Croton on Hudson

We grew up at Montrose, the old house

overlooking the murky Hudson with Father Kolping.

The features from childhood are still there: the pond

by the parking lot, the old barn atop the hillside drive.

My frail, smiling grandmother greeted us out at the gatehouse,

now named after her in remembrance. Where my bald grandfather

once stood stoic and proud, my father stands now, gregarious and

confident. His sister is there too, forever young in exuberance;

his brother no longer standing beside us, consumed in body by cancer.

Scrambling down the worn path of the Great Hill,

the shore of the Hudson lull us with pleasantries and nostalgia. Failed

romances, stink of dead fish, glimmering fragments of the river's treasures

lead to an unkept soccer field. There were times when we played,

times when they watched. The Japanese Maple that served as hiding fort

can now house a battalion of young with all of their secrets and schemes.

Other times, my cousins and I went to the woods and had our own adventures

scurrying up ragged mountainside, trudging through beds of pine needles to

secret forts and black beaches. Theses woods were new to me every time.

Years away from the baseball field, the basketball hoop, or the Saturday

football in fields of mud. Different rules applied, and I deferred to those for

who the woods were second skin. Balance was found there, not competition.

Mother's Day: forever the highlight event. Dinner was always good—

the sliced turkey, mashed potato, pools of thin gravy, crumbcake desert.

I can never recall the nondescript vegetables. What was once Sunkist

slowly evolved to Weiss beer, either one quenching the stagnant heat

of the lower levels of the hall. There was a television there, rarely

watched regardless of the championship game. Germans had no interest

in baseball or basketball or football. Up the narrow stairs were the bathrooms

and bedrooms too small for modern guests, built for generations twice,

three times removed. They have been in disrepair since I can remember.

There was once a garbage dump by the field parking, early training

for the thrift stores I haunt today. My prize find was a rubber skeleton,

eye sockets painted red. We secured our fort materials, navigated the sea

of waste and refuse. Filled with science fiction monsters and treasures

unearthed below rotten canvas, soiled plastics, withered wood,

these were times of high adventure until the twenty minute drive home.

1/13/10