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Songo Pond Book Recounts Times Past

August 12, 2010 - BETHEL -- Long before the days of gleaming, aqua-colored waterslides snaking their way into a pool, there were tall, straight slides built atop floats on Songo Pond.

There was also a risky diving platform at the top of a precariously leaning tree.

And there was Daisy Kimball’s Tea Room, the bathhouses, and, of course, the Songo Lake Pavilion dance hall (better known as Abner’s).

Norma Kimball Salway, who has lived on the pond since her childhood, has gathered her memories of Songo, as well as those of others, in a book “The Spirit of Songo.”

The book features story-poems by Salway, interspersed with many early-to-mid-20th century photos of life on the pond.

In talking with older people about Songo, said Salway, “so many say, ‘that was my childhood.’”

In the mid-20th century, she said, the crowds that came from New Hampshire on weekends to swim at the beach at the Bethel end of the pond were so large that many locals stayed away.

Putting it all together

Salway writes about the waterslides (who built them seems to be a mystery), swimming lessons, keys to the bathhouses, dances at Abner’s, Daisy Kimball’s Tea Room (a snack building), ice houses, fishing, ice skating, and personally getting her courage up over several years to finally leap from the leaning tree.

Jumping from the platform, she said, “was a rite of passage.”

A retired elementary school teacher, Salway said she has always done poetry-style writing with her students. And on “snow days” off from school, she also wrote about Songo.

“I didn’t set out to write a book,” she said, but as her collection of writings and photos grew, she decided it was time.

“I got serious about it a year ago,” she said.

The photos and poems are set up on a parchment-like background.

“I wanted to put it together like a vintage album,” she said.

Also included are several clippings from the Bethel Citizen, about topics such as swimming lessons, ice cutting and measurements of the depth of the pond.

Current and former Songo camp residents may find their family names in one poem.

Entitled “Going to Camp,” Salway recounts the rituals each spring of packing for a summer on Songo, and the anticipation that went with it.

An excerpt:

“Each year, along about May, summer residents start returning from their homes in town, or from states far away, singing:

We’re going to camp!

As a year-round resident I felt left out of the rituals of opening camp and the excitement that mounts.

We’re going to camp!

There were the usual trials (so I was told) turning on water and gas, lugging supplies, sweeping aside cobwebs, discovering mice and spiders. Surprise!

We’re going to camp!

… Leavitt, Gorman, Davis, Stevens, camps old and new.

Cole, Parsons, Kallis, Rich, Truman; they were here, too.”

Book signing

On Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Salway will be at Books ‘N Things in Bethel for a book signing. She will then move up the street to the Bethel Historical Society for a signing from 1 until 4 p.m.

by staff writer, Bethel Citizen, August 12, 2010

Lakes: Songo Pond
Regions: Sebago


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