Editor’s Note: Donald Orne, 84, is a lifelong Marblehead resident whose family has been part of the town for generations. His father, Bud Orne, owned the barber shop at 120 Pleasant St., where the family also lived. This series shares Orne’s memories of growing up in Marblehead during the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. The essays have been edited only for length, grammar and clarity. This is the second installment of Orne’s writings. You can read the first two installments at MarbleheadCurrent.org.
I need to mention here that skating on ice became a way of my early life.
My father, Bud, had me on skates before I could walk and I had my own skates right away. By the way, Bud never owned a pair of hockey skates. He always used figure skates to wear and teach on. He wore them almost until the day he died.
Long before Bud started Marblehead Youth Hockey, he and I skated on all the ponds in town.
We started with Bobby’s Pond, Redds Pond, Flax Pond and several others. Only at Bobby’s Pond did we have boards, a warming house, lights and parking.
Bud created a small piece of ice next to my clubhouse in our backyard at 120 Pleasant St. where we could skate around and play. It really was a magical space that he created for me and the neighborhood kids to play and have fun without interruption or care.
Bud helped build an ice rink in Marblehead off West Shore Drive, and it had boards and a warming house and was used for figure skating, hockey, playtime and just plain love of skating in all its forms.
Later, when Lynn Arena was built, Bud became the chairman of the North Shore Figure Skating Association in the 1950s.
Launching Marblehead Youth Hockey
There was one reason that my father started Marblehead Youth Hockey. Unfortunately, it was because he went to my game against Lynn English at Lynn Arena one night where he saw Tippy Johnson score three goals against us and never get stopped!
Johnson was the best opponent I had ever faced as a right defenseman. I believe the score was 10-1 that night. Bud saw that many of our players could not even skate backwards.
Marblehead and surrounding teams did not have the access to ice time like the Lynn teams did. The result was we didn’t stand a chance and we realized these better teams were starting their kids skating long before junior high and it made all the difference.
Bud had the pro at the Lynn Arena give me private lessons, and I learned how to skate backwards and do turns, spins and jumps, as well as dance. Bud and I ended up doing a comedy act for the ice shows they put on there.
Off the ice, Bud used the basement of the YMCA for stick work and drills.
Some of the fathers of the boys began showing up and wanting to help Bud as coaches. Many of them stayed on for years after their kids had graduated.
Bud used an Underwood typewriter to print up schedules and many other important pieces of business to raise funds for the players to buy their equipment and pay for icetime.
Bud had helpers at MYH like Ed Tufts and Colly Williams and Rollie. It was a team effort to help the kids get to practices and games in uniform with all the equipment ready for battle.
Skating through high school
I skated all four years in high school. I was the best skater, but not the best hockey player.
I went on to college and skated on that team for two years before going into the Navy during Vietnam.I served as a meteorologist in Hawaii, where I met and married a girl from Newton.
We came home to Marblehead and went back to 120 Pleasant St., where I worked as a barber and then expanded the little sports shop in the back of the barber shop that Bud had started in 1967.
So I had a job barbering and creating Orne’s Sports Shop with my wife. She helped with advertising, and I bought a skate sharpening machine and a racquet stringing machine. I hired a young boy to help me named Sean Casey, and he was a wonderful helper and friend.
The shop was mainly skating and racket sports like tennis, badminton, squash, and we sold everything those sports entailed.
On June 26, 1970, our son Doug Orne was born.
Tennis
Many of the trees in 120 Pleasant St. backyard had come down in hurricanes through the years, and when the last one fell, I decided to clear the land and build a tennis court to teach on and rent out.
To be continued….
