Sullivan's Travels

[Suilleabhain]

In way of introduction, since I don’t remember if I did when I did, so I’ll end this year with some

and start the New Year with some more

Where to begin, I’ll begin in the middle and give the younger folks some color on what it was like downstate back in time. Then I’ll get into how our club was formed and the risks my father’s city-folk generation took to be able to hunt their own land. This is back before the Thruway and the Quick way (New Rt 17) were built, there was no Verrazano Bridge and part of the Belt Parkway were not yet completed.

I grew up just off the water in Jamaica Bay. Back then Howard Beach was a lot of weeded lots and sparse houses. Behind what we called Rockwood Park, now New Howard Beach, was nothing but weeds and cattails as far as the eye could see. It became Spring Creek Preserve and then part of Gateway National Park.

We crabbed and fluked in summer, selling softshells crabs to the restaurants. It was neo-Huck Finn childhood living. No one knew where we were, we walked to the North Channel Bridge to fish, chased rabbits with bow & arrow, caught sea gulls by hand: we just rambled about all over the place without a care.

Got into plenty of trouble, got banged up and bruised more than once but, every woman was your mother and every man was your father so we had plenty of eyes on us even if we didn’t know it.

The rain puddles at Aquaduct Race Track held tadpoles so, we would catch them and raise them into frogs and let them go. Garter snakes were easy to catch and my neighbors raised ducks and chickens.

Crossbay Blvd was a string of clam bars, Sonny’s the best, Big Bow Wow drive-in, Trampoline World, archery range, go carts and rides. The drive to Rockaway Beach was always ended with a stop at Weiss’ for hot dogs in Broad Channel.

My father was a big duck hunter in the Bay back then and had a friend who lived in a house in the back in now Gateway. Now his friend’s father-in-law was a Russian immigrant. How he came to Queens I don’t know but, in any event as the story was told, he built this house out in the weeds and a small farm around it. The husband Frank would hunt right around the property. As told, he knew his hunting days there were over when he shot his last pheasant and it landed on the Belt Parkway.

Anyway, one day a guy knocks on the door and tells them they are living on government land. They lived there for years, had regular mail delivery but, no one knew the old man just picked an empty patch of land and built on it without any say-so.

So they got tossed off and moved up outside East Chatam. Frank was a gov’t surveyor. So he worked places like Pt Barrow, Alaska in summer and had the winter off. I spent two weeks in summer at their farm helping with chores as he was away. Cutting weeds, fixing wire fences, feeding the stock, catching catfish and so on. In fall we would go up for a few days and help slaughter and butcher the pigs.

In the early sixties, Long Island being a network of duck farms and potato fields, we used to go hunt squirrels in what is now Smithtown.

After the war, and before I was born, my father and his friends hunted wherever they could without getting thrown off. Having no land, they started on state land but it was too crowded and too dangerous with the population of idiots all over the land. They decided that the only way they could hunt was to get their own land.

In 1946 a dozen of them got together with a lawyer and incorporated a rod & gun club. But, they still needed land and this took brass balls. Twelve guys with young families, scraping by after the war are about to mortgage themselves for a hunting club. Imagine telling your wife this.

[bkln]

Thanks for Sharing. That's a good story for a hunting show, I wish we could back to these times....or I will just move to Alaska...lol

[SteveNY]

Well, you have my attention! Especially because I live in Queens and know the exact places your talking about, I love to hear stories like this.

Edited December 27, 2011 by SteveNY

[Suilleabhain]

So, if you know Sullivan County, its not great farm or dairy land. Too, hilly and not flat like the western part of the state. Farms were usually small. What they have an abundance of is trees and foremost back in the 1800's was hemlock trees. Hemlock was prized for making into charcoal which they shipped all over the northeast. Hemlock is what really drove the settlement of that area. If you drive into Roscoe on old 17, there is a cemetery with a large monument off the roadside. That marker is the gravesite of the first white woman settler in the region. Bit of Sullivan County tourism besides Trout Town and the two covered bridges.

So the dirty dozen having camped at Beaverkill throught the 40's decided on this area.

