The Family Pond

Volume 32
Spring-Summer
2006

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I have wished that I could, if only for a brief moment, return to the days when my biggest worries were trying to taunt a fish into taking my line or learning to swim. . . The greatest lesson I learned on that pond is that family is the most important thing in one’s life. Money and possessions mean nothing. It is those memories that you hold dearest in your heart that matter most.

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I have traveled to many places within America’s borders and beyond the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. I have touched the rough walls of the Alamo, envisioning days gone by when men stood and fought for freedom. I lived for a while in the Rocky Mountains, relishing the beautiful scenery I woke to every morning. I have stood before the Eiffel Tower, dwarfed by its immense size. None of the places I have been in my life have matched the beauty of a small pond nestled in the Catskill Mountains of New York. It is a place I journeyed to every summer of my childhood, and I truly believe that, if there were such a place as heaven on earth, our family’s small pond would be it.

The land the pond sits on was once nothing more than an old swamp. Long ago, in 1964, my Uncle Herbert and Aunt Mary bought the land and started a dairy farm. They bulldozed the swamp to drain the marshy water, but a miraculous thing happened. The hole filled with beautiful clear water, as if a pond were meant to be. Although the pond was meant as fire protection for a neighboring farm, my aunt and uncle envisioned another use for it. They designed the pond in a circular shape with a small island in the middle. They stocked it with trout, so that the children could all learn the family tradition of fishing. A slide was put in on one side and a diving board on the other, each with a small dock nearby.

Scott Hait diving into the water while John G. Hait looks on, July 1981. Photo: Sylvia Ackerson

Every year in July, my family would travel to the town of Hobart and beyond, to a small mountain called Narrow Notch. Rose’s Brook Road—a mixture of dirt and tar—leads over this steep little mountain. There is a point on the road where you can gaze down upon the small pond far below on the valley floor. Riding down the road, I would wait anxiously for the moment when the pond would fill my vision. Branching off Rose’s Brook Road just beyond my relatives’ farmhouse, there is a small dirt road, originally named Morse Road. The road was renamed Relay Road in honor of my aunt and uncle’s Relay Farm. Down this small dirt road, my salvation lay. My heart would leap and my spirit would soar; almost unable to contain myself, I would want to bolt from the car before it had even come to a stop.

Small rolling hills surround the pond, adding to its beauty. The lush green grass around the pond was always freshly cut when we arrived, and there was usually someone already there, ready to begin a camping adventure with us. Over the years, the pond has seen many family and friends gather on weekends. It has been the host of many picnics, family reunions, and even two weddings. One was my cousin Laurie’s, with a square dance band and food everywhere. As a joke, the couple’s gifts were placed in the rowboat and launched out across the water.

The pond is fed by a small stream, where many of our fishing expeditions led. Across Relay Road, we explored and fished along another stream. Beyond that stream, there is a small mountain dotted with trees and hayfields. I sometimes used to watch while my uncle plowed those fields—a tiny man and tractor from that distance—and I even watched falling rain slowly pass over, making its way to the little pond. Standing on the edge of the pond today, I experience something I never recognized until I returned much later in life. It is something we all seek at one time or another in our lives. There is peace and serenity—a quiet in the world of noise. My grandmother, Flossie, described the pond best:

It was truly living in God’s world, learning about the wildlife about us and appreciating nature as a whole. Living uninhibited, you might say, with not many time clocks to punch. Yes, truly God’s world!

I had not visited the Hait family pond, as it is referred to by many of us, in several years, but I journeyed back with my wife and child while visiting my father. Standing along the bank of the pond, I was filled with the flood of memories I hold so dear. I saw myself sitting at the end of the old diving board, tossing my fishing line out so that I might catch an old crafty trout for Uncle Herb’s breakfast. I saw aunts, uncles, and cousins laughing with joy at being with family. I saw things I had not seen in far too many years.

I wanted to run, to shout for joy, the way I had as a child. Looking back on that day, I wish I had. I wanted to relive the memories that linger in my mind. I have wished that I could, if only for a brief moment, return to the days when my biggest worries were trying to taunt a fish into taking my line or learning to swim. There were many things I learned while on the pond. I was taught about canoes and rowboats, and even how to dive. The greatest lesson I learned on that pond is that family is the most important thing in one’s life. Money and possessions mean nothing. It is those memories that you hold dearest in your heart that matter most.

As children we had what we called “water wars” on the pond. Siblings and cousins would man the boats like old-time sailors, get into combat positions, and hurl buckets of water at each other. I admit that now it sounds a bit odd, but back then it was a ball. We’d spend hours trying to soak one another. There was one time I was in the pond all by myself, with all of my family up on the grass. I was floating around in the water on an inner tube from a tractor tire. This, of course, was before I’d seen the movie Jaws, which forever ruined my kinship with water. I remember sitting there, watching my family while they talked and laughed. I do not recall how it happened, but I slipped through the tube and into the water. I didn’t yet know how to swim, and I remember going downward, feeling real panic for the first time in my life.

I hit the muddy bottom and pushed back upward, frantically splashing when I hit the surface. I must have caused quite a commotion, because everyone turned to look at me. I saw my older brother—he never paused a second—dash forward to the pond and dive straight in. He saved me and brought me to where I could stand. We laugh about it now, but I am forever grateful to my brother for his quick steps. I think it was then that he became one of my life’s heroes. My brother’s memory of this event is far different than mine:

I jumped in and saved you from about two feet of water . . . mighty heroic at the time, as I was the only one to come to the rescue.

