Binzen, Bill

Salisbury Oral History Project:

Narrator: Bill Binzen

Interviewee: Christopher H. Schmidt Jr.

Tape #99

Date: 5/15/1993

Place of Interview: Mr. Binzen’s home at 49 Weatogue Road

Summary of talk: birth, rental cottages on Lakeville Lake, Barstow Cottage #93, and one from Charlotte Norton #63/65 along Rt. 41, summer activities, Bill Raynsford, Hotchkiss Golf course, Hob Knob Hill Kent Fulton’s private golf course, Stuart’s Theater, Lakeville train trestle, DuFour’s Garage, Barnett’s Store, the Ragamont Inn 1945, Binzen home on Brinton Hill, Memorial Day Parades and others, flood of 1955, hitchhiking, Lakeville changes, town beach and picnics, seaplanes landing on the lake, the Grove & Frank Markey, mother’s family home in Pleasant Valley, New York, family movies, childhood games, career, marriage, children, businesses in Lakeville, polio epidemic, 1936 Olympic Games, war pilot, and private pilot.

Property of the Oral History Project

Salisbury Association at the Scoville Memori

Salisbury, Conn.06068

Binzen, Bill a18.psd

 

Tape #99 Bill Binzen

CS:Let’s start off by giving a little bit of biographical information. We’d like to know if you don’t

mind your age and the way you grew up so they can orient themselves.

BB:I grew up in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. I was born even as World War I was coming to a

close. We came up here; my family started renting places up here on the lake, Lake Wononscoponic. I wish I could have talked to my mother and father even as I am being talked to now because I remember things so vaguely in many respects that it must have been for three or four years in the 30’s, maybe ’32 to ’37, somewhere in that area. We first rented a place. It was called the Barstow cottage. Let me see if I can place it for you. Say you are coming out of the Wake Robin Inn driveway onto route 41, turn right going to Lakeville. It would be the second drive on the left, on the lake side. I went by it the other day, it’s #93, and there is a stone wall in front of it; the only stone wall along there. This cottage is down a slope well back from the road. It is a one story house which must have been sort of unusual in those days. Out behind it, it was flat where we played croquet and had some wonderful times. Then it went round rather drastically to the lake. We had a fine summer there, but subsequently we started renting a house that belonged to Charlotte Norton, who was the librarian at Scoville Library for many years, a very nice woman. I think she lived with her niece, named Kiki. This house was once again I’ll try and place it. Just about at the top of the hill where the Catholic Church is and Wells Hill goes off to the left, across the way on the lake side there are 2 driveways side by side, one is #63 and one is #65. You go in those drives toward the lake and there is a Victorian house that is now has” Art of Japan” in it (Dr. Knight’s house & School for Imbeciles). Those two drives, the one on the left goes to what used to be the barn, and the one on the right goes to the house. You can’t see the house very well from the road because there is a house closer to the road that sort of cuts in front of it. But in those days the house gave out on a great meadow going down to the lake, extending from the, I think it was the Scholle house, the one that I refer to as the “Art of Japan” house. It belonged to people named Scholle if I remember. I think it was Mitch Finlay’s who’s still around here. I think that was his boyhood home. (Yes, it was.) He lived there at that time. Anyway this meadow extended from that property to the south to what was the Borden estate on the northern side, the Lakeville village side. It was a really good sized meadow, and when I went by it in a boat not long ago, I think I counted four or five houses there. That was the meadow we used to romp around and run down to the lake in. It was sort of brought face to face with the passage of time. We did a simple life. There were three of us boys, and we had a wonderful time. It couldn’t have been much pleasanter.

CS:You came up for summers, then.

BB:We came up for summers. We came up with my mother and my dad, who would come up on

weekends and for his vacation.

CS:Were most of the houses summer houses?

BB:I wish I could answer that. I suspect not many of them were rented for summer uses in those

days. I don’t think there were a lot of summer people coming to this world, certainly not comparable to today. But I could be wrong about that. I really don’t know.

 

CS:So in that sense your family was sort of ahead of the times.2.

BB:They were sort of for which I am eternally grateful. Because obviously that is why I am living

here today, but that’s a continuing story. Anyway there was a circular drive around the house and I guess there still is; wonderful for bicycle racing, always going hell for leather, capers like that. We spend so much time down by the lake. We had a dock that ran out into the lake, and fished for sunnys and all the usual things that kids do.

CS:I’ll bet the lake was clear then.

