Tobey Pond

I’m now in good enough shape to pedal the pedicab with Cindy up the steep road to Tobey Pond. The idyllic pond is one of the iconic pastoral places of Norfolk, perhaps THE iconic pastoral place after the more centrally located split rail fence across from the ball field. As a kid I came here often to swim during the summer; as parents Cindy and I came here often for our kids to swim.

After our kids grew up Cindy and I only visited Tobey Pond once a year, on the Crop Walk route that included going around the pond. Eventually, participation in that halted for us as well. It had been years since Cindy and I visited Tobey Pond, one of ours or anyone’s favorite places of Norfolk. One of my main objectives for the pedicab was precisely to return us to this spot.

For our first trip I brought along some snacks, the current Oz book I’m reading to Cindy (there are close to forty books about Oz) and my iPad for pictures and Candy Crush. I parked the pedicab at the entrance to the beach area, under some shade, and took turns reading to Cindy, snacking, playing Candy Crush …. and reflecting.

Tobey Pond is privately owned, with the beach area leased for the town’s enjoyment. The pond as a natural feature has not changed over the course of my 60+ years in town. Though there is an unnatural sandy beach, this has been part of Tobey since my beginnings, with the sand brought in periodically for the sake of maintaining a beach.

Yet much has changed about Tobey Pond. Over the course of my lifetime I recall there was first but one dock, then a second dock with a high diving board that delighted the kids, then two docks without even a low diving board. This last stage provides a reminder that we are current victims to the “safety first and litigation” impulses of the insurance age.

The other striking change about Tobey is the people. When I went as a kid I knew all the other kids there. When we went as a family we knew all the other families there. Yet as I sat next to Cindy in the pedicab, looking over the amazingly tranquil pastoral pond, I was a little disturbed that I did not know anyone there, amidst a rural New England town.

Ah, this is the way of life, a series of passings. No doubt as my family was socializing at Tobey Pond with the Laudati’s, the Hinman’s, or the Couch’s in years gone by, an older person was surveying the scene from the back of the beach, on the one hand still soaking in the idyllic setting as a miracle tonic, on the other hand lamenting that he knew not these families who were enjoying life in front of him.

Life is a series of passings. Readers of this blog know what passing next awaits us here at our home on Emerson Street. Perhaps with that passing comes another. Though I would keep this house as a home base, perhaps I will pass from local native to global traveler. In either case I would be met with fresh new faces supplanting the nostalgic memories of the old.