My father once showed me the piece of land they truned down in the back of Roscoe. It was a 100 or so acres of an old charcoal plant that was prctically verticle on the side of a mountain. Thank God they didn't buy that. What they settled on was 170 acres of a logging camp on a dirt road outside Livingston Manor. It had a stream and water rights, ground that was set on the side of a slopping hill that had three sets of ridges, fairly flat by the road for building a house. It also had a tool shed about 12' square which was their Adirondack style hunting camp for the first winter or two. They had a small pot belly stove and slept on the floor with their gear in their cars. When the wind blew, it blew right through the shed but, they were landowners and had 1000 acres of unposted private land around them.

[Suilleabhain]

To give you an idea, this is my cousin c:1950 in front of Shellbank Basin near the bridge in town to Hamilton Beach. The houses were built over the water on poles in some spots. The boardwalk runs along the tracks for the subway to Broad Channel and Rockaway.

[Suilleabhain]

Hope the picture took

[Suilleabhain]

Sorry for the break, I got side tracked on Ancestry. Found my mother's family back to 1822 in Ireland. My Great Grandfather died in the British army in Flanders in 1914. The interesting thing is that while he was in Flanders, my father's brother lied about his age and enlisted in 1916 and was gassed in the trenches in France.

War plays a big part in our lives..and in the life of the gun club.

At the end of Korea, the club founders had land but no house. Back in that time, everyone was in a trade and they did things themselves. One of the members being a supply seargant in WWII had connections.

In Canarsie, what used to be the site of Canarsie Market, the army still had buildings from the war. They were going to trash them. The club got hold of a 2 room officers quarters building and had it disassembled and trucked upstate. There they put it back together. Before they could set it, they had to fell the trees and set stumps as the supports.

The people along the road had been there from the 1800's. Momma and her 6 sons and their families. People were social back then and when they heard the guys were up working they stopped for a visit. They came across a dozen city-folk huffing and puffing on a two-man buck saw left by the loggers. One of the local brothers stepped in and single-handed cut all the trees and set the supports. Hard people they were.

But, hunting wasn't much improved.

The one room was a kitchen without running water. The junior members job was K.P. and hauling water in a beer keg from the spring about 100 yards to the house. The toilet was an outhouse about 40 yards away. The main room had two sets of bunks and a fold-out double bed. Heat was a pot-belly wood stove. There was no front porch, just steps up to the door. Teh power company set a pole and we got electric and phone service.

And it hunted a dozen men and their kids.

Later a bunkroom and burner room was added across the back of the house with 18 bunks. A wrap around porch was added. And in about 1963, my father had me & my brother, all of like 9 and 13, pull nails and timbers from a broken down wagon bridge and we salvaged that to frame the base of a bathroom.

Other than the framing and siding for the bunkroom, everything was done themselves. They'd commit to weekends of just plain labor for what they wanted.

Water was then piped to the house from 2 55 gallon drums sunk in the spring as a cistern with a pump that pushed water thru PVC to the house.

In the post war years no one bought their kids new clothes, especially hunting clothes. My brother got my uncle's Woolrich pants, so old they had laces up the calves to tighten them, and an older brother's Woolrich coat. I got my brothers WWII air corp wool flyers pants and someone else's coat. And so it went on. When one kid out-grew something their was always someone in line to take them. I think I was the first person in ages to buy new Woolrich clothes in 1968.

We grew up with military surplus. Jap rifles, Mausers, German Helmets, U.S helments, M1 carbines or Garands. Every house had them in Howard Beach. I went to high school in my uncle's Ike Jacket, that was cool back then.

And the rifles at the club were all top shelf, Model 70's, Savage 99's, Winchesters and they were all pre-64 because it wasn't even 1964 yet. My brother got his first Savage in a gun shop on 101st Avenue across from what would be John Gottis Social Club. And, he paid the whopping sum of $75.00. And that was bucks for a gun back then.

[Suilleabhain]

Seven days to catch a cold, seven days to have a cold, seven days to get over a cold. My nose is running like a faucet

The best part of being in a club like this is you were first taught by the original members, then you came of age with the second generation.

We all grew up together, saw each other at meetings and work weekends, got or licenses around the same times and are now watching the third and fourth generations take over.

The forst of the fourth generation saw his first kill with his grandfather in muzzleloader this year.

as kids we would use teh club as our vacation home in summer and when we were old enough the four brothers would go up Easter weekend and get hot cross buns at Hoo's Backery in the Manor.

