses to keep out some of the flies and mosquitoes, which was a great place to play cards when it was raining, because it kept out about 75% of the rain. And it always rained. Every time. We sat in the screen house and played hearts. And various forms of poker for m & ms. We have many years of good memories about Bantam. It’s great to be back. Even though it has rained every day we have been here. But the sun comes out in between deluges, so it’s ok.

Last night we had dinner with our friends Ken and Suzanne, and Leslie and John, at the Good News Café in Woodbury. The chef/owner is Carol Peck, and her restaurant is the best eatery in Connecticut. It is my favorite restaurant in the whole country. The food is absolutely first-rate, fresh, seasonal, and artfully prepared – downright wonderful, as is the atmosphere. It was great to see these folks again. We talked and laughed and had such a good time that even though I had my camera in my purse, I completely forgot to take any pictures. Today our friend Bonnie, who was one of the first people I met when we moved to Connecticut in 1972, and has been someone very close to my heart for 35 years, drove up from Waterbury to visit. Bonnie has been undergoing treatment for cancer for 18 months, and I was worried that she wouldn’t be up to a visit, but despite that she had a chemo treatment on Friday, she made the trek and showed up this morning for a short visit. I worry about her, but she looks just wonderful for someone in the middle of aggressive chemotherapy. We sat in the sun and caught up, then went for short walk.

Tomorrow we head to Pennsylvania to see our friends Don and Jayne Gamble. They are a great couple we met when we lived in Maryland. They are a little older than we are, but they ski, play bridge, and camp in their Motor home. They, on two different occasions, have sold their house, bought a boat, and lived on it for extended periods of time, even sailing around the Caribbean for 5 years! They are our role models. It will be nice to see them again. Hopefully we can borrow their internet and I can post this entry!