It’s called the Gentle Memorial Building. It is still the home of the Houlton Parks and Recreation Department. We kids called it “the Rec.”
In the late 50s and early 60s, one of the summer programs offered the town’s school children was the “Learn to Swim program.” It featured Red Cross certified water safety instructors. Many of these were school teachers who enjoyed the outdoors.
The Rec staff made ID tags for the students. These were round disks with metal borders. They were of different colors, indicating each kid’s skill level, and they were suspended on a plain white cotton string. These tags were our tickets to board the school buses waiting in the Rec’s parking lot.
Destination: Crescent Park on Nickerson Lake.
Once there, we had to walk through the “pavilion.” This was a log cabin stlye building. We passed through a corridor. On the left, was a modest assortment of snacks for sale. To the right of the corridor was a screened dance hall. The camp-like feeling of the place relaxed me.
After morning lessons, some of us older kids enjoyed staying at the Lake for the rest of the instructional day, taking the last afternoon bus back to the Rec’s parking lot. Meanwhile, we swam to the floating raft offshore, diving from it over and over. Since the preteen all day lake kids were what my mother called “mixed company,” this was a low key introduction to boys. We even had a bit of fun with synchronized swimming.
We had music, too. Forty-five rpm records played on the big juke box in the dance hall side of the pavilion. This enhanced the ambiance of those carefree afternoons. The sounds of the Tyme’s ‘So Much in Love’ and Percy Faith’s ‘Theme from a Summer Place’ carried downhill a hundred yards or so to the beach area. Sweet sounds to young ears in the summers of the early and mid 60s.
Smaller than most girls my age, I struggled for two or three summers to move beyond the “beginner” designation. At last, after a focused session and with the patience and encouragement of my teacher, I earned a trophy. It was about 7 inches high, made of plastic, and was inscribed “most improved.” God bless the ‘Rec’ swim teacher staff.
On the beach, there stood a small wooden building with three or four individual, private changing rooms. If the temperature turned cool and the skies turned cloudy, we could remain comfortable and continue to hang out at the park all day by changing into our clothes. I don’t recall any ‘helicopter parents’ nearby. Was there such a thing in Aroostook in 1963?
We moved through our ‘rites of (swimming) passage’ with joy. To me, the ultimate was being proficient enough to swim across the lake. We would reach the front yard of a large, lovely green summer home, turn around, and head back to Crescent Beach. Success. I love recalling those days.
Lucy Rush Strawbridge
Merrimack, New Hampshire
