IN THE TIME OF VIRUS …

May 11, 2020

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

     One of the things about staying home during the time of virus is that you have to escape. The walls can move in a bit, and suddenly the back yard where you never went except to mow the lawn becomes Central Park. But there are other places, too, if only in memory.

     Back in the day, as youth with not much money but with a one-speed, coaster-brake bicycle, or more often on foot, or later with an iffy-running car, there were many places to explore in what was then more country than suburbia. 

     First, there was the quiet of the road, a walk down Hickory over to the closed St. Vincent de Paul summer camp grounds that led to the old Erie branch to Mt. Ivy. Few cars were then about, and usually there was no one on the fields, in the marsh and at the pond. This was the view, too, of my father in his youth. What thoughts he had I cannot know, but all young, in their time, have to think and ponder in solitude. There is so much ahead, we hope.

     If you could muster the leg strength, a bike ride from Hillcrest through the Spring Valley downtown of some generations, past a former home, three old schools, up the Old Nyack Turnpike to Saddle River Road and back home through the Ukrainian and Polish neighborhoods near West Street was not only a challenge but a fortification of more than physical strength. This was a ride of emotion, too, because even younger years, with family, friends, school and varied haunts were re-visited as if watching an 8mm home movie. Reassuring for the coming journey.

     A few years later, the iffy jalopy started, you might have someone with you on the ride, say along a twisting, turning route. It could be South Mountain Road, with the 1700s Concklin orchards in early bloom, followed by the homes of artists, writers and thespians, then to a private lane leading to the Crosby Vineyards and the hike at High Tor.

     The summit always provided a seat for your thoughts. Did then, does now. You share the space with the fabled Dutch sailors lost off the Half Moon whose bowling is the thunder of the lower Hudson Valley. You also share space with your companion, proving that different directions can co-exist for the moment, and you will never forget.

     So, it is in the memories that you can, in the time of virus, leave the house, the apartment, the room.

     The writer is a retired newspaperman. ahgunther@yahoo.com