BB:It was clear, oh boy, it was wonderful. Turtles abounded. You could get into a boat and go

around and see turtles on logs, and you could scoop them up with nets sometimes. It was quite a different proposition. I remember the dock. Every June when we got up here, the dock would be put out by a man who always stuck in my mind, an affable fellow who was named Bill Raynsford. He had what was a carpentry shop I guess in those days. You know that little white building that is right next to the (old) fire department parking lot? That was his shop. We were always impressed with Bill. He’d stand in the cold water for hours on end putting that dock out, but he had the girth to do it. He was almost as round as he was tall, but a nice man, the kind of man who would always makes an impression on a youngster. The things we did were not unusual whatsoever. I remember we played a lot of golf as kids. We would go up to Hotchkiss. We’d walk up or be driven up sometimes. Sometimes I remember we’d hitchhike which of course isn’t done today. Our parents were parents who would concern themselves about the welfare of their kids, but in those days it would never occur to you that a child shouldn’t hitch a ride a mile or two. I remember one time we were picked up, and we were really avid on golf, sold on it, not very good but loved it. We’d go up there and play and I think a family membership was probably like $50 a year. If we weren’t playing, we’d go up and look for lost balls which were almost as much fun. In those days for anybody who plays golf I have to say you’d find the course today a darn sight simpler than it was then. They had roughs; they actually had honest to gosh roughs in those days four or five inches tall. I remember the second and third holes were both bordered by roughs, and the fourth hole tapered down into the woods. It was a dastardly hole to play. That was a great place to look for lost balls.

CS:Has it changed? Have the holes changed?

BB:The holes have changed somewhat. The fourth hole has changed drastically because they put a

new building there at Hotchkiss and had to make some modifications. There was real sand around the fifth hole which there isn’t much of now, and the sixth hole had rough and so it went. Anyway we had a lot of fun there. I’ll never forget one time going up there when we were hitchhiking, we were picked up by a man and he identified himself as Kent Fulton which actually bowled us over. It was because Kent Fulton had built his own private 18 hole golf course on the Under Mountain Road. I think it’s called Hob Knob Hill if I remember correctly.

CS:Oh yeah it is.

 

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BB:Now there are houses there of course. But to be picked up by a man who had his own golf

course, while you are going to play golf was a thrill extraordinaire.

CS:He didn’t invite you over there?

BB:He did not. I remember subsequently playing once or twice with my dad who somehow had the

contacts to arrange it, but never made it, but that was later on. In the other direction one of the real pleasures was walking down Elm Street of an evening. I don’t know whether you, Elm Street, I don’t know how you describe it, it runs into Allen Street. It’s the street; do you know where Fudali has his art framing shop?

CS:Framing shop? Yes.

BB:And on the left is a big house with pillars that faces on the lake. I think Charlotte Reid lived

there.

CS:That was Charlotte Reid’s family wasn’t it.

BB:Yeah. Well that’s Elm Street, and Elm Street ran right into this great big meadow. So you could

literally walk from your house across the meadow down Elm Street and there was the Stuart Theater. To be able to walk to a movie, not jump in a car, and just meander down the hill like that was a real pleasure.

CS:The movie theater, how long did that last?

BB:I don’t know. It burned down, of course, and I just don’t know when that was. It must have been

after World War 11, but probably not too long after. I just don’t really recall. (It burned Christmas Day in 1958.)

CS:What other buildings were around there then?

BB:That’s what’s so frets me. I wish I could remember. I remember the building; the theater was

about where the pizza place is now (Mizza’s). Then on the corner of 41 and Allen Street there’s a yellow house that used to be a laundromat (now Cafe Giulia), I don’t know whether it still is or not, and that was what you would call an earlier version of a variety store. It had candy which was of course I remember for that reason; I suppose it had newspapers and miscellaneous things like that.

CS:The railroad trestle was gone by that time, wasn’t it?

BB:I was trying to think about that, I was wondering about that last night. I don’t know when the

railroad trestle went down. I seem to think the trains still came up when we lived there, but I can’t honestly say I remember the answer to that, (sometime in the early 1950’s)

CS:It certainly would have been a dramatic change I would think.

 

4.

BB:Wouldn’t it though! Yeah. Well, I remember; I seem to remember driving on the Lime Rock

Salisbury Road and coming to the tracks there before you get into Salisbury, you know now the walking path, just down the road from Amen Corner (jet. of Salmon Kill Road and Rt. 44) and having a train come by at night. I think that might have been after World War II. Others I am sure will have answers to this question which I can’t seem to. I remember Dufour’s Garage; anybody who lived around here then, that was…do you know where that was?

