Tag Archives: Lake Placid

Hometown Revelation

Photo by Richard Amell, SLHS Class of '65

Sixty Years On. . .

Returning to Saranac Lake, the town where I spent my latter childhood years, used to be all about my mother and my brother David. Both were much loved for good reasons; each had a particularly large presence among the locals and made a difference to many.  In the old days, I felt suffocated and extincted by the size of the welcome I always got for them.  Mom’s friends and David’s admirers were legion, and I could not walk down the street without being greeted with, “Hey, I knew your brother,” or “Carla, you’re Charlotte’s daughter.  She was an amazing woman.”

Heck, I didn’t even have to be in our hometown.  Once, my then 20-something-year-old son and I drove through a blinding blizzard to spend a weekend in Lake Placid, the tourist mecca nine miles and a huge cultural ethos away from Saranac Lake.  We checked into the Hilton Hotel and went to the bar to unwind before sleeping.  Within minutes of being seated, three people at the bar realized I was a Swett and sat themselves next to me to  regale me with stories of David when he was the bouncer at a bar over on the lake.  Soon, another three people came over to tell me what a great teacher mom was the year she taught bio at LPHS.

It was something of a relief to be anonymous, to duck into their legacy.  I was content to linger in the long shadows Mom and David had cast years before. 

Over the years, I remained in touch with only one person, the grown-up boy I counted as my best friend from 6th grade on, the boy with whom few in our class knew I had a relationship.  He had gone to college, been engaged, been sent to Viet Nam, and moved down south, but we stayed connected though I had not seen him since he visited me in New York on his way to Viet Nam in 1969.  I would have seen him if he had been in town when I was there, but he was not. 

 I loved taking my family to visit Saranac Lake, and we went as often as we could.  We camped at White Pine Camp before it was renovated.  We hiked up to Copperas Pond.  We canoed or boated out onto the lakes. But since my one true pal was not there, I felt no compulsion to call anyone else.  I didn’t expect that anyone would remember or care.  David and Mom were the ones that counted.  I did not.

Everything changed for me when  the 35th Reunion of the Class of 1965 rolled around.

In 2000, on the verge of leaving my husband and having buried my mother just a few months before, I got the notice that a reunion was in the works.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about facing my classmates, but I was sure I needed to find a way to feel grounded.  I had just begun to flex my creativity and was experimenting with a new career; the idea of being among the people who knew me before I left my chrysalis was comfortingly attractive.

The opening event was a meet-‘n’-greet at the Belvedere Restaurant, a hometown tavern, where many of my classmates had learned to drink as teenagers but to which I had never been.  I parked my car outside the restaurant, and before I got halfway out of my car, a familiar form appeared at the top of the stairs.

“SWETT!!!” He exclaimed, addressing me, as people had when we were young, by my embarrassing last name.  “You’re here!!!”

The surprise greeter was John, the boy who sat behind me in 5th grade. The one who dunked my braids in an inkwell then cut off the ends, who was grateful I didn’t complain to the teacher but simply laughed.  He was the boy who told me to shut up when I argued with a teacher about the legitimacy of a request we were expected to honor. He was never someone I thought of as having any real interest in me, but he had always been there.  And now there he was smothering me in hugs.  He led me in. 

Inside, I was greeted by people, many of whose faces I barely recognized. My oldest, best friend was there, and I buried myself in his affection but felt no reason to hide for long.  There were so many cherished memories assembled.  Gail, who lived down the hill from me when we first arrived in town that winter of 1957.  Her dog Mike nearly scared me to death. Later, when we both moved across town, Gail was once again down the hill from me, always my neighbor and a kindred spirit. Marsha, whose 4th grade birthday party invitation eased my transition from Massachusetts outsider to Saranac Lake resident.  Nancy, my high school bestie, and Maryanne, with who made me laugh as we walked together down the hill from school in the springtime. I rediscovered Karen, whose baby brother was born within weeks of mine. And shy Art, who had seemed so disinterested in anything academic but had evolved into a High School History teacher.  Then there was Penny, whose friendship was a constant aspiration though she seemed to disdain me, enveloping me in a hug. 

Within minutes of arriving, my classmates reminded me that though high school was not my finest hour, it was a time that deserved to be remembered.  The campaign for senior council president, the regional chorus festivals, jazz band, speech contest, the town centennial pageant. . . . 

People still effused about David or Mom. But I realized I, too,  belonged.  My fellow townspeople were, along with David and Mom and all the Swetts, the main characters in the play that was my life in this town.  I felt embraced and accepted, and I understood for the first time that the play wasn’t over yet!

I struck up correspondences, albeit spare, and looked forward with great anticipation to whatever came next.

At the fiftieth reunion, naturally, some of the best people were not there.  Old age, illness, family events, death.  Nancy was no longer with us, and John was clearly ill.  But we had a blast.  Gail and I hosted the culminating ceremony together, and we formalized our belief that we were sisters of the most bonded sort, members of a family of disparate siblings, who’d grown up in a community founded on the idea that a town exists to care for one another. 

The people who fostered the growth of Saranac Lake in the late 19th C arrived there in order to give or find relief from TB; the tradition defined the town and trickled into everyone’s consciousness.  Saranac Lake became a refuge for veterans of WWII and Korea, boys who needed a quiet, caring place to raise their families and set the world aright.  Refugees from places like the Swiss Alps who needed to be in the familiar protection of the granite mountain walls that surrounded us.  We were raised by survivors who nurtured one another’s survival, and we members of the Class of ‘65 bonded to one another as our parents did to our town. 