Livingston Manor back then was memorable for Art's Blue Room, the Manor Theater where we saw Bambi one opening weekend and Doctor Zhivago one freezing, snowy opening week. The Cigar Store was a combo ice cream parlor, pharmacy, cigar store that had rifles and ammunition behind the counter. the General Store had everything including saddles that were turn of the century, the hotel was a relic from the 1800's, Hoo's Bakery and a liquor store. That's what was memorable. Oh and the Robin Hood Diner which was a gold mine until new 17 was built and by-passed the town.

The four of us hunted small game, deer, fished the lakes and just went up to shoot. Tobbaggoning was done in the neighdor's fields on Lincoln and Washinton's Birthday..when there was a Lincoln and Washington's Birthday.

[Suilleabhain]

Here's another old Howard Beach picture for you Steve. This is looking out of the old house on 159th Ave and 97th street towards 158th Ave.

My family lived in Bushwick and one day my grandmother had her sons take her for a ride to Howard Beach. They saw a huge brick house with broken out windows, the result of the economy after the war. She bought it, they fixed it and made apartments upstairs. It was a four floor house with maid's quarters originally. Everyone in the family took turns in that house for three generations. i was one when we moved out to our own house on 98th Street. The town center was by the raiload tracks. An A&P from the 20's, some bars, Mel's candy store, the Howard Theater, Nick's Pzza, a German bakery, Heller's drug store, OLG church and school.

When we fished from Broad Channel either on the Rose& Jim or a Smitty's skiff rental, i had to go to St Virgilious for the fisherman's mass at 6:30.

Or we would go the Sheepshead Bay when the boats were Laddie Martin's Rocket, the Effort, Elmar, Brooklyn,Glory, White Eagle. Or, we make the jaunt to Freeport or Point Lookout for the Captain II, Capt Al and Capt Hall (all I later worked on). Later years the new boats. Carl Forsberg moved the Viking Fleet to Montauk in '55 but the Viking Skipper and Viking VII stayed at Pt Lookout with Buddy Dorman until the early 60's. Part of the biz split. This ticket is from Feb '63 I believe. al Lindroth was still running the Viking VII then before buying the Captain II and later the Captain Al.

[jusputtn]

Great history of your camp. Love the full gun rack in the one photo.

[Suilleabhain]

Thanks J. Jammed up with the grand-daughter. I'll be putting more up later this week.

[SteveNY]

Wow, awesome stuff... Like I said, I live in Queens and know all these places. Then you went on with Livingston Manor, which I know VERY well also! My hunting camp is in Willowemoc!

[tommyc50]

wow you brought me back istill live in ozone park you remember marinos bait and tackle on crossbay and 107 ave .i moved here from l.i.c. it was the country to me the cow barns in balsam farm [a real dairy] going fishing and crabbing on the first bridge where i came from the east river was it . my grand ma owned a huose in narrowsburg so i knew the country life .my dad use to keep his boat in sonnys in '76 ['61 25' owens w/ 327 chevy inboard. my first love haha] then charlie clotzes then lynns behind lennys clam bar .narrows berg no running water in the summer flush the toilet w/ a bucket bath in the tem mile river across the road .roughn' it was best . thank you and i hope we keep it going

[Suilleabhain]

Tommy I know those places well. The club met in a Polish Vets Hall on Liberty ave for a while, then a bar on Atlantic Ave. When I got married I bought a house in Rich Hill on 111st just above Atlantic. Used to eat Italian next to the Crossbay Theater.

You say Charlie Clotze's, my neighbor had a 45' Maine-built flybridge sport fisherman that we used to haul out at Clotze's. My friend had a skiff befind Milo's Clam Bar. The cow farm you speak of...my aunt lived on Silver Road off Pitkin I believe. When we went there we passed a Borden's Building that had cows outside. One of the last working dairys in the city. After that they just processed milk from upstate.

[Suilleabhain]

Been on ancestry again, traced the Sinclair side of the family back to the 1600's with help from a third cousin's family tree site. Anyway I am descended from James Sinclair, the third Earl of Murkle, Scotland. You may address me as Your Highness, the 42nd Earl of Murkle from now on.

