Jack and Claire Wolflien, friends of the Cooper family and former Mayor of Beacon Falls, had a cottage on Lovell Lake in New Hampshire that they offered to us for our honeymoon. After the party on Saturday Laurie and I went to the Sheraton in Hartford for the night. When we awoke the next morning I found that I forgot my wallet at our condo (I didn't want to carry it at the wedding). I embarrassingly called my dad to pick it up and bring it to Hartford so we could pay for our room and get to NH. If I remember right he brought almost the whole family with him to embarrass us some more.
After the time spent with my family on the morning after our wedding, went drove to Lovell Lake and settled in. The cottage had a huge stone fireplace and lots of room for large gatherings. There were several bedrooms upstairs and a spiral staircase which was recently added.
One day we decided to cook on the grill, which was on the deck overlooking the lake. This was a huge mistake because I started this just before dusk and thousands of very large mosquitoes swarmed in on me as soon as I opened the sliding door. I had to make it quick or be dinner for the thousands of B52's swarming around me. We made the best of it though and I got my lumps for cooking a little too late in the day.
Now Laurie had been to this cottage many times as a kid and she had some funny stories about her visits. The one I remember is when she would use the bathroom downstairs, which was between the kitchen and the garage. She would get a furry visitor from the garage. It was a chipmunk that would come in under the door, sit on the floor in front of her, and scold her for being in his space, and then leave. This happened just about every time she would use this bathroom. I guess he didn't like her sitting on the john. This would happen to her mother also and everyone got a kick out of this story.
Lovell Lake was a large lake with many cottages around it. There was a Pizza/Store at one end where we would buy our groceries and an occasional pizza. The lake also had several families of loons that would sing at night and sometimes during the day. Laurie loved to hear them singing and would just sit and listen to them. It was almost like being on Golden Pond, which was filmed on a lake not too far from us.
Laurie was an avid softball player on the Beacon Falls Girls Softball team. She always said her batting average was .700, which I could not prove but I'll take her word for it. I believe she played third base.
In one of her games a batter got up to the plate and hit a line drive right into her head and she went unconscious. She awoke some minutes later and wanted to know what happened. She was OK, just a little dazed. Of course it became a good laugh later on at parties and family gatherings.
Laurie used to go to NYC with Priscilla and friends a couple of times each year to go shopping, see a show, etc and always stopped at Bueno Nolte in Little Italy before going home. They got to know the employees very well that one night they did not have a bartender and Laurie jumped in and played bartender for themselves. They always had a lot of fun on these trips.
Laurie always told stories about things that happened when she was four. This was her year for injuries I guess. Here are some that I remember.
Her father Harry was hitting golf balls in the yard when Laurie walked out from somewhere and caught one in the eye. She survived to laugh it off and always told this story among friends.
She was bitten by a neighbors dog on her right arm. Not very bad, but bad enough to require stitches. She always showed her scar to anyone who asked about it.
She was so sick and getting penicillin that she became allergic. Since then she told every doctor that she had a reaction when she was four.
I am sure there are others, she had lots of stories from 1964....