CS:No, I don’t.

BB:It was on the corner, well when you come down the hill (Montgomery Street/Sharon Road) and

41 joins 44: you turn right to go to Salisbury, right on that corner on the right. It is now a park. It used to be Dufour’s Garage. It was an improbable place to pull in for gas or whatever.

CS:Wasn’t there a variety store next to it?

BB; Yes there was. Bill Barnett’s Variety Store was on the south going south, and there was a barbershop there.

CS:All the things we don’t have now and would love to have.

BB:All those things, yeah. Of Course there was a drugstore where Dick Walsh was (China Inn), but

isn’t now. That was there then. I think there was another drugstore up, there’s a little park across from the Holley Williams House on the corner there, and there were stores there (Holley Block), and I think one of them was a drugstore. Whether there were two drugstores in town at that point I don’t know.

CS:Then there was much more commercial activity at that time.

BB:Yeah. I would certainly think so.

CS:Your parents started coming here…

BB:My parents, well I think the reason they first came was because my dad had a business friend

named George Childs who bought a farm over in Falls Village. So I think that is why they first started exploring this part of the world. Subsequently in 1945 when I came home from the service, they had bought a house on Brinton Hill at the very top of Brinton Hill where the sharp curve occurs on the north side. I remember going up with my ma to see the house, and we stayed at the Ragamont. The Ragamont in those days was one of the few restaurants in town, but it had a real standing in the heart of people who lived in the community. It was run by two women, I can’t remember their names. It had a real flavor and real warmth to it. (From 1933 until at least 1951 it was owned by Miss Mary Ann Sharpe and Miss Mary Jo McLain. In 1956 it was bought by Dean Hammond’s parents.)

CS:Of course the White Hart was there too.

 

5.

BB:The White Hart was there, but I can’t think of any other restaurants, but there probably were

some. We went over and my ma showed me the place they had acquired. It was in our family for 35 years after that.

CS:It’s a lovely, lovely site.

BB:I’ve never been able to go over the hill; it meant so much to me that I’ve never had any desire to

drive over the hill since. I know it sounds silly, but I just want to remember it the way it was. Everything about it was so much a part of the world that I loved. Thank goodness after living in a house that I was not particularly intrigued with one way or another, we came over here on Weatogue Road about five or six years ago. I love it here, and so that has sort of evened out my feelings about the other house on Brinton Hill. I love this equally.

CS:As a child here in the summer you must have enjoyed, did they have the 4th of July parades and

Memorial Day parades?

BB:Oh sure. They were a big thing and the carnival of course. Kids would decorate their bikes and

put red, white and blue ribbon around the wheels. That was still patriotism as expressed in the earlier days. We were still with it. I guess World War II was sort of the turning point. Things began to happen, but I remember that here. I remember that down in Montclair. The circus would come…I don’t think the circus came up here. Down in Montclair the circus would come to town, schools would be out so you could go out to see them put up the tents. I can’t imagine such a thing now

CS:So parades were fairly common?

BB:Yeah, I think so.

CS:I still think it is one of the special things about this area. I mean having a Memorial Day Parade.

BB:I never used to go into the parade; then it was the big, 76, the bicentennial. Doggone it I’d

better see if I can find my old uniform. I have been parading ever since. It’s a wonderfully warm feeling to be a part of that.

CS:Everyone participates.

BB:Yeah.

CS:A real community thing.

BB:Absolutely so. Absolutely so. I am sure that it is deep in their heritage of these New England

towns.

CS:But that tradition was already there back in the late 30’s.

 

6.

BB:Yeah, oh yeah.

CS:They had fewer veterans I guess marching then.

BB:fewer veterans. Well I don’t know. World War I produced a lot of veterans if you look on the

monument there. But going back to Brinton Hill for just one moment, the most dramatic time Iremember there was the flood of 1955, the big storm that wiped out half of Winsted. I don’t knowwhether you are familiar…

CS:I wasn’t here then.

