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lifeonthepike"Watch out, there's another one over there!" Leila and I were dodging skunks as we made our way up the lawn towards Saxton Hall. "Normally they only come down from the woods in the fall." It was a close call. Our second of the night. We had been out walking all over Oneonta late that night - it was warm and finals were ending, and I was about to go home for the summer.
I remember scenes like this while sitting at home on a Friday listening to records. Right now, I am listening to The Pet Shop Boys, and the third piece off of their Discography LP from 1991 has an eighteen second intro that mostly sounds like crickets keeping a beat in the background.
I remember when I played on college radio, it was the perfect piece to accompany a 15 second promo tape, and the music would kick in just as the tape ended. And that's what I used to do. I could pretty much do whatever I wanted to do on our radio station - I went on at midnight on Sunday, not a hugely popular night for people to be up late, so there were not many listeners, but the ones I did have tended to be loyal and called in. I came on right after a guy named Irwin Gooen.
It was odd that Irwin had a radio show, but he was one of a handful of townies who had shows on our campus radio station. His he devoted to peace, love, and