Oglebay
I have so many great memories of Oglebay Park. I’m not sure you could live in Wheeling and NOT have memories of Oglebay Park. I attended day camp there and I attended sports camp as well. I loved sports camp, except maybe for archery. I just could not get the hang of that bow, and had the bruises on my right arm from the string to show my lack of skill in that sport. I pretty much enjoyed everything else – tennis, golf, horseback riding, canoeing, and swimming.
When not in camp during the summer, I still spent a considerable number of hours at the pool at Oglebay. Were all those trips to the concession stand really made to get food, or were they staged to catch the eye of the caddies in “caddy corner?” I don’t believe that question even warrants an answer!
I remember Oglebay Park in the winter, too. Sled riding on the hills of the golf course, and ice skating on Schenk Lake are activities I fondly recall. How did our parents get us up to the park with all that snow on the ground? The thought never entered my mind before now, since I wasn’t the one who had to worry about getting there and back. I loved the ice skating, but I was always scared to death that I was going to skate to the end of the lake and slide into the drain (or whatever it is called). I even remember skating there at night.
I remember staying in the cabins with a group of girls. I wonder when those cabins were built. They are still there, along with newer cabins at the Speidel golf course (excuse me, that is the Speidel Golf Club). In the last few years, I have made some trips to Wheeling and stayed in the older cabins and the newer cabins.
I still go back to Oglebay Park on every trip I make to Wheeling. I am still awed by its beauty and all that it has to offer to people of all ages. It’s nice to go back and know that in spite of all the changes (do you know that they now have Segway tours?), so much is still the same. May it continue that way for generations to come.
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Well done, Nancy...thanks so much. Kate
ReplyDeleteNancy, I think we could have an entirely Oglebay blog. The park was the center of so much of our lives. Living in New England all these years where they salt and sand the roads, I've often wondered how we got around with only clinkers spread atop the snow-slick streets. I can remember a few rather scary rides on Rt. 88. I can also recall the day one of my skis untied itself from the roof of my mom's Corvair as I was heading up the hill to the Oglebay slopes. As I watched in horror in the rear view mirror, the ski sailed off into the air and eventually landed and veered off the edge of the road into Greggsville somewhere. My parents weren't too happy and may have contemplated my learning to ski with just one, but since my father had attached the skis to the roof, they couldn't really blame me.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the rink at Wheeling Park had better ice, Shenk Lake skating was the best. The hot chocolate... the music. Like many, I started off on double-runner skates... forgot those! I quickly graduated to those ankle-killing figure skates. I wish they had had hockey skates for girls back then. Both skating and skiing at night were such fun.
During high school years a group of us from the Class of '66 would spend a summer week in an Oglebay cabin. Eluding the chaperones and the Park Police was one of our major activities. What a challenge to hop out a windown, go down through the woods to the back road where some guys would await our arrival...then, off to an adventure. In order to protect the guilty: underage drinkers, Kroger watermelon-purloiners, and Country Club trespassers, I won't mention any names. Our last year we had some young lads visiting, one of whom covered himself up in a bathrobe and donned a curler cap before seating himself out front. I think the point was just to see if he/we could get away with it. His initials might have been GK.