BB:It was unbelievable. The Housatonic River came up and completely flooded the road that runs

along the Housatonic on the west side, came up about 150 feet up Brinton Hill, up Brinton Hill Road. Wewent down the other side headed for Salisbury and the road where, at that corner beyond whereGeorge Miner lives, where Sandy Boynton lives, was completely washed out. I can show you pictures.Then if you tried to go the other way down Brinton Hill and head toward Lime Rock, Salmon Creek hadwashed it out down there, so we were absolutely on our own mountain top world for three or four days.The bridge in Lime Rock that substantial cement bridge was knocked galley-west, it was quite a storm.

CS:It all came from one storm.

BB:Yeah, one it must have rained for a very long time and very hard. I don’t know; it built up. It was

quite a dramatic interlude for the people in this world. Going back to earlier days, I don’t know whatelse I can recall.

CS:I am interested in when you say that you hitchhiked to go up to the Hotchkiss golf course. It

would seem an easy walk, but…

BB:Well we walked it a lot, too but hitchhiking…

CS:It was sort of a special…

BB:But hitchhiking was sort of fun, to get out and work your thumb and have somebody stop and

pick you up. It was just another way of getting there, but it sort of created an alternative to just walkingalong.

CS:When you think back to that now what are the most obvious changes that you saw. Obviously it

is more built up. Yet some things are gone that were there like the variety store and the movie theater.Was downtown more built up in those days or less?

BB:Downtown Lakeville was…

CS:You refer to it as downtown.

BB:Yes, downtown, it was substantially changed; let’s put it that way. I would think it was almost

50% changed. There are still houses along there, and they are as they were, but so much has been torndown and in some instances have been built up. Where the Chinese restaurant is was a market and

 

7.

before that I gather it was, I am sure that other people know much more about this and can talk at length about it. I don’t know it was a community hall of some kind. I know there were dances there and stuff, (the Roberts Building was located where The Boathouse Restaurant is now.) but exactly what it was all about I don’t know.

CS:What about the Pocket Knife Square, was that a sort of factory?

BB:I don’t remember. It obviously was there and I suppose maybe it was turning out what it was

named for but…

CS:it wasn’t doing anything that interested a young boy.

BB:Well doggone it. It must have been an awful lot of interest to a young boy, but you are so

absorbed in your own world; the world of being outdoors and gallivanting around and cavorting and doing your thing. You are not, I mean I was not the observer of that scene that I should be. Some people have a photographic mind that…

CS:Well you were there in the summer and…

BB:Yeah, that’s true. We didn’t experience it during all the seasons. We experienced it in a short

way which perhaps was a bit, not completely normal because we weren’t of the town. We didn’t know many of the other young kids, and didn’t participate very much in the activities that were going on because I guess because we had each other and we had the lake. We spend so much time on…We had everything we needed I guess.

CS:Did the town beach exist then?

BB:Yes, it did, and Frank Markey was running it then. The same sort of rowboats that are there now

I remember that we used I guess we’d rent them. I don’t think we would rent one for the whole summer, but we would rent them quite often and fish. We’d go out to, there’s a little island, and there is only one island in the lake, a tiny little island. We loved that island, and we’d go out there and picnic time and again of an evening. The last time I was out there it looked like the geese had discovered it and sort of messed it up good and proper.

CS:There was a tree on there at one time, wasn’t there? I don’t think there is now.

BB: There isn’t now. I just don’t remember whether there was or not. There might well have been. Oh there is nothing more pleasurable than packing a picnic dinner and rowing out there, and swimming, and eating and rowing back at dusk.

CS:It sounds like an idyllic life.

BB:There weren’t many motors on the lake in those days, and some curious things would happen

which 1 don’t suppose would happen today. I remember sea planes landing there once in a while.

 

CS:Really?8.

BB:Yeah, I don’t think there was a law against it. If there was, it was broken more than once.

Because I remember I won’t say a number of instances, but I remember planes there now and again.

CS:That’s extraordinary.

BB:In fact we’ve got family movies that I could document that.

CS:It must have been very difficult to take off to get enough…

BB:Well, there’s quite a straight, you could start down at the Hotchkiss corner there and angle

across. You’d get a pretty good run. I am not about to say that this happened very often, but it definitely did happen.

CS:But everyone that landed was able to take off apparently.

BB:Tothe best of my…well, I think one plane did end up in the lake; I’m not sure if it was because it

had landed there or whether it just ran out of momentum and plunked in there. But the Town Grove, I don’t know when it started, but I guess it must have been Frank Markey who really whipped it into…he devoted so many years to it. He had a real feeling for that place. I’ve always assumed that he was the one most instrumental for helping develop its character. (See tape 92 Memories of William Barnett)

CS:He was the guy who…

BB:Yeah.

