Road Trip

My sister Trish and I just did a road trip to/through parts of New York State. First up?

Cooperstown When I was growing up, our family vacations fell into one of three categories: Chicago (my mother’s hometown) to visit family; Bass River on The Cape, where we rented the modest little cottage of my parent’s friends Mae and Nemo; and day trips conducted during my father’s two weeks off in July – one day to an ocean beach (Nantasket, and, later on Horseneck), one day to somewhere touristy in New England (e.g., Bennington VT), and a couple of lake swims at Castle Beach.

But in 1961, over Columbus Day weekend, we went to Cooperstown. Mostly we went to see the Hall of Fame – my father was a major league baseball fan (like father, like daughter) – but with other stops at the Farmer’s Museum (to see the Cardiff Giant) and at nearby Howe Caverns (which included a ride in subterranean rowboat, and the experience of pitch black when they turned the lights out). The trip also meant eating in restaurants and staying in a hotel (The Hotel Augusta in Cobbleskill.) These were things we NEVER did, so it was plenty novel and amazing.

Anyway, that was the last time I was in Cooperstown, and I was quite happy to return.

I like history, and I like looking at old stuff, so The Baseball Hall of Fame is right up my alley. A few too many reminders that the Red Sox had “sold” Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1919, thus begetting the Curse of the Bambino, which wasn’t broken until the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, for the first time since 1918. Other than that, I enjoyed all the exhibits, especially the ones devoted to the Negro Leagues and women’s baseball. And fun, of course, to see the Red Sox players who were inducted since last I was at the Hall in 1961. Teddy Ballgame, Yaz, Bobby Doerr, Pudge Fisk, Jim Ed Rice, Pedro Martinez, Wade Boggs, Eck (even if he is wearing an A’s cap).

Not much shopping in town. Unless, that is, you’re a baseball fan. Other than a couple of Christmas gifts, my wallet mostly stayed shut. But in one store (obviously not the HofF shop), this shirt was on sale for $5. Not that I would ever wear it. But I did want to send something tangible off to my niece Molly for her birthday along with a check…

We also took in the Farmer’s Museum, congratulating ourselves all the while for having been clever enough to have been born in the 20th century. They have an exhibit focused on farm implements, how things were grown, how things were made, how households were run. Talk about drudgery! I was exhausted just looking at the churns and plows. So much easier to live in a world where, for $5, you can buy a tee-shirt that says Y*NK**S S*CK, rather than having to spend your day swinging a scythe or mangling your only other dress to get the water out of it on laundry day.

And the Cardiff Giant is still there. (The Cardiff Giant is a stone “man” which was displayed under the claim that it was a petrified human giant.) I believe that in 1961, the Giant was displayed outside, but he’s sheltered now. Good to be reminded that humbuggery has a long and honored history in America.

Hyde Park How has it taken me this long to get to Hyde Park to see the FDR Museum and Library? I like history, and I like looking at old stuff, so, once again, this was right up my alley. I know quite a bit about the history of the Depression and WWII, but I still learned a few things. And I teared up a few times when I did a mental compare and contrast between Franklin & Eleanor and the current incumbents of the White House. Fireside chat vs. hair on fire tweets…Refusal to let paralysis get himself down vs. sidelined by heel spurs… I could go on, but, well… We also did a quick drive-by of Eleanor’s place of her own, Val-Kill. Here be my favorite image on display at Hyde Park. That’s Eleanor at LaGuardia Airport, no kid at the time, a wealthy former First Lady and world-traveling humanitarian, carrying her own suitcase across the tarmac. Enough said.

Tarrytown  I don’t give a lot of thought to Washington Irving. I’m sure I read some version of “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle” as a child. I still remember the theme song to the Disney rendering of “Sleepy Hollow.” Other than that… But you can’t go to Tarrytown without learning a bit more about Washington Irving. He was not only the first American “man of letters” – i.e., someone who made his living as a writer – but he was also something of a mentor to Hawthorne, Poe, Longfellow, Melville. He hosted his friend Charles Dickens when he came to America, and Ebenezer Scrooge may have been named (as something of a jest) for Irving’s brother, a man of great good humor. Irving lived on the banks of the Hudson River in a house he designed and built called Sunnyside. Best old house tour ever! (Did I mention that I like old things and I like history?) Usually I shudder at the sight of costumed interpreters, but the folks who give the tours of Sunnyside – and there’s one for every couple of rooms – are knowledgeable, interesting, fun. I enjoyed every moment of the tour, and the house, with its pokey, quirky little rooms is pretty much my dream house. (Other than modern convenience thing.) Irving in some respects was well ahead of his time. He did have a system for hot water in the house, but, alas, his ingenuity didn’t extend to figuring out toilets. The outhouse, however, was pretty upscale and snappy.

We also “did” Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, where Irving is buried. As are Samuel Gompers, Andrew Carnegie, and Elizabeth Arden. Not quite Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, but quite an assemblage nonetheless.

The one disappointment was the lack of decent foliage. Here it is, mid-late October, and the trees in the Catskills and Hudson River Valley are still 99% green. We peeped a few decent leave in Connecticut and Massachusetts on the way home, but nothing like what we should have seen. It’s just been way too warm for this time of year… And then, in Tarrytown, we heard all sorts of birds chirping. Which would have been pleasant, if not for the fact that it’s the type of chirping you usually hear in May.

So I’ll just leave it at disappointed at the lack of color, rather than let myself be freaked out by green leaves on the trees and birds chirping away when they should have flown south already.

Nonetheless, all and all, a great little getaway.