Country Roads

Cities consist of sidewalks and manicured parks and tall apartment buildings. This was all I knew as a child in the Bronx except for the marvelous two week vacations each summer in the Jewish Catskill Mountains. We looked forward, my sister and I, to our annual escape from New York City heat and humidity to the hills and lakes and simple villages of what we referred to as "the country." White Lake (later renamed to overcome the stigma of Al Capone using it for a burial ground for his hits) Konionga Lake, Kiamescha Lake, Loch Sheldrake, Middletown, Ferndale, Monticello, Livingston Maner meant small hotels (we couldn't afford Grossinger's or Brown's)with Kosher cooking, nightly entertainment, and walks to town on country roads. Later I went to summer camp on Lake Como, Pennsylvania, near the New York border. College brought me to Ithaca which was less interesting to me than the surrounding rural farms. I was a camp counselor near Lake Placid. I bought property in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, made my own lake (all right pond) and walked more roads. John Denver sang to me of "Rocky Mountain High" but I cherished my own images. Recently I moved to a rural Chester County address, a development to be sure, but a five minute walk to horse farms, cattle, chickens, even alpaca and buffalo, almost in my own back yard.

My grandchildren, on the other hand, have grown up in suburban and now rural areas. Except for a few brief visits to Radio City or the Philadelphia Zoo they know little of city life. This fact was brought home clearly last week. I realized that our three year old grandson Reagan had never seen a sidewalk. When my wife, the world's most sought after baby-sitter, was walking him to our commuity pool he became enchanted with the sidewalks, throwing his gear, running ahead in pure delight. "I love your long white roads here, grandmom."

We are comfortable with what we have always known, I suppose, but true excitement is aroused by the novel, the unique, the unexpected, and unfamiliar.