When I was 11, my father took me deer hunting or the first time. He could never get off for opening week because he worked as a dispatcher for an oil company, wrong carreer for a deer hunter. My brothers were tinsmiths so they got up every opening week and killed regularly, believe it or not, my father never shot a deer in 25 years!

Thruth be told, you don't have a chance when 1) you work 6 days a week and night jobs off the books fixing burners and are so tired you fall asleep as soon as you sit down & 2) you have a string of 12 year-olds that tag along all the time.

So when I was 11, he took me & my brother John who was 15 up Thanksgiving weekend 1964. The club was still two rooms and an outhouse so we made out as best we could with guys sleeping on the floor and all. As the new kid on the block the 1st generation all took good care of me. I got books to read and extra clothes and best of all they let me sleep in one of the 4 bunks. Breakfast was tough, some of teh guys went down to the Robin Hood but as New 17 wasn't built, they would line up 33 deep behind a stool at the counter. Forget getting a table.

Hunting was cold and wet but I saw my first deer in season close up. I was sitting against a tree facing uphill with my brother Pat facing downhill. Bored to tears I'm studying the nuances of the tips of my boots. As I brought my eyes up. there were eight hoofs about 30 feet in front of me. I couldn't believe it, two does had snuck in on me, they were the best thing I'd ever seen. Someone pushed them and they were out of breath and steaming when they exhaled in the cold. I nudged Pat & he turned around slowly with binoculars and got the shock of his life! All he saw was deer face they were so close.

That year we went to the Parksville Diner for dinner. A tin WWII surplus quanset hut fitted with a kitchen and tables. Across from the Mobil station, next to the ice cream stand and the foot-long hotdog place. Food was good as always, interesting reading taped to the walls. Trapping regulations, photographs and newspaper clippings from the 40's.

'65 we went up and my brother John was now 16 and had taken a button buck opening week. So John was off on his own trying to fill his buck tag and me & the old man went to take a sit. Over by the old bridge that we would later use to frame the bathroom, we sat side by side under a pine tree and he slid the Winchester 94 onto my lap and said " make sure it has horns and kick me before you pull the trigger" and he was out like a light.

On the drive to the club, passed Kings on Old 17, turn onto Beaverkill Road at Deckertown and you passed or had to stop at Bob Darbee's Sport Shop. Bob had the shop and his brother had Darbee's Fly Shop in Roscoe. The best hand tied trout flies on the east coast .Bob was an interesting guy, WWII or Korea vet who had been shot in the shoulder so, he used a 257 Roberts because of the light recoil. An avid reader, his house was a library, actually like a library with floor to ceiling books. The shop consisted of the bait shed out front and the main store in the back. If any of you were ever in the bait shed, on the wall above the counter was a rattlesnake skin mount that was about 6' long. One day we were in there and someone asked Bob if that snake was taken locally, Bob said yes and that there were plenty of rattlers around. Never one to be chatty, Bob only really spoke when spoken to. A real nice quite gentlemen but full of knowledge. Another time we were in and showing interest in the snake and Bob said Oh, take a look at these. He's got a box full of small and average sized snake skins. We all got the creeps. Bad enough we heard of one huge snake but now they must be everywhere. Sure I'd seen tons of snakes around the property but never a rattle snake.

Finally, it comes out, the 800 pound gorilla in the room, it had to be asked...Bob, where do they get these snakes around here? And you could here a pin drop at the answer.

Bob says: Well you know the rock and shale ledges on your property, well every spring we go up there and catch the snakes sunning on the rocks.

WTF!!!!!! We sit on those ledges and hunt, we pick Princess Pine on those ledges for gardens!!! Its a freakin' snake den. Needless to say, I never went to the ledges in spring, never want to see a snake, would be happy to be ingnorant of the whole situation.............just like the rest of the members of the club ...........because we never told them! LMAO!!! Someone's gonna sh*t themselves in turkey season.

[SteveNY]

I love this thread

[CTHunter]

So cool..Amazing what are fathers and grandfathers went through to make our lives better! Really feel privileged myself!

[Suilleabhain]

Thanks Steve.

When I was 10 my parents shipped me off to Florida for two weeks with my 14 y/o brother and my 65 y/o aunts and uncles. This was hell. While my brother got to go out at night and maybe hook up, I was too young and stayed home learning to play Canasta with my aunts and their old bat friends.