CS:How did you come up when you came up from New Jersey?

BB:We would drive up, but it was not the,it wasmore of a tripthanit istodaythat’s for sure.My

mother grew up in Pleasant Valley,New York, DuchessCounty. Thefarmhouse thatshe grew up inwas

in the family for over 100 years up until a few years ago. We would go up through there, and come up on the other side of the Hudson, crossing over at Newburgh.

CS:Then you would go through Millbrook and Amenia to come here.

BB:Yeah.

CS:Were you doing any photograph at that age?

BB:No really. I think I was given a camera when I was young. I have a few pictures that I took at that

age. What we do have, fascinating at least as far as the family is concerned, is that my mom and dad had a movie camera. They used it quite a bit, as I think quite a few people did in those days. It really gives you the flavor of our life which I can’t possibly produce in stills.

CS:Do you still have those films?

BB:I do, yeah.

 

CS:That might be interesting some time.9.

BB:Well, as I say they are very personal; they’re us, and the things that we did.

CS:Like the sea plane, and something else.

BB:Yeah. But it would give you a feeling of the simple life in those days. It may not be that much

different from the simple life today except it is of course. When you didn’t have television, and people weren’t jumping in motorcars the way they are now, and supermarkets to run to all the time. I think it more I shouldn’t say it; it makes me sound like an old fogie, but it was a more meaningful life.

CS:I think so too. It was a much better pace than we have now.

BB:Yeah, well I wrote this for fun.

CS:Everything is speeding up too fast.

BB:I wrote, I started writing a few years ago just my recollections of my childhood on Elston Road

in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, which was a quiet little road on the edge of town, and the kids and the games and so on? I am amazed going back there how different that life was from the life today. But one lives in the era one lives in. You can’t go back and no reason why one should try, but it was substantially different. We were outside ’til dark playing Kick the Can and Red Light, Cops and Robbers, Hares and Hounds, and Hide and Seek; all these games and marbles.

CS:Hares and Hounds is a game I don’t know.

BB:Hares and Hounds as I recall the environmentalist wouldn’t like this game; you get paper and

tear it up into little pieces of paper. Then you would start out maybe 5 minutes before my gang, and you would leave a trail of paper, but it was to be quite subtle as you can imagine. Then the hounds would have to try and catch up to you.

CS:Using biodegradable paper.

BB:(laughs) I’m not sure we were that concerned.

CS:I mean kids don’t play marbles or things like that anymore, I don’t think.

BB:Marbles was part and parcel of my life when I was in grammar school. I mean you never went to

school in the spring without your marble bag.

CS:Did you collect it or trade it, did you?

BB:Oh, yeah and you played games. You’d draw a circle and play games during recess, or get there

early before school and play. It was of great importance to have a good shooter and your fingernails would get worn down.

CS:You didn’t have a garage full of plastic toys.

 

BB:No, you didn’t.10.

CS:So you made do with marbles and things like that.

BB:Well toys were more substantial in those days for one thing, weren’t they? They were made

with tin and iron. I don’t know; it’s different. So those things were played up here of course.

CS:You didn’t come up in the winter time at all in those days.

BB:No, never. After my mother and dad bought that place in ’45, 1 would come up whenever I

could. Then I got married, and we began to have children. We lived in Manhattan, East Village actually, because that was where the action was for a photographer. New York City it was very important to be there. I enjoyed that period. This was during the era of the “Flower Children”; I got a lot of interesting pictures. I even got some books out of that life down there. But in 1970 the children were beginning to get school age, and we borrowed my parents’ home for a year because my dad had died. My ma never used it except in the summer after that. We spent one year here. The kids began to go to Salisbury Central, and I did a lot of running back and forth, but I certainly never wanted to turn back. So we have been here ever since.

CS:I know you took the road between Sharon and Amenia Union by those four maple trees.

BB:That’s right.

CS:I used to come up on weekends and went by that of course every weekend, and always noticed

the trees, but it never occurred to me to take a series of photographs as you did.

BB:Well that has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. It was funny how that all came

about.

CS:Was the hardware store, Community Lumber or Community Hardware, that’s always been there

hasn’t it, only in a different form?

BB:I think so, yes. Yeah because what’s his name Sid, a man named Sid Cowles had it before he sold

it to Mike (Tenure). I think he had it for a good long time.

CS:Wasn’t that Charlotte Reid’s family?

BB:I don’t know. But it does go back a good long time.

