Book Excerpt # 1

2007-11-28T15:38:00.000-06:00

Below is an excerpt from my autobiography (in progress):

I had a special friend during my years living in Garnerville, New York. They were the formative years (1953- 1960) between the ages of 4 and 11. I don’t remember the details of how I met Richie Ten Eyck or for how long I knew him, but I have certain indelible and wonderful memories of our friendship. They are the kind you wish would be accurate. Who knows? They are so powerful maybe they are! Richie and I had a special way of getting together. I lived on Norris Street and he a block over on Church Street. Norris was a dead end, but Church connected Bridge Street with another whose name I’ve forgotten. In any case, to reach the other all one of us had to do was walk through an alley and up the street a short distance. If Richie wanted to play with me he came to the front of our house and yelled, “Hey Michael” (actually pronounced something like “Hey My-cull”, with emphasis on the first syllable and trailing off on the second.) If I wanted to play with Richie I went over to his house and yelled “Hey Richie” in the same fashion. I have no idea why we didn’t knock on the door or ring the door bell. I do know why we didn’t call each other. That was because we didn’t have a telephone until 1960, the year we moved back to North Carolina.

Anyway, Richie and I were great friends. We played more over at his house because it had an awesome feature, access to the factory pond! You see, Bridge Street was named that because it went over this amazing bridge spanning the factory pond. In fact, the span was quite close to the dam that created the pond, which was in turn created as an adjunct to the factory. Just over the bridge and on the right side was the factory itself. I don’t know if the pond had anything to do with the running of the factory, and I have no idea when the factory was built or what was made there. It seemed like the biggest building in the world to me back then. It was brick and at least two stories high. I know that because of another great memory about Garnerville. If you walked down Bridge Street from its intersection with Church Street you would soon cross the bridge and go past the end of the factory (across its width) to another intersection, this one where Bridge Street ended at Railroad Avenue, the main thoroughfare through Garnerville. Railroad Avenue connected Garnerville with West Haverstraw and the Hudson River to the east and the villages of Thiells and Letchworth, as well as points beyond, to the west. As I recall, straight across from the intersection was the candy store. I call it that because I went there to buy candy and baseball cards. I don’t remember the name or what else was sold there. Here’s the connection to the factory, though. I remember quite clearly on some afternoons observing a worker on the top floor of the factory lowering an empty bucket to someone on the sidewalk below. The person on the sidewalk would then go into the store and return with the bucket full of snacks and drinks to be hauled up by the worker above. I believe that’s how the workers got their food for breaks, and maybe even for lunch.

The most awesome thing about the factory pond bridge was that the roadway was made of iron grate. It made the most incredible sound when cars drove over it. It also offered an unmatched perspective of the pond. I remember standing on the sidewalk part of the bridge and staring down at the water rushing over the dam, mesmerized by the sound and motion of it all! Well, behind Richie’s house was a detached garage and open concrete area in which we played marbles. Behind that, though, was a path leading down a long steep bank right to the edge of the factory pond where a little creek emptied out. There was a relatively flat area completely covered by giant Oak trees. It was probably a hundred yards or so from the bridge, and it was probably a hundred yards or more across the pond to Railroad Avenue on the other side. (It would be interesting to test my memory on this. If the pond is still there, I wonder how big it really is?)

Richie and I spent many hours down by the pond. We threw literally thousands of rocks into the pond, pretending we were playing baseball or trying to skip the rocks all the way across or trying to make the biggest splash. We also designed and constructed many earthen and rock dams on the little creek, all of which failed miserably to hold back its emptying into the pond. I think we may have tried fishing a time or two, but with no luck. The one thing I don’t recall ever doing was actually getting into the pond. To the best of my recollection we never swam in it. Come to think of it, I don’t believe I ever saw anyone actually in the pond. Now that I think of it, I wonder what that means. Do you suppose our parents lectured us not to swim in the pond? Was it polluted with wastewater from the factory or some other source? I don’t know.

Hi & Welcome

2007-11-22T17:26:00.000-06:00

Hi & welcome to anyone landing on my blog. I just created it because my son Kevin showed me how. Now all I need is to figure out how to use it!

Mike's Cores

Book Excerpt # 1

Hi & Welcome