I could have been up at East Chatam slopping pigs and feeding chickens or at the gun club doing whatever but, no I'm here in sunny Fort Lauderdale in like 1963.

This is the equivalent of the boarding area for the flight to the pearly gates.

They did live on a canal so I found a fishing rod but had no bait. My Uncle Rudy was from Sweden and still had his Norse accent. To him fish "ver scavangers, filty tings" so he gave me a strip of bacon and I went out side catching whatever until I fell in the crik. That put the kibosh on fishing, gators were about.

We did go pier fishing for bait with my Uncle Joe and the next day we went on a driftboat to the Gulf Stream. By the way, its August in Ft Lauderdale. Uncle Joe was a neat freak. In his basement, all his reels were mounted in sequence in reelseats that he put on dowels. All his reels were all lined up like soldiers ready for inspection. His rods were all racked nice. Our stuff got tossed in the basement and probably never saw freshwater or grease in their lives. Uncle Joe put us right ine the bow of this driftboat, out in the blazing sun, next to three regulars who target sailfish every Sunday. Mate baits us up and I look at this rig and bait and know this is going to suck. The three idiots let all the line off their reels to get the baits away from the boat and then take up 5 cranks. Captain blows the horn to move and we have to wait for the three stooges to fill their reels every time. So I've had enough, I go to sleep in the shade. Uncle Joe puts on a sinker and catches a nice mutton snapper and some other assorted colorful crap and thank God we are heading for home!!. Now, I cut my teeth in Sheepshead Bay where everyone did for themself and an operation like this would be burned to the waterline. All I want to do is get home and play Canasta with the girls...like 3 A.M. 10 drink minimums they were starting to look good by the second week. Hit the dock and teh mate starts pulling teh fish out of teh barrel "Who's number 10, who has number 4" WTF!! I'm going to wait until this jerk finds our fish!!! I can see teh mutton floating on top. So in good SHB form I just dive in both hands grab Uncle Joe's fish and say now let's get outta here. Mate was much upset, I broke the rules.

Having the club, we got started early. Reason my father had no qualms about giving me a Winchester while he slept was I started with an M1 carbine at 6 y/o. Well, I didn't really shoot it, he held the gun while I wrapped around it best I could and blazed thru boxes of surplus ammo. To hear my brother John's side, he says it was his job to catch the hot brass for reloading and is mentally scarred for life from the experience. We were all shooting 30 caliber on our own by 10. In fact, Mauser Broomhandle, Colt Python, Colt 1911 auto, 6.5 Mannlicher I shot all of them by 10 or 12.

Shoot a box, by then the sun is up enough so we can swim. Over to Beaverkill and jump in the frigid water under the covered bridge, swim to Flat Rock and dive off. Back to the club for lunch, shoot a box. Off antiquing, my father was pissed because my mother never bought anything, she just looked and made emm-hmm noises. Truth be told she took care of the finances and knew how tight they were.

Short story, coming home on old 17 you passed the Red Apple Rest. Great hot dogs and it broke up that long drive. Dad says lets stop, mom says no lets just get home, I'm tired. So we get home, reason she wouldn't stop is all she had left was 45 cents in her pocket.

After antiquing we go to Mud Pond and catch perch and sunnies or go black berry picking and after dark sit on the porch and listn to teh night sounds.

No TV, radio picked up Grand Ole Opry and a station in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Who needs Florida or Disney when I got Livingston Manor and East Chatam.

[Suilleabhain]

Chapter 3: The Road

Back in the day, into the early 60's in fact the road was just plain dirt. It wasn't a long stretch from end to end with not many people living on it. For more than half its length, a small stream ran along it about 100 yeards in the woods, gradually getting closer until it crossed under the road by our property and ran along it about a mile or so. Anbout 6 feet wide, 12 inches deep in teh deep spots and in a ravine about 12 feet down. The residents, just us, Chuck's log house right across from our driveway built on the stream, Sam's place next door. They were an Orthodox Jewish family from Brooklyn who came up during the summer. (See Dirty Dancing for this period when Sullivan County was the Jewish Alps, East Durham- the Irish Alps and Ellenville was the Ukrainian Alps) Past Sam's were the locals who settled here ages ago. One of them years back got into a bar fight in town, tore the bar loose from the floor and someone wound up getting killed. So, after he did his time, his probation stiplulated that he could not set foot on pavement, he was confined to that little stretch of dirt road. He's stand with his toes touching the pavement at the intersection, waiting for someone to come up and bring him a plug of Red Man to 'chaw". If you didn't have Red Man, he'd have no problem chewing Camels, paper and all. He was a big man, big enough that he bounced the rear end of my father's car out of a ditch when he got stuck. He passed on some time ago and the memories from when i was little was me wanting to go pet his bull that was always tied under the big tree and the corner of his field. Later I found out it was a pig.

