Sure, we’ve got Urban Outfitters, Terrain, and Paul Newman’s Dressing Room.
But when a cold wave hits and ponds freeze, we’re just like any town in Maine, Minnesota or Manitoba.
Katherine Hooper — one of my favorite photographers — took her camera to Nash’s Pond. She captured the quintessential winter scenes below.
Okay, okay. Michael Bolton has a house by the pond. But otherwise we’re just a normal small town, with kids of all ages who love to skate.
(Click here for Katherine Hooper’s blog, and more great photos.)
It’s great to see pond skating in Westport. When I was a kid the ponds were frozen solid all winter long, but it’s unusual now. We skated on McCormick’s pond, on South Compo…
Do people still skate on Sturges Pond? Had some great afternoons there in the 50s & 60s.
I thought Bolton is a newly-minted Westport ex-resident?
Since when? They just profiled him this morning, on CBS, at his home on Kings Highway.
In the late 70s and early 80s there were great pond rivalries…. You had the lee’s pond crew, the Nash’s crew, the duck pond crew, and that was just the westside of Westport… I was part of the Cypess Pond (occasionally Lee’s) Crew. What a bunch of ragtag kids we were… But the talent that came of those ponds were pretty remarkable.
In the late 60s we regularly supplemented ice time for the Staples ice hockey team on Nash’s and other Westport ponds. I forget the name of the one just off Weston Rd near Bart Rovins’ home (team mgr and son of the town attorney) but we shoveled it off a number of times to hold extra practices. We only had 2 hours rink time/ week at the rink which stood on the Post Road East where there have been condos for over 30 years, which we used until it closed in 1968 or ’69–( Lester Lanin (sp?) enterprises had a disco there as well!) We then moved to Leo Skidd”s Crystal Ice Palace in Norwalk where Staples practiced until that closed as well. Outdoor skating was available through many winter weeks in those days. ( Global warming deniers take good note!!)
In the olden days (the 70s) we had adult ice skating parties on the pond at night. People would bring their Christams trees for a bonfire and we made hot buttered rum, All along the pond neighbors would turn on their outdoor floodlights and we would skate up and down, around and about. It was great fun.
We skated at Nash’s in the winter and swam there in the summer. We swam on the Saugatuck at Lee’s Pond too and jumped off the Merritt Parkway Bridge. We even could camp out at the Dorr-Oliver property. Before everything got crazy in this country a kid could take a .22 rifle out to Nyala Farm and shoot woodchucks as recently as ’68-’70. Huck Finn had nothing on us Westport kids during the 60’s.
When I was a kid we skated on Buckley’s Pond just off of Buckley Ave. It was the best place to skate and we all met there after school for a great time. Had to stay until it got dark-then time to head home. It was a great life being a kid then.
Hmm, well when I was a kid (some say I still am) we skated on the pond at Silent Grove, sometimes on the pond on Wellington Drive off of Sturges Highway (if skating with Lisa Peterson who lived nearby). And even though I grew up in Westport during the 70s and a little of the early 80s, I too felt like it was a Huck Finn kind of life – fishing in Muddy Brook behind my house on Woody Lane, and in the Saugatuck at various spots, shooting anything that dared to move in my backyard with my BB gun, making our own bows and shooting arrows with them with suprisingly good results, riding mini bikes on the dirt trails around Wakeman’s farm, swiping strawberries from Rippe’s Farm during recess at Burr Farms Elementary, riding our bikes to Devils Den on many summer days and jumping off the cliffs there . . .
Now, I live on Lees Pond and we have a great skating rink cleared off there, as we do every year (except for last year – no good ice), and lots of canoing and fishing other times – i think my kids are getting the same sort of Huck Finn experience in this century!
Jack, your kids are lucky and so are you. Keep Huck alive!!!! Best wishes.
I used to skate with my friends on Christmas Lake.
Nice hat!!!