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Southbridge Recollections
Swimming at Ovide's – Jim
Lacey
In the 1940's David Varnam and I would bicycle from our homes on South Street (near Litchfield Avenue) to Ovide's Hotel in Sturbridge for a swim. As neither of us had a driver's license, this was our mode of travel. The route took us past the large watering trough on a road, long since closed and then onto Mashapaug Road(?). We would change into bathing suits in the bath house, leaving our street clothes in wooden baskets with rubber rings; one to wear on our wrist and one in the basket for identification. We would swim to the raft (see photo) where the water was just deep enough to be over our heads. After an hour or so, we would return to Southbridge. The best swim of all was when I got my driver's license - driving was so much more pleasure! I remember hearing more than once 'You Call Everybody Darling' by Jerry Wayne over the PA system at the beach.
‘Southbridge-Gang’
photo supplied by Jim Lacey.
Left
to right: Robert Craig (Needham MA[?]), David Varnam (Deer Creek Park,
WA),
Rudy St. Martin (deceased) and Jim Lacey (Paris, TN).
Not sure when the photo
was taken (by Bob Craig’s mother Meriam), but sometime in the 1940’s.
Cheers, Jim
Jim Lacey
Comments: email Dick Whitney