Childhood Summers In Saratoga

Childhood Summers in Saratoga
By Nancy Muldoon

When I was growing up here in Saratoga I either rode my bike everywhere or I walked. During racing season I had a lemonade stand on the corner of Lincoln and Nelson Street. My cash register was an empty cigar box from one of the men who rented a room in my grandmother’s house on White Street. The intoxicating aroma of a cigar always makes me think of my childhood summers in Saratoga.

As a child, I loved and looked forward to summer vacations. I was outside all the time and when I got sick of playing outside, I would ride my bike to Peerless Pool in the State Park which didn’t seem that far, with the exception of the time I foolishly stayed in the sun too long and got second degree burns (blisters) on my body, and the bike ride home was rather torturous. The sun is rather unforgiving on Irish skin.

I grew up on White Street and there were many kids on my block. I was rarely indoors even when the weather was freezing, and only came home, like most kids of my generation when we were made to. My childhood playmates and I would be no less than irate when called in for dinner as this would interrupt our baseball game. Whoever got called in for dinner would promise to only eat enough food to make parents happy and then we would dash back outside to resume the game. Any kid who was forced to sit through an entire meal and was subjected to adult conversation and was considered tardy by our standards was looked down upon and was subjected to verbal abuse and/or alienation when they finally did return.

On the days it was too hot and we didn’t feel like going to the pool we would wait patiently, well maybe not always patiently, but we would wait for the distinctive and unmistaken able sound of Grasso’s Ice Truck to come by. The truck was a former milk truck that seemed to hum as it rolled down the street, it had three decorative triangles painted on the back, green, white and red (colors of the Italian flag) Old man Grasso was an Italian immigrant who seemed like an unlikely candidate for an ice cream man. He was not all that conversational and he never was without his cigar and the ashes of the cigar would inevitably end up in someone’s Italian Ice.

As a kid, I hated the sight of ash in my ice but what I wouldn’t do for one now. Mr. Grasso offered only three flavors of Italian ice, cherry, orange and lemon. Cherry and orange were the most popular and sometimes he ran out and I would have to settle for lemon. I even remember the price of his ices which never seemed to change, which says a lot about the philosophy of old Italian men, the world around them may change considerably but they never do. Thank god for Old Italian men. 10 cents for a small, 25 cents for a medium( the one I usually got) and 50 cents for a large (considered expensive in the 1970’s).

The neighborhood kids and I would often sneak into the Saratoga Race Course during its off season (most of the year), and play hide and seeks for hours on end. In my mind, the Racetrack is a perfect place for hide and seek, the only thing that could top that now would be if NYRA suddenly got smart and was actually interested in turning a profit and opened it up as a haunted house for Halloween. (I’m game) I wax nostalgia as I recall running through the Club House finding hidden rooms and passageways that the public never gets to see. As a teenager I would often sneak in there by myself to be alone with my thoughts. It’s too bad that the tourists never see the Race Course at its most beautiful, in the autumn in all its stunning and majestic glory.