Sigurd’s Mom used to make a Wellesley Fudge cake when he was a kid. There is only one recipe for the cake and Sigurd always mentions that cake when he thinks of the good times back in the day.

I used to make a Chocolate Cream pie back in the 70’s. Sad to say, those are old times now. The pie was very easy to make and I used to make it on holidays especially. And I know that it is one of my son’s favorite.

When I was a kid, we lived in a rural area with a dirt road. They plowed the roads but it just packed down the snow more or less and you could slide on them with a sled. Then in the fields where there were hills, it was always fun to go sliding with a tobaggon with about 4 or 5 kids on the tobaggan.

My Mom grew up on a farm in northern Vermont. One of her favorite memories is the Maple Walnut cake that they used to make with real maple syrup from their own sugar house. The roads up there in the winter had so much snow on them that they used to just roll the snow and she went to school with a horse and sleigh in the winter. When she got older she went to a boarding school is what she called it. I think that it was like a private school as the elementary school in her area was a one room school house.

The Vermont town I grew up in had a ton of schools and nearby small towns used to come to our high school. My Mom and Dad lived in Conneticut when my older sister was born and my Mom loved it there as they lived right on the ocean and close to New York City. My Dad hated it as he always loved Vermont. So that is where I was born along with my three brothers.

Sigurd always lived in Woodstock and he had his own Morgan horse. Some of the adventures he talks about are just plain fun. He always liked to ski and the closest place to ski back then was Suicide 6 in South Pomfret. Sig and his brothers and two sisters used to go to Wellesley, MA every summer for a few with his Mom and grandparents and they used to vacation to Maine or the Cape with his aunt Marion as well in the summer. They were all pure Swedes as their parents were born in Sweden. Sometimes his Dad would take them all up to Stowe skiing which sounds like a lot of fun.

Sigurd had a friend in Stowe that had snowmobiles and they used to go across fields with the snowmobiles and have hot chocolate at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe.

In Woodstock, they had a travice which is a long sled. They used to take it up on a steep hill road near their house and slide for quite a long distance. The travice had a brake on it. Even Sig’s Aunt Marion would ride along with them with her scarf flying in the wind.

And that is fond memories from the olden days.