You can't go home again.

I went back to the future this week. Added to my disparate encounters on the East Coast I decided to relive a summer haunt of my youth, The Laurels Hotel and Country Club.

Situated in the old "Borscht Belt" of upstate New York on Sackett Lake, near Monticello, this was one of many stellar weekend and summer retreats of the overworked and the lonely down state.

In the early Sixties while I was in college I earned a few extra bucks (and thrills) by working at the hotel in various guises- a bell boy, busboy, a swimming instructor and finally where the real money was- as a waiter. The main rewards of these endeavors included great hotel food, wonderful new friends and a guaranteed flock of exhilarated, nimble and conveniently short term companions once every seven days. Week after week after week.

With raging hormones and not really in the market for a wife at eighteen- I dove right in. Best of all I never knew who was going to show up next.

So, thirty years later, with my mind conveniently filtering out the disagreeable, remembrances of things past was looking pretty good. Wanting to somehow relive my lost youth, if only through a quick visceral rendezvous, I decided to take the hop and see what I could see. Hey, I had not been there in over three decades.

Well Bucko, you can't go home again. At least I could not.

Tried though I might I looked real hard but I could not find the Hotel. How could this be? After retracing the same path that my genes held the map to, I saw not a country club, but woods and more woods and weeds.

What happened? And, where was my hotel?

I would not give up. I could not give up. Finally I managed to find the pitted old main entrance road, or what was left of it. It was hardly recognizable but I realized what it was, like an archaeologist, because it was still adorned with the small concrete square that once held the old guard house that "Mike the Cop" had presided in.

Was there nothing else left?

I parked and trekked in until I finally found the only remnant still enduring...the once great and noble outdoor swimming pool. This blue oasis where I had once frolicked, performed diving exhibitions and had cuddled with my honey was now a gaping and desperately quiet ruin.

I saw many ghosts.

Postcard from the past ~ the indoor pool at the Laurels.

October 3, 2006

Dear Robert:

What a small world. I found your, "My Week September 1, 1998", quite by accident. I have been off and on writing a book based on a young boy who ventures to the Catskill's and ends up working as a busboy at The Laurel's.

To help my recollection of the spot, I too went to Sackett Lake back, five or six years ago, to find a weed infested lot. The only vestige of its former glory was the pool. I couldn't believe that everything had been removed...like it never existed!

To be very honest with you, The Laurel's, was a defining moment in my life. By the way, my book is entitled, "Ghosts of Sackett Lake". Although it's fiction, I've used characters I remember working with, possibly you.

Wishing you well,

Phil Sills