This photo brings me back to a place and time in my memory that feels like perfect happiness. It was taken on one of the porches of the summer house that Danny's parents rented from Ottilie. Ottilie was the school cook who made us hot lunches everyday and ruled the lunch room. I don't remember that much about her lunches except that I thought they were pretty ho hum but I was a fussy eater, Lisle remembers adoring them. I do remember meals like like meatloaf, mashed potatoes and stewed tomatoes. You could look past the steam table into an open kitchen and watch the food being cooked. It seemed to me an exciting and clamorous operation. The one big hit I remember everyone liking was white buttered toast that we covered with cinnamon and sugar poured from mug sized stainless steal shakers, though that may have come with omelets, perhaps as a compensation. Ottilie's house was in Goldens Bridge, NY a few miles from Katonah and about a half hour from our little red bungalow in Yorktown Heights. Goldens Bridge in those day, as I remember it, was not much more than a railroad crossing. There was a tiny general store, a tiny post office, a garage and on the other side of the railroad crossing about a half dozen old farm and victorian style houses. Ottilie's house was past all this, a mile or so out of town. The narrow paved road there crossed the railroad tracks, curved between the few houses, passed into the woods where it became dirt and then it climbed a hill to a sandy parking area below where the house was perched on a patch of treeless hill top. There was no landscaping or lawn, just rocks, scrubby grass and other wild plants. The house itself was a dark green two story clapboard box with porches on three sides. The back porch was a double-decker and faced west where one could watch the sun setting over the Muskoot Reservoir from the top deck. I called Danny's parents Uncle Joe and Aunt Nell though Joe was really only my father's first cousin. Nell, who sometimes played the piano in rhythms class for Sylvia Miller, kept that old summer house as clean, and the floors as polished, as she did Patelson's, their famous music shop on 56th street behind Carnegie Hall. Though here you couldn't run and slide on the floors, like you could in the music shop, since the boards were too old and didn't fit together tightly enough.
There was one other house on that hill. The land dipped slightly then rose again and at the very top was a small single story house sitting in the middle of the woods. it was as if the woods had just grown up around it, there didn't seem to be any way it could have gotten there. It was always dark from the tree cover and the inside didn't feel to me all that different form the outside, just darker. As far as I can remember there was no electricity or running water. The Geltmans (Marc '61 his younger sister and parents. Mary, Mark's mother became the VIIIs teacher after our time at C&C) would sometimes rent this house for a few weeks, thought I don't know if it also belonged to Ottilie. When that Geltman's were up I'd sometimes go and stay with the Patelsons for a while and Marc, Danny and I would hang out together. At least I know this happened in '57 since there is photographic evidence. There were always things do to and adventures to be had there. We could go down to the reservoir or explore the woods looking for colorful mushrooms and maybe find a box turtle to bring home if we were lucky. Somewhere up on that hill there was a house that had burned down long ago where the daylilies that had been planted there had spread to make a small field and we'd pick large bunches to bring home. Danny had his toy trucks to play with and I would collect butterflies or under Nell's direction we would collect moss and rocks and sheets of mica and build miniature landscapes in pie tins. I remember one night the three of us boys sleeping in one large bed on the lower back porch where the picture above was taken, maybe that very same night.
David, my darling step daughter who spends to much time on the internet some how found this lovely, thoughtful review of a few idleic summers at Goldens Bridge with you Danny Padleson and I.I have not thought of these times in 60 years but your vivid description remembering of these times brought it all back and tears to my eyes.Thank you for this remembrance of things past and the pictures of my family and you. sincerely Marc Geltman
ReplyDeleteMarc, glad you found my blog. I think about those times surprisingly often. About 10 years ago our class started reconnecting and we’ve had several reunions since. Kerry Allen has joined us several times, you probably remember her brother Kim was in our class. Lisle Kulbach says hello and joins with me in wondering what has become of you and what you are up to these days. You might prefer to scroll up and use the more private email form, in the right hand column near the top of the page.
ReplyDeleteDavid