Sam decided to dig a pond where the stream crossed his property. He had a fine one built, big enough for a small dock and an island. He had the presence of mind to add a storm gate so he could drop thewater level if the pillway couldn't handle the flow.

Brook trout took hold naturally and I fly fished the pond as well as the lower campsites at Beaverkill. A funny thing about these trout, all they wanted was Light Cahills. We had Dark Cahills, Light and Dark Adams, they all look like mosquitos to me but the trout wanted Light. So me and my cousin wiped out every Light Cahill Bob Darbee had in the shop, one eye warily on the rattlesnake skin.

The pond was so nice that the beavers took a shine to it for a few years and blocked up the spillway so the pond flooded the surround. They chewed all the birch trees about a foot of the ground so it was like walking thru a Burmese Tiger Trap. Fall and you would be impaled. Then the beavers were gone.

One year I went up in February with my ex and her cousins. He cousin was a limo driver and he brought the limo. I had a VW Beetle. Couldn't get up to the house with the snow so we parked on the road. The neighbors saw the cars and thought the mafia was having a pow-wow at the club. In teh morning the cinder truck came thru so the cousins beat a hasty retreat as the road had iced slick. I came down later, sat in the VW and it slip down the road for 50 yards, nothing I could do but hang on. The cinder truck cam back and we beat feet.

Sam sold the place, a few more trailers dotted the stream, the new owners let the

flood gate fall into disrepair. Then came that rainstorm a few years back. The

storm from hell.

Well, the rain came and the stream flowed and the pond filled and the spillway couldn't handle it and the pond gave way.

The water came down with such force that the bridge was racked some, the bend in the stream widened to 30 feet. Chuck's waterview log house, became waterfront and then just water in rapid succession. The stream carved the

road and roadbed off the side of the mountain and took out the lower bridge. Next year, if you drove to the club via the back way, the road just ended in front of our place in a chasm that once was a road. Chuck's living room was hanging cantalevered over the now 20 foot wide stream in a 40 foot wide stream bed. It was condemned and bulldozed.

Surveyors came a year later and damn if they didn't bring in rock and wire mesh baskets filled with rock and fill and gravel and we have a new road much nicer than before with the same little stream along side it. A true marvel of engineering how they built the shelf back on the mountain and made it look like nothing happened.

The pond is smaller, I think the owner got spanked by the town. Sam's place is posted now..as is everything else. The pig is gone but the tree and the houses are still there. And just like our club, the first and second generationsof those pioneers are gone, their thrid generation is my age and the fourth is coming into their own. But they'll never know the age of carrying water from a spring, wood stoves, axes and splittin mauls, wool clothes, true woodsmen and pigs as big as bulls.

[Suilleabhain]

you see I haven't figured out spell check

[Fletch]

Love the read!!

But being an upstater I am not sure I believe there was farms and woods and stuff way down there!! lol

[Suilleabhain]

Fletch, I'll go you one better than farms and deer, turkey.....would you believe that if you take the LIE to the end and Rt 58 into the Riverhead traffic cirle, then go north out of teh circle you will see Buffalo? Live buffalo, not the plastic one like on Rt 20A around Varysburg.

[Suilleabhain]

Ate some liver with bacon and onions last night. Life is good.

I'm a road warrior, I love to drive..more like wander in my car than drive actually. I'm the type that gets behind the wheel and goes where I've never been before. I never get lost, just arrive at unintended locations.

I love reading maps and charts, looking at roads and wondering what's there.