CS:You say there was a series of fires, so we don’t know what it was like originally.

BB:Not at all, I mean there was no resemblance; the lumber yard and the whole complex is

completely different.

CS:But it must have been a fascinating place at one time.

 

11.

BB:I imagine. Of course there’s a market, always had to have been a market. I remember there’s an

A & P at one point which is sort of in the area where the gas station is. That’s where Barnett’s general store was, too. I imagine that everything that one would need would have been in Lakeville in those days. Maybe one’s needs were relatively simple, but it would have to be the case wouldn’t it?

CS:I would think so.

BB:Not everybody had car to jump into and go out to the supermarket.

CS:I guess you didn’t spend much time in Canaan or Millerton in those days, did you?

BB:No I don’t know anything about Canaan or Millerton.

CS:Far away places.

BB:I do now; I am very attached to Canaan, and Great Barrington which is up the road. I love Great

Barrington. They were places I don’t remember.

CS:That’s very helpful. That is very interesting. Anything else I should ask you about or is that…?

BB:I don’t think so. I can call you up if I think of anything else. As I said my recollection revolves so

much around family life which was simple. I suppose it is not surprising that I don’t remember all those peripheral things, particularly just being here for a couple of months.

CS:You weren’t really part of the community.

BB:No I remember going down, there was always a baseball team, to see the ball…

CS:Was it a Lakeville baseball team?

BB:I think it was. Yeah they played down where they play now as I recollect. Things like that; you

would certainly feel the warmth of being in this world when you went to a ball game or as you suggest a parade. They were very friendly people, the merchants and what not. People you came across gave you a real feeling of being a part of the community.

CS:They probably all knew who you were.

BB:Yeah I think so. My mother and dad were friendly people.

CS:I imagine the locals knew who came up in the summer.

BB:Oh sure, we probably stood out dramatically.

CS:Oh yeah they’d charge a penny a head. I am sure they did.

 

12.

BB:My brother said that that was the time of the polio epidemic, one of the summers we were up

here, the great polio epidemic that swept the country, a terrible thing. Everybody had to stay very close to home. He also remembers listening to the Olympic Games in 1936 on the radio. So that shows that we were there during that era, when Jesse Owens showed Hitler a thing or two.

CS:Yes, he did. Did the polio epidemic have many victims here?

BB:It did country wide. I suppose it did here. This was before Salk had come up with his vaccine. It

really was a terrible thing. Of course radio was the thing in those days. I won’t pretend we didn’t listen to the radio.

CS:During the war period you were away.

BB:I was a B17 pilot in Italy during the war for three years.

CS:So you weren’t here at all then.

BB:I wasn’t here at all; never saw this world which was why it was all the sweeter when I came up

with my mother that fall of’45.1 always thought I should… I got a private pilot’s license after the war, and I always regretted that I didn’t continue to fly because this is such a wonderful world for that. We sit here and the planes are constantly hovering around and going in and out of the airport up the road.

CS:There are quite a few friends of mine who fly.

BB:You do. I suppose you have been up. I’ve been up a few times, and it really is fun to look down

on the northwest corner,

CS:It’s a little adjustment though to see how flat everything looks from above.

BB:That’s true. We were flying in a commercial plane not long ago going to Atlanta or some place

from Hartford, and darned if it didn’t fly right over here; we were up about five miles. It was interesting to look down on your own little world.

CS:I had an experience flying from Washington to the airport just outside Newburgh. Curiously, I

have no idea why, the flight came over Hotchkiss, and I just happened to be idly looking out the window and recognized Hotchkiss School. So there is something about things like that.

BB:I don’t know how often they get over here. It depends on a lot of things I suppose.

CS:Well I don’t want to take too much of your time.

BB:I just wish I could supply more information. As you yourself suggested two months in the

summer is a small amount so I do not have the overall picture.

CS:But it left you with a very, very special feeling obviously.

 

13.

BB:Oh Lordy yes. I can’t imagine having had an incredibly fortunate; I can’t imagine having a better

childhood of a summer than the ones we had up here. It was just a simpler world. It was a slower world, and you were I suppose there is as much to do outside the home…

CS:You were more self- contained in a sense. You weren’t distracted or whatever by all the

outsiders. You were really self -sufficient in terms of entertainment.

BB:I guess that in a sense would be a good word. It wasn’t just up here; I mean it was life in general.

However this is 1993.

CS:I shall leave you now.

o