Chappaqua past

sunrise:  6:40
Chappaqua, NY

Back in my home town for a quick pass through.  So strange to think that my sister has lived within a few miles of our childhood home for most of her married life.  The overlay of lifetime memories must be so rich.  I imagine that they would either create memory confusion or erasure, as one chapter of life supercedes a previous one in connection with a particular place.  I have moved enough so that I have distinct chapters set in distinct geographic settings.

For me, I walk around this town and see particular snippets of my young life.  The Little Store is still here after 50 years or so, where I used to come during middle school to get a giant deli sandwich and a bag of fritos with my best friend.  Oh the miles and miles we walked and rode our bicycles! 

There is the building that used to house Mullane's Mug, local bar and high school hang out, when the drinking age was still 18 (or prior to that, we might have used our fake ID's).  There is the street up the hill to my elementary school, and the street down the hill to my middle school, the same building where my mother attended a year of high school!  There is the pretty little stone church where I sang for another good friend's wedding, a year or so out of college.

Amidst these hills, this is one of those places where signs of the sunrise are more indirect.  The first morning light hit the treetops on the ridge on the other side of the Saw Mill River Parkway.  From my high school, just up the road, we used to look out the windows of J, K, and L buildings at that same ridge.  Somewhere in there was "The Rock."  Every school class tried to get their own class year painted on The Rock, a huge boulder in the woods across the highway that faces the high school buildings.  There must have been a hundred coats of paint on that thing.  I only did it one time - '78 !  It was a long bushwhack through the woods with a can of paint and some brushes, after which we might have gone for sanwiches at The Little Store.

There were a lot of parties in the woods back then, some raided by cops, teenagers sprinting away over logs and swampy bogs.  I have a feeling that may not go on so much any more.  Too much fear of Lyme disease from ticks, or getting your designer shoes dirty.  I think it is more likely that today's Chappaqua teens party in their friends' apartments in New York City.  But maybe I misjudge... 

The fall colors are still in full vibrancy around here, with tree species that Maine does not have.  The reds and oranges of the very delicate Japanese maple leaves are dazzling.  Squirrels are out in force, and look very healthy.  I wonder what kind of predator population they have around here, probably not much.  The squirrel life has likely changed far less than the human life since the 1960's and '70's.