Supplement #2 to initial post – Stokes Bay Photos and Memories from Jack Bertrand
Another fun community activity in the late-1940s and early 1950s were the softball games played on the sand behind Vaughan’s Camp. That is, they were played when the lake water was low enough to allow a big enough sand area for the game. Some years were good. Some not so much. The ball field would have stretched across what is now the dredged channel to the marina. We could get to it through the Camp, but also there was a way to drive or walk there from the road which ran behind the commercial fisherman’s docks on the river (now, near the end of Stokes River Rd). I remember that access well, as one time as a kid I was standing on the running board of an old car headed in and dumbly thought I could just step off at maybe only 5 mph. I took a severe tumble!
The games always seemed kind of sporadic. Maybe only a few each summer. But somehow the word got around and the whole village showed up. When I was maybe only 8 or so, I was too young to be a real player. But I got to participate anyway. Harry Hawke would play, but was not up to running the bases. So I would position myself while he batted. And run like hell around the bases when he hit the ball. Later, I did get to really play. It seems like later as a teenager the games on the sand ended. Still, it was a joy to be a part of them while they lasted. (I know some people from the village continued to play in a league in other places around the peninsula.)
Unfortunately, it was during one of the games that my cousin, Ron Hawes, maybe age 7 or so, was hit in the head with a baseball bat. I think it was a slipped bat from a batter swinging at the ball, with Ron slightly off the field, part-way down toward 3rd base. But it caught him full in the head and put him down for some time. I’m sure he had a bad concussion and today he would have been taken to the Emergency Room at the hospital. But my memory is that he just went home to recover.
