Sherwood Forest

This photo was definitely taken before 1949 or '50, when my family bought a house in Sherwood Forest, on the Severn River in Maryland. But I'd bet it was taken only ten or 15 years before. It's only the clothes of some of the subjects that show the time a little. The porch could have easily been our house, and the rocking chair couple could have been my mother and father.

We went to Sherwood Forest instead of to New Hampshire, where we'd spent every summer since 1938, the year my sister was born.  Neither Lucy nor I was in favor of the idea, since Conway was home to us. (I think the other day I said Center Conway by mistake. Center Conway was our mailing address, but we were really in South Conway, and the beach with the lollipops was the South Conway Club. This writing experience is showing up all kinds of holes in my memory.) But my mother had been ill, my grandfather had recently died, and Sherwood Forest was close to Baltimore, where my father worked. He could spend all the summer with us, and not just a few weekends. 

Sherwood Forest was a kind of a family camp, but with houses rather than tents. There was golf, swimming, sailing, dances, cocktail parties for the grownups, and a full schedule of sports and games for the children. Lucy truly didn't like organized activity by then and got a job in the little snack store. I didn't like the feel of the program either, but I can't recall why. The golf was kind of dumb, my group felt, so we played one hole, and on the basis of those scores made up the rest and went to the snack shop, whose name is almost on the tip of my tongue. The swimming was interesting, since the Severn is full of stinging jellyfish. They're not fatal, but a good sting would raise welts and put an end to the day's fun. The swimming area was netted and that kept most of the jellyfish out, but we all got stung sometimes. 

Lucy and I shared a room on a bottom floor, and it was reached by a ladder, so grownups rarely came down. We were thus able to keep a horde of forbidden comic books that we bought sometimes instead of candy. My father would drop a board down the ladder to wake us up. Rude or funny? I could never tell. My grandmother came to visit for a week or two, and we all played Canasta every night. I can't remember how to play now, but it must be a good game to captivate a family from 10 years old to 60 or so. My grandmother's age was always just old. I wonder if my grandchildren think of me that way now.

There were only two Sherwood Forest summers, and then we returned to New Hampshire as before. Hill Acres Farm was the name of the revolutionary war farm that my grandfather had bought from the last living Littlefield. I wish he'd named it Littlefields, but I wasn't born yet and couldn't express my opinion. New Hampshire was where we belonged, with aunts and uncles and cousins.