Hidden Valley

Dodd's swimming pool being constructed on Hawley Drive in Webster
Dodd’s swimming pool being constructed on Hawley Drive in Webster

When my family moved out of the city in the sixties Webster was still a small town surrounded by farms. Although in the village and pretty close to the four corners our subdivision, referred to as the Schantz track by the locals, was a muddy old corn field. Beyond that was still woods, the first, second and third woods and the spot we called Hidden Valley. That place was magic.

My dad decided to put a pool in the backyard and the idea was to dig it ourselves. You can see in this picture how much help we were. My dad did most of the work and he took this shot. From left: Norm Ladd, Paul Dodd, Billy Mahoney, David Hill, Frank Palozolo, Dave Mahoney (no relation), Fran Dodd, Mark Dodd, Brad Fox, Tim Dodd, John Dodd and Joe Barrett.

2 Comments

2 Replies to “Hidden Valley”

  1. I was going to build a bomb shelter and dug a deep hole with square sides and got hired to paint a house by the old man watching who saw all this wasted energy. So the hole filled up with water and rats fell in it and drown. Drowned, okay. My brother always says they were just mice.
    So I filled the hole up with gasoline, okay, just poured like a gallon in there and threw in a match to burn up all the floating bodies.
    That’s what I think about when I think about digging holes in the back yard yourself.
    You can get your own memories overwhelmed looking at trench warfare photographs which I imagine the stench of to complete my sense of horror at some things about life.
    Grand life.

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