Summer Idyl

Growing up as a kid on New York City's Staten Island I thought I had the world by the tail. Unlike many of my friends we had a small fenced in backyard. In this back yard I had all the different habitats one needed to explore and let imagination go wild. Each day this small crust of earth gave me a new stage to perform my flights of fancy. Not having much else, I had to use my mind to create images and story lines. Usually I played in my little domain by myself.

I had everything you could imagine, right there in my back yard. I had Sherwood Forest or the Jungle Primeval, all within a clutch of lilac bushes. I had the caves of the lost treasure of the sierra madre right under my back porch. The top deck of the porch doubled as the command deck of any ship of the line. Many a manned space mission was commanded from this platform. Flights of fancy included Captain Hook's Frigate and his battles with Peter Pan. I often tried to fly using the clothes line. Going down was OK, but coming up was impossible. So I would drop or fall to the ground and walk back to the porch.

Standing tall and erect on that back porch I could see straight up a neighborhood street to the New York State Armory on Manor Road. This Massive building was built to resemble an old castle. Turrets and narrow slit windows for the archers. Heavy knobed doors. Iron Bars on the windows. It was as real as it got, until a trip to Europe many years later and I saw the real thing.

So the yard on Staten Island served my imagination as a sort of internship at a small backwoods repertory theater group. Learning my craft of imaginary play. Fighting the wrongs of the universe. Until we moved to Jersey.

When we moved to New Jersey in 1961 I was bowled over by the enormity of the woods right out our back door. The woods was so thick and tall, it just about filtered the sunlight out. It was cool on a hot summer day. The entire experience was numbing. It was almost as if my imagination went bonkers on steroids! Think of the adventures, the comedy, the tragedy, and boy there was plenty of that. No longer would my imagination be confined to a postage stamped yard. Here we had acres to explore.

My Dad bought me a canvas army surplus wall tent. We constructed a camp site in the back yard. The camp was far enough from the house so that I knew the house and the protection it provided was close at hand, yet far enough away, that I felt in the wilds. Close enough on those rare nights you would get the ever living crap scared out of you, you could sneak off to safety.

We had a fire pit, a sitting log, a horse hitching post, just no horse. All the comforts of home.
Usually around Memorial Day we would put up the tent and clean up the campsite. We had two old second world war army cots to sleep on. Complete with army blankets and quilts. The tent was dark green and was like an oven in side during the day and a freezer at night. The smell of the water treatment was nauseating and it made everyone who stayed in it smell like the tent. But it was mine! It was my space and I had Divine intervention in my domain.

On summer days off from school I would run down to the tent with my magazines in hand. Mad Magazine, National Geographic, Saturday Evening Post (just loved Norman Rockwell), to name a few. Or I would bring my Hardy Boys books to share their the world. I would lay down on the cot with the blanket and quilt and fuss for a while while I got my pillow just right and then step into another dimension to be swept away with adventure.

As I laid there the entire world disappeared outside. A hypnotic drone of piston driven aircraft would slowly pas over head. The birds in the trees sang, the crows coughed and gagged, and occasionally you would hear the sound of a squirrel running through the underbrush. Harrison Brook, at the edge of the property gurgled and plopped as it flowed to the Atlantic Ocean. It was the quite of my world and I savored it. I would lay on the cot and close my eyes and be taken to worlds unknown by the shear solitude of the day.

During those nine great years that I took place in this summer ritual, I came to experience that what many call the silence of the woods is just as loud as traffic on a city street. Nature is singing their melodious aria to the glory of God its creator.

My roll off business takes me through some of, what I feel, is the most beautiful scenery in the world, the Hudson Valley and the Catskills. Many time's while I'm on the road during the warm weather I will pull over at favorite spots, turn off the motor, roll down the windows, and just listen. Soaking in all that nature has to offer. Reminding me of those Summer Days of my youth.