Skating Days in Princeton

As the son of a 1929 graduate of the University, I grew up in Princeton. I learned to skate at Baker Rink where Richard Vaughn, the University’s hockey coach, coached a fortunate group of players at the Princeton Country Day School. As much fun as that experience was, it did not compare the days when, on an early winter morning, my mother would drive me, skates, stick, and pucks in hand, to the University crew house. Some of my friends would already have arrived, and once we laced up, we began the journey to Kingston. When we arrived at the Harrison Street bridge, we had to check to see if the ice was thick enough for us to skate underneath. Often it was not, and we would skate to the nearest bank, and, on the toes of our skates, make our way up the hill, across the road, and down the other side. Safely back onto the ice, we headed north to Kingston. As we approached, we could see other figures already out on the lake, fully engaged in some sort of game. The Cook family was prominent among that crew — Paula, John, Steve, and Peter, Jr. And, of course, Peter Sr., whose painting of that portion of the lake hangs in our dining room (next to the portrait he did of my mother). For the remainder of the day we played and played and played. At about 3 p.m. we would begin our skate back to Princeton, retracing the path we had taken earlier in the day. I live in Boston now, and even here, well north of New Jersey, only a thin layer of ice spans out to where the swans are swimming in the middle of Jamaica Pond. Oh, “where are the snows of yesteryear?” We lived a golden winter childhood.