Grace Community Christian Church

 

Archived Things Above

Diary of a New England Toodle (9/27/06)

As I write this, the "Cemetery Tour" is well underway. Yesterday, Kim & I toodled around Clinton Hollow, NY, where my mom is buried with all of her family. Once again I drove slowly down the lane past my uncle's farm, rich with memories of cutting wood, riding tractors, camping out in the woods on cold Thanksgiving nights, playing hide & see in the barns, & inhaling so much hay dust that I could barely breathe for days. There was the pond, once so huge, where we dove off a wooden raft tethered to four 55-gallon drums. There was the neighbor's field where we slid around on the world's fasted go-carts. There was the stone wall at the bottom of the hill over which my brother Mike went airborn on a sled & nearly killed himself.

Kim is calling it the "Presidential Tour", as we visited the Hyde Park home of FDR, just a few miles to the west. And the home of Martin van Buren, just upriver.

We finished the day in the village of Lake George. There's Western World, where at about age 10 I drew my six-shooter on the masked bandit who dared to rob our stage coach. His blue steel gun was so much heavier than mine, but I bore it with pride as the cheering crowds watched the sheriff pin a star to my brave & puffing chest.

Today (Monday) I'll see Alderbrook, Hulett's Landing, on Lake George, the summer house where I learned to swim & waterski & drive boats into docks & sailboats. Where I learned to sing "The bear went over the mountain" ten million times. Where I fell in love with a beautiful black-haired girl whose name I wish I could remember. And feared for my life from her bully brother named AJ. And stole cigarettes from the carton on top of the fridge & smoked them in the abandoned tree-house near a dirt parking lot with Brett the Brat from New Jersey, who stayed in a cottage behind us near a farmhouse where an old lady named Irene Phillips raised sheep that wandered freely in & out of her house. Where I sat in the sand for hours, damming up the ice cold stream that flowed under & by the house into the lake. Where I learned that a stinging conscience makes it really hard to enjoy stolen money. And where I remember my family, whole & complete, laughing & being family-like for the last time.

Today I will gaze upon the scariest house in the world- Skeene Manor, the steep, stern, Gothic house planted high atop a mountain side in Whitehall. We passed it every summer & its evil eye followed our car until we were out of sight around a bend. I don't remember who started the haunted house bit- I'm sure my siblings enjoyed watching the baby of the family turn pale with fright & hide under anything that promised shelter, but it stuck, & to this day the thought of that eerie looking mansion sends a chill deep into my soul. I'm hoping to eat lunch there (I recall it being a restaurant!) & maybe say goodbye to some ghosts.

We'll visit Ft. Ticonderoga- site of further childhood battles against the bullying British. We'll cross Lake Champlain to Burlington, VT, on the ferry that my favorite picture of my step-mom, Margie, was taken. We'll visit her hilltop grave at Greensboro, meander through The Willy's Store, which sells way cooler stuff than Walmart (including maple sugar candy & spring operated fly swatter guns!) We'll stop at the old Mackenzie family compound on Caspian Lake, where I learned tennis & sailing from my stepsisters. And from whom I learned that family members could be vastly different & live all over the country, yet still love & accept & care for each other deeply.

The Cemetery Tour. The Melancholy Tour. The Presidential Tour. The Memory Tour. Call it what you will, I'm going back to places & events that contributed to who I am today. Their effect is undeniable, & with the relentless march of the years I appreciate them more & more.

(Wednesday) In the field behind the Lake George house stands an old stone church. Beneath the spreading limbs of a huge old tree I found the grave of Uncle Willard, the kindly old friend who so graciously made his beloved summer home available to a family from Long Island. I didn't expect to find his grave there; for some reason I'd just assumed he'd have been buried in his hometown, wherever that was. As Kim returned from the car with the camera tri-pod, I whispered a quick "Thank you" to Uncle Willard for the gift he'd given to me & my family so many years ago. I doubt he ever knew how rich those few weeks a year were to all of us.

Which brings me to Junior's article in this month's Grace Notes. He is determined to intentionally build "God lessons" & memories into his toddler daughter's life. And he's adamant that whatever church family he's part of will be wholly committed to that as well.

The Bible clearly teaches that as we get older, we do remember the lessons of our past (Prov. 22:6). Thirty years from now, a bunch of kids who are now only 8 or 10 or 15 will take their own "Cemetery Tour." They'll peek into the remnants of their past. I hope they stop by 2100 Rosemont Avenue. I hope they pause for a moment & silently whisper a "Thank you for the memories- I am who I am partly because of you!"

Junior's challenge rings scarily clear: Do we dare leave this most important of childhood memories to chance?


Jim Dewar --