Latest was going to Atlantic City with the bride this summer. We always cit-chat too much and miss exits. Same thing this time, down the Jersey Tpke and I see next exit Cape May. Damn! Did it again. So I get off at May's Landing, turn on the car's compass and hit the side roads, I ain't going back up the Tpke. We're not in a hurry so we tour farmland and small towns on the east side of the state. May's Landing and then we see Vineland. My uncle Gene & Aunt May had a farm in Vineland after he was crushed by a stampeding horse in Coney Island when he was an NYC cop. They had to sell the farm after Gene died in'40. So we continue tooling along past America and stop at a gas station where I get confirmation from the attendent that I was on the right track. See I never get lost. Stop at a farm stand for tomatoes, can't pass up fresh produce, and we chat with the lady while her little son and Jack Russell play around. She's like mid-40's, friendly as all farm people seem to be. A man pulls up and drops off more vegetables and starts talking with the woman, my bride, who thinks Brooklyn is on the edge of civilization, the great beyond being wilderness, says "Is that your father". I had told hold on to stop from blacking out, I could feel the hair raise on the back of my neck and my eyes roll up in my head. Like asking a fat woman if she's pregnant! From the look in my eyes she knew she just plain F'd Up and jumped into a quick save, "Your son is beautiful" and dodged the bullet. Once back in teh car I said E-JIT! Of course that's her husband, the man works out in the sun 18 hours a day busting his balls. And for all his work, he's rewarded with looking 10 years older than he really is.

Up at the club me and the ex loved just getting on the back roads and driving. She had the map and was a good navigator. Stop here and there to shop or eat or gawk. Went back through Lew Beach once to Turnwood, Tannersville, Big Indian and she says as I'm going over Panther Mountain, get ready for a hairpin turn. Damn those maps are accurate, I came downhill into a hairpin that spun 180 degrees in the lengh of my car. Ended up around Haines Falls on that trip. If you ever get over there, look up North Lake campground. Walk up to the escarpment. You can see the Hudson from there and fall about 300' down if you aren't careful.

Back in the 60's and early 70's, every corner in Manhattan had something going on. Street performers, saw a guy juggle chainsaws on wall and Broad downtown. Or there were the abti-establishment radicals on soap boxes trying to start civil war. Or, there were the Hare Krishna's. Shaved heads, long gold robes, walking sticks with cymbols on top and what looked like bird-sh*t on their foreheads. They were harmless and just trying to save people from wandering between the winds for eternity...like very other religion..but they were just strange. I'm on a corner one day waiting for teh light and ka-ching ka-ching ka-ching on the cymbols means Hare Krishna is here.

Hare' Krishna

Hare' Krishna

Hare' Hoopnah

Hare' Hare'

That's the chant. One step s up to me and says "Man, try this" and he holds out his hand for me to taste regurgitated oatmeal or something. Gee thanks but no.

They disappeared in the early 80's, most likely to California, or back to the mother ship but, in any event they were gone.

Believe me, this is going somewhere.

One day me and teh ex leave the cabin after breakfast and some mandatory target shooting, she shot ( I in an act of stupidity gave to her) my Remington Nylon 11 .22. She won't give it back after the dee-vorse.

So we pick Old 17 and start heading northwest. Break off here and there, Narrowsberg, Hancock, Callicoon, wherever, we're wandering. Anyway we roll into a town called Horton. Freight rail, freight rail warehouse, A&P. That's all I remember and as I recall I can't be forgetting much. So I strecth my legs and go get snacks. As we are sitting in the car munching don't you know...............

Ka-ching Ka-ching Ka-ching

Hare' Krishna

Hare' Krishna

Hare' Hoopnah

Hare' Hare'

They're going shopping in A&P, walking single file following the stick with the cymbol doing this ceremonial skip-hop step, chanting away safe in the knowledge that they won't wander between the winds for eternity.

On the way home from AC, I missed the exit again and wound up with the choice of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge to Philly or turning around in Camden, neither of which was a pleasing thought.

[SteveNY]

LMAO! hahaha

[tommyc50]

wow my mom still lives on silver rd. i live on linden , i like what you said in your last postabout the farm stands i go out to orient pt fishing its rough gettin home istop almost every stand one iasked about rubarb the guy says wait walks in the field cut it and said i got some left aint freasher than that . theres a guy in riverhead raises buffalo