SCCS Cheerleaders

My Sandy Pond Memories will always include the high school culture at Sandy Creek Central school.

A big part of life at SCCS was SPORTS and CHEERLEADERS. Now, I was no athlete in those days, but I enjoyed going to the games once in a while and watching the teams play and Cheerleaders do their stuff. Now the Cheerleaders had talent that I could appreciate. They would practice for hours and choreograph clever cheers and routines. I think they worked hard at what they did and never really got the credit they deserved. In any case, as a teenage boy with raging hormones, I would rather watch the cheerleaders (in their short pleated skirts) than the guys playing their games any day.

I went steady with a cute, bright, freshman girl for a while who made it on to the cheerleading squad. She was jumpin' up and down squealing happy when she made the team - it was a big deal. After that, I even got to ride on the bus with them for a few games (boyfriends of cheerleaders were allowed).

After one particularly hard fought basketball game against Belleville for the local Championship in which SCCS lost by one point, we filed out on the bus to go home, a little subdued and sullen. A couple of psuedo-juvenile delinquents snuck over and let the air out of Belleville’s bus tires. Our bus driver pretended to be mad and yelled at all of us like we were all guilty, but I saw his face in the mirror after he sat down in the driver's seat and I swear he smirked.

Belleville's basketball team got home late that night, but I'm sure they didn't care.

High school was full of great moments like that, and I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything.

Here is a short video of a football game at SCCS in the fall of ’71. I have more footage but haven't transferred it from 8mm to MPEG yet. I'll post that another time.

February Visitors

Almost every year, by February, winter's accumulated snow would be piled at least 5 or 6 feet high along the roads and around driveways from the incessant plowing and snowblowing and shoveling. At Sandy Pond, sometimes it would snow every day for 4 or 5 days. Blizzards with their strong winds and horizontal snow with sporadic "whiteouts", would hit maybe 2 or 3 times a month.

And, every February, our old and dear friends from Pittsburgh would brave the elements and visit for my Dad's birthday celebration on the 15th. The party usually included Dr. Rex Newton, his wife Alice, son Bobby, and Alice's brother Bob Hopkins and wife Peggy, and Regis and Jean Cannon. Oh my gosh we had some great times - ice-fishin', playing cards, tellin' stories, Back In The Day.

Here is a video of (the late) Bobby Newton snowmobiling in the winter wonderland of Sandy Pond...Bobby sure loved to ride!

WIGWAM HOTEL

Photo taken a few years ago.

OLD PHOTO
When I went off to Navy boot camp on March 11, 1980, my mind sort of “photographed” Sandy Pond the way it was that day.
I have been living far away from there since so that photograph is tainted but vivid. The Wigwam Hotel is part of that old picture.

MR. KENDRADT
Growing up at Sandy Pond we took the Wigwam for granted as a run down local business who‘s hey-dey had come and gone many years ago. Mom and Dad took us there once in a while for a Friday fish dinner and Dad would take the opportunity to chew the fat at the Bar with the former owner old Nick Kendradt. I have forgotten who owned the Wigwam before old Nick - after all, I was a small child then.
Mr. Kendradt lived on a pension and chose not to sink much money into his hotel, content to let it coast down a slope while he made a meager living off the regulars - mostly card-playin, stogie-smokin’ beer drinkin buddies and “fish-heads“.

FISH HEADS

There always seemed to be a lot more activity at the old Wigwam in the winter. Fishermen would descend on Sandy Pond every weekend to try their luck through The Ice. There were hundreds of them on the ice on the weekends, many of them relying on the Wigwam, The Comfort Hotel (burned down from “faulty wiring” in the early 70’s), Sandy Lodge (which later changed hands and became “The Lodge“), Eddie’s Cove (or, as we used to call it Eddie’s “Cave”), and the Bayview Hotel (also burned in the 70‘s, from a lit ciggy-butt in the ladies room trash).
Seems like the Wigwam got the most customers, looking for chili, burgers, and beer for lunch - then back out on The Ice. Mr. Kendradt also sold bait and a very basic assortment of tackle available in the basement.

STOCK CAR RACES…
Living in my own teen world, I never knew who arranged or sponsored them, but there used to be stock car races on the ice in front of the Wigwam. Once or twice a winter, on a typically cold winter-cloudy-gray Saturday afternoon, huge crowds of people would watch dozens of cars compete in several classes, including “powder-puff” for the ladies. A few days before, a crew would plow the snow in the ice to form a big flat oval track with snow banks for walls. Tires and hay-bales were piled around the curves for extra protection. The cars were typically back-yard budget creations, right down to the tires outfitted with spikes. The spikes helped, but ice is still ice and the lack of friction provided the crowd with plenty of crashes (more like slow-motion fender-benders). Top speed, if a driver was skillful, was probably a brief 40 MPH, and none of the cars had mufflers, so you could hear the roar no matter where you were within a 3 mile radius. Beer flowed freely among the race-fans, and there were plenty of tailgate gatherings. If it snowed it just made the races MUCH more interesting…
I also remember a demolition derby in front of the Wigwam one or two years, with similar noise and crowds.

CARS KICKED OFF THE ICE
In the late 70’s, the Sandy Creek Town Board passed and ordnance that prohibited automobiles on the ice of any body of water in Sandy Creek township, which includes Sandy Pond. My Dad was one of Sandy Creek’s Town Justices in those days (Maurice Hurd being the other). He attended the Board meetings that debated and finally voted yes to the new ordnance. Despite the loss of revenue for local businesses, the town wanted to prevent any more drownings. Over the years too many cars had broken through the ice and fisherman drowned. In those days, once in a while, springtime yielded a body or two on the shore after the ice went out. Grisly...

Some photos from the mid-1970s. The horse and dog belonged to Nancy Warner,

(Photos courtesy Charlene Cole, Sandy Creek Town Historian)