August 1997

August 1997

The rain was falling in those silvery leaden sheets that makes you feel like you are looking through a sheer and billowy curtain. The air was cool and damp like a forest is at night. The brilliant green of the front lawn sparkles like a square of newly polished emerald. It is late Summer in Western New York. The farmer’s field, behind our house, lies unplanted this year. Perhaps death or taxes interrupted the annual profusion of squash and leafy vegetables. We see a sign nearby that says “45 acres for sale.” Maybe there is a story there to be told, one often repeated in the small family farms across America. The Town of West Seneca has just repaved our Street and those around us. A shiny smooth coat of macadam now glistens in the August rain. The young ones like it because their in line skates glide effortlessly across its seamless surface. A few cold Winters here will change all of that.

The Trees have begun to shed their leaves early this year, as if sensing the coming Fall. The evenings here are already as cool as those of late September. The imagined chill of Winter gives me a momentary shiver. We were out walking again this morning as we do most days. Three miles, with a stop at Tim Horton’s for coffee, is a real pleasure on a brilliant Summer’s day.

Yesterday, we rode our bikes along the Genessee River and on into downtown Rochester. The City shone like a glistening Oz from far up the length of the River, as we rode along its leafy banks. The University of Rochester is imposing here with its many academic buildings and athletic fields. Downtown, The Kodak and Xerox buildings stand out like the twin economic pillars of the City that they are.

Along the River path is a tale of two cities. We rode our bikes through the urban battleground of a large public housing project. Its crumbling cement block fortress stretches out in a two-story, stone array lining the fast flowing River. And there, glistening across the broad expanse of the Genessee River, are several new developments of shiny-new, frame Town Houses. It is a picture of order and suburban plenty. I wondered what the poor unfortunates, of the projects, must think every day as they look out their windows at a shining future that they can never have. A traffic sign nearby was spray painted “lords-feer.” One of the less erudite members of the local gang was marking his turf. No one passes this way, or ventures out, after sunset.Our high tech mountain bikes sped us swiftly through this unfortunate passage and we felt like wary horsemen galloping through some hostile territory in the far West.

Later, after mounting the bikes to our car,in the span of an hour, we were having Lunch at “Tom Wahl’s” in the sprawling horse country of Avon, New York. In another time it would have been a journey of many hours by coach or horseback. The rolling expanse of Route #20 carried us through the bucolic Farm country of Livingston, Genesee and Wyoming Counties. Tall silos and prosperous looking barns dot the far hillsides. There are as many cows as people in these parts. Near Bennington Center and Rte.#77 we passed by the sprawling amusement park and water world of Darien Lake. There always seemed to be a line up of cars waiting to get into this massive water park.

And then on into Erie County and the charming little Town of Alden. It is busy with shoppers and errand doers. It would fit well as a background of scenes anywhere throughout the mid western U.S.. So many Towns and venues, all in the expanse of a few hours. We take this dizzying pace for granted. The mind seems to adjust, in a blink, like the whirring shutter of a motorized camera drive. Someday, perhaps those who come after us will think us slow and old fashioned. Maybe they will cover states and continents in the span of hours. They will wonder at the stateliness of our slow and easy pace and their mind blink will be much faster than ours.

Joseph Xavier Martin