Okay, I promised you all a happy, pleasant post subject. The following is a small excerpt from a memoir I’ve been working on sporadically. I don’t have these vignettes in any organized fashion yet, but I think you will enjoy this reflection…
My parents were small town people. My mother, Betty, grew up in Royalton, Pennsylvania, literally a hamlet that is still there but no longer exists on any map, having been gobbled up in my post high school years by slightly larger Middletown, of Three Mile Island fame. Her best friend in this quaint little, unsophisticated place was Kitty Dougherty, future mother of Little Newtie, now known to the world as our former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich. My father, Bud, used to take little Newt swimming at the Hershey Pool when Kitty or big Newt needed a babysitter or, I presume, when Newt wanted to go swimming. When I was old enough, my father took me there as well and this is what I recall…
I had a secret love affair with this place of wonder. I’m talking about the fabulous Hershey Pools and Sunken Gardens. If I close my eyes, I can smell the locker rooms, sense the cavernous darkness of the interior, hear muffled voices coming and going, feel the shower cleansing me and my quite ordinary swimsuit – preparing me to enter the sunlight and paradise beyond the turnstile. I hear lockers closing, feel the stretchy band on my wrist that holds the small key to mine. The Hershey Amusement Park was right next door, but I would always choose the pool over anything else the entire town of Hershey had to offer. The Park held its own delights, especially when picnicking was allowed there when I was young, but it was hot, crowded and sweaty on summer days. It didn’t begin to touch the magic of the pools and gardens.
The two adjoining pools were huge, always pristine as you would expect and sat sheltered in a protected grotto of natural stone. Late in the day, the sun journeyed to where the highest edifice began to shade the waters on the far side. You could tell the time by it. There was a large kiddie pool, a sand beach around the perimeter of all and an island of greenery on this sand that contained a sizable lighthouse. All this was enough to captivate, but there was so much more, so much more that I truly loved.
A stream inhabited by multitudes of carp, Spring Creek, ran through the Park, alongside the pools and then bisected the Sunken Gardens. Carp were the only thing ugly allowed in Hershey – there might have been a law. They are hideous looking creatures, and always waylaid us when crossing the bridge from the pools to the snack bar. Their disgusting appearance and flailing about as we sent food over the bridge rails never failed to entertain us. Whatever we sent into the water they gobbled up indiscriminately and vied for advantageous positions. I think they would have eaten rocks if we had chosen to toss them down. Fortunately I had much better things to eat. Their piggish behavior never adversely affected my own appetite for Eskimo ice cream bars.
The snack bar was part of the building that housed what was appropriately named The Fabulous Hershey Park Ballroom (later to become The Starlight Ballroom). This was a large wooden structure, elegant and built for big bands. My parents danced there once upon a time. A few steps down from the snack bar, I walked the Sunken Gardens with my Eskimo delight and watched the creek meander through the shrubs and fragrant flowers. The smell of cocoa from the chocolate factory wafted over me.
These few acres were a magical place to me, and sadly all of this is gone now…torn down in the 1970’s and usurped by the Park. The only thing left remaining, in testament to those days, is the lighthouse. It is a tragedy of enormous proportions, victimized by proponents of progress. No longer can a child wiggle her bare toes in the grass of the paths and stare up in awe at glorious lilies and roses and coneflowers as her bathing suit dries in the sun.
gettysburggirl 