Eventually I took my swimming test, so that I would no longer have to wear a bubble on my back. All children at the pond have to wear a small Styrofoam ’bubble” until they have passed the test. The test is to swim around the small island without a bubble, while accompanied by an adult. The day I passed my test, the summer I was eight years old, was one of the proudest of my life. With my father and older brother swimming on either side of me, I swam slowly but steadily around that little island: a small feat to an adult, but to me as a child, I had climbed Mount Everest.

My fondest memory is of a fishing trip with my brother up the small stream that runs along the pond. We walked along its bank, talking and enjoying our surroundings, when all of a sudden, a fawn jumped out from a thicket not three feet from where we stood. The fawn jumped several feet and looked back at us. We both stood shocked at being so close to such a beautiful animal. It stood there for a moment, seemingly as curious about us as we were about it. We watched as it took graceful leaps away from us, and that’s when we saw its mother standing along the tree line. The memory has always remained fresh and new.

Talking to my father recently, I came to realize that he too had fished those little streams that I traveled up and down so many times as a child. For him, though, it was long before the pond was created. After much wrangling with my computer to record his voice, I was finally able to complete my task. This is what he told me:

Yeah, well, Dad being what he was, and traveling to all the farmers, used to take Larry and I out and drop us off at a stream and pick us up after he got done breeding cows. And this one particular day, we were fishing around the pond area, the little streams, and I wasn’t catching anything. Larry kept catching them over and over again. Dad came back, and he joined us for a little while, and he’s catching them, Larry’s catching them, but I’m not catching them. I remember I was crying about it, because I just couldn’t catch anything. Dad took me to that little culvert on the stream that goes by the pond there, just about dusk, told me to sneak up on my belly across that dirt road, and drop my line in over the edge of the culvert—little pond there. I did that, and wham! I pulled out a fourteen-inch brown trout, the biggest trout I’d ever seen in my life. Had to have my picture taken with it. I don’t know how old I was then, maybe twelve.

We never did see that photo of the fish, but Dad’s story is part of our family’s folklore. My grandfather was an artificial cow breeder and spent his days traveling from farm to farm. I’d traveled with him from time to time as a child, and it was one of those experiences that I did not understand until I got older. My uncle Larry went on spending a lot of his free time fishing, and I have had the pleasure of joining him with my father a time or two.

On some days, my siblings and I would walk up to our aunt and uncle’s farm to see the cows and horses or to try to snag a cousin to join us for swimming. I saw cows being milked, and even calves being born. They were experiences that changed me. I saw the world of the dairy farmer for what it really was, and not just the milk carton in the grocery store. I watched my cousins working with their father, and at the time, I was glad not to be them. They worked from sunup to sundown, and they worked hard. Sometimes my cousins would come down to the pond and take a quick dip to cool off, but then they were off again, doing the needed chores that kept the farm going. As an adult, I look back and realize that I was wrong to pity them. Hard work is what made America the country it is.

While my days were filled with sunshine adventures, my nights were spent sitting around a campfire, roasting marshmallows, and listening to the grown-ups talk. My grandfather would take a small copper pipe, stuff it with cut up pieces of garden hose, and toss it into the fire. The flames would turn many colors of the rainbow, and we children were all mesmerized by their beauty— a simple trick, but it had the desired effect on us all. High above, the night sky was lit by millions of stars. The sky was free of earthly lights, so the stars shone in all their glory. I have looked to the stars over the years and still do today, but have never seen them so beautiful as during those nights of my youth.

At the end of our vacation on the pond, we were usually treated to breakfast with my aunt and uncle before making our long journey home. My aunt would make the most wonderful blueberry pancakes. We would leave that little pond after saying our goodbyes, and a small part of me would be left behind, faithfully awaiting our return the following year.

Many of my family members today talk of the memories we have and smile about our fondness for the little pond. The farm is gone now, and only my aunt and uncle’s house, where my cousin now lives, remains. My aunt and uncle built a beautiful little house on the pond that has meant so much to my family, where they live today. My life has gone on, and I have children of my own now. I go about my life, always remembering those days of my youth, when life was beautiful and every day was an adventure. I do not know what will happen to that little pond in the future, but I do know that it will forever stay in our hearts and minds as a place of love and warmth.

When I began to write this story, I knew very little about folklore. My mother has been recording our voices on audiocassettes for years, but I had never really thought much about it. When I recorded my father’s voice on my computer, I had planned to delete the file after I had transcribed his words to print, but now I think I’ll keep it. The recording isn’t very good, but I want to have his voice saved for when I can no longer talk to him. I also mean to buy a small recorder, so I guess you could say I have learned some things.

To my Aunt Mary and Uncle Herbert Hait: I thank you for all that you have given me, realized or not, and it is my earnest hope that you know how much you are loved by us all. This story was written for my grandfather, Kenneth W. Hait, whose importance in my life was realized much too late. His memory and love shall never fade from my mind.

“The Family Pond” by John G. Hait was published in Voices Vol. 32, Spring-Summer 2006. Voices is the membership magazine of the New York Folklore Society. To become a subscriber, join the New York Folklore Society now.