Growing Up Grenville by Dave Axford
I was driving into the Park last Sunday morning when I saw Anthony Buttazzoni and his son Oliver walking purposefully along the street lugging hockey bags, sticks and skates. Naturally I stopped to ask them what was up and Tony told me that on his walk the day before he had discovered a natural pond at the bottom of the woods (the arboretum) south of Grenville Rd. The snowing-melting-thawing-freezing cycle of the last few weeks had left it frozen over smooth and solid and he and Ollie were going to join Emma and Gwyneth for that most Canadian of all winter activities, pond hockey. I detoured home to drop off the car and bumped into Meghan Marley and her younger daughter Emily (10 Grenville Rd.) and they too had heard the news and were heading for the woods to join husband Jason Wimmer and older daughter Caitlin.
I put on my big black boots, grabbed my camera and plowed through Nancy and Michael Hurley's back yard, a short cut from my place through to the Woods. I navigated down the path, more of a muddy stream these days because it carries most of the run-off from both Elmwood St. and Grenville Rd. When I finally got to the bottom, I saw a sight that probably hasn't been seen in that location since the mid 1970's. Girls, boys, Moms and Dads were skating their hearts out, stick handling pucks and plastic balls around each other, trying out their free-style figure skating moves and generally having a ball. It took me back to my own younger days growing up in Grenville Park when we used to skate in that very spot.
Because it's the lowest spot in the area, elevation-wise, water has always collected there. Usually it drains away along a ditch north west of the tennis court to a storm sewer this side of Queen Mary Road but this year the fallen trees and heavy snowfall have slowed the flow to the point where the level is the highest it's been in years. A little cold weather and voila, Return of the Rink. I say 'return' because there used to be a rink there... boards, lights, a hose shed and plumbing for flooding, shovels for scraping snow off, a skate-changing shed...the works. We had hockey teams: the "Aces" (mostly kids from Westview, Elmwood and the south end of Grenville) and the "Golden Eagles" (mostly kids from the rest of Grenville Road and Grenville Cr.). Everyone who had kids who used the rink, shared the flooding and snow clearing duties and it worked extremely well for years, other than my father's persistent grumbling about having to take his turns on only the coldest nights of the winter. Demand was high enough that we had to have a schedule to keep the hockey players and the recreational skaters from getting at each others' throats. I have an original super-eight film that was taken back in those days and eventually transferred several years onto VHS tape. I must track it down and get it digitized so you can all see it at a park party. Anyway, one thing we didn't have in those days is a whole bunch of trees all around the edges of the rink area. This generation of kids, Caitlin, Ollie, Gwyneth and Emily were all weaving in and out of them like mad and I have to admit, I used them more than once to try and keep from falling.
I checked the pond out again today when I was walking Rosie and Mali and it's even better than it was Sunday. Check it out! Thanks to Tony B for keeping his eyes open and jumping on this rare opportunity to have a little old fashioned fun in Grenville Park.