Returning last month for our 60th Reunion, I had feared that David’s recent death would make it painful to hear his virtues extolled.  I was wrong. This great extended family we’d both been part of shared memories that made mine more vibrant.  I missed him more and at the same time a bit less because he was there with us in more hearts than just my own.

There were far fewer of us this year to revel in the joy of sharing one more party.   So we made a solemn promise to one another: we won’t let ten years pass before we do it again.  Ours is a special joy we must nurture fervently.

Saranac Lake, NY, began as an outpost for hunters but gained fame and population as a medical center for Tuberculosis sufferers.

Pictures on Exhibition at a Reunion – Fictionalized Non Fiction in Three Parts: Part II

II. Dueling Hopes

It’s the first week of leaf season, and the color seems to pop before my eyes, every hour a new clump of reds, golds, purples – yes, honestly, in the Adirondacks, purples happen – and browns. The weather is phenomenal, hitting the 80s by day, dipping into the 40s by night; this place should be teeming with tourists, but our town is out of the way for casual weekend travelers from the cities. The Canadians, who keep the place humming in the summer time are gone now; more people might show up over Columbus Day Weekend, but for now, the town is bustling with once familiar faces now older and strange. Two classes from the small local high school are celebrating their fiftieth and sixtieth year reunions, and there aren’t a lot of rooms in town. Besides the returning graduates, there are hearty canoeists in town for a big race on the Saranac River.

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It’s a lucky break for the few local hoteliers and a bonus for some in Lake Placid as well. No rooms left at the few standing inns. A few of us got reservations in early and are staying at the little mom/pop place on the Lake in the middle of town. Well, not a lake, strictly speaking, but a dammed portion of the river, the gateway to 43 miles of open water, a system of rivers, lakes, locks and ponds protected by the State of New York, treasured by the locals. Except for July 4th weekend and possibly Labor Day weekend, there is never a crowd here.

Surprising as it seems to those of us who have explored the primeval forests, hiked the ancient switchbacks, swum in the sylvan pools, this is still an undeveloped sanctuary. Only climate change and abject poverty gnaw at the edges of perfection; acid rain used to dissolve the leaves off trees, poison the fish in the streams, melt the needles off the pines, but that’s under control now. The economy is less stable; there aren’t a lot of jobs here, and so it is that fracking proponents and amusements peddlers gain ever more momentum in their quest to invade the preserve.

A few of us have reserved early and have rooms in a long-standing mom/pop establishment. lakeflower It’s an old motel that should have been sold years ago. But since there are no plans to develop the town and entice investors, no buyers offer deliverance to the owners; they keep struggling along, falling behind on mortgage payments in the off-months and barely making it up in the tourist seasons.

Our motel has no staff. Marcy, the owner does her own cleaning, her own housekeeping, her own everything. Lacking an ice machine, she makes daily runs to a local store, where she buys bags of it that she doles out from her office. The beds are old style spring mattresses, worn and uncomfortable, stacked with pillows that are hard, unyielding. A musty odor lingers even when the windows are wide open; this building has weathered enough Adirondack winters and warded off enough Adirondack springtimes to have earned retirement. But still it goes on.

Marcy and her husband bought this place in the 1990’s, when they were young and full of plans to spruce the place up, make it profit. They would sculpt the beach area and bring in white sand, enlarge the pool and install a spa, build larger units, where visitors could stay for longer periods of time. But like any property subjected to the harshest of winters, this one needed constant repair; new construction, even cosmetic additions were given low priority. Survival was all they could sink their finances into. After her husband died, Marcy put the place on the market, but she said it would cost her money to sell it. So she held on.

And, like the town, like the preserve, like the sanctuary we all cherish, she continues to hold on, teetering on the edge of painful termination.

A Mother’s Day Gift to My Children, Part VIII

When my youngest brother, nearly 14 years my junior, started first grade in the late ’60’s, against my father’s wishes, Mama went back to school.  She wasn’t sure the purpose yet — she was only sure that it was way too late to consider med school — but she wanted to further her studies in biology.  She loved the science, loved academics, loved the intercourse with teachers and fellow students she’d excelled at at UVM.

For the next two years, she managed her wifely chores, drove children where they needed to be, battened all hatches, and then traveled — in wind, rain, snow, sleet or dripping humidity — the fifty miles from her home to the State University of NY at Plattsburgh, where she would attend her classes only to drive home to do her homework, conduct research, do whatever was necessary in order to finish the degree while she cooked and cleaned and tutored her children through their homework.  She was almost intolerably proud of herself when she finished.  I didn’t appreciate the feat then, but I do now, and more with each passing year.

Armed with her new degree, she decided to go back to work.  Doing what?  She had come to realize she was a gifted teacher, and she loved teenagers; she decided she would be a science teacher, and in no time she secured a job at Lake Placid High School.

But Alfred was unhappy about that.  Miserable in fact.  By applying pressure, by being petulant, by punishing her in myriad little ways, he got her to quit.  In the middle of a semester.  Any aspirations of pedagogy in the Northeast were dashed.