Discovery of Cold Springs
Within a second, the train
started up as the passengers walked off and we were headed north. I knew then I
would return and I would never go back to urban living while feeling the same
way about life outside the city.
The following weekend, I
was one of those passengers who got off at that very stop. It was as though I
was in a time warp. I made my way
through a narrow passage where the early 19th century iron fence lead me along
the train tracks.
It was a very warm summer,
but in upstate New York you still can have pine trees. Pine trees, so green towered over me like the
comfort of a child holding the hand of an adult walking through a new place.
The path opened up to the
mouth of Main Street ahead of me were displayed cookie cutter houses with
bicycles and shoes laying on the top of steps with no apparent worry of them
walking off.
A county, mounty stood
with hands on his hips over two Caucasian men in orange jumpsuits painting the
siding of a house. I noticed a box with "take
me I'm free" filled with books at the bottom of steps. They were white
trimmed steps with no markings of shoes or dirt of any sort.
Store fronts with people
sitting at the entrances eating ice cream looked welcoming and relaxed. I
noticed an interracial gay couple holding hands with, whom I assumed was their
child, feeding her ice cream and laughing. A man was walking with his son in
one hand, a kite in the other. An older
couple was sitting on their porch; the woman in a house dress, cutting potatoes
and a man wearing a cut off shirt, while holding a beer and waving hello to me
as I strolled by.
Across the street stood a
house that was the residence of another couple, a hundred years ago. They had
financed the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. It stood proudly with the American
flag draped on its porch.
A store front had a sign
printed "Antique photos and vintage furniture sold here."
Another saying, "Hudson House by the River now open for lunch."
Some say Washington slept
there when fighting the British. Did you ever meet a town in America that said,
"You're welcome?"
This is the town of those
who retired in the comfort of it, I think.
Quietly.
I questioned where I was.
What did I just enter?
I felt this might be like
a Utopia Americana that made a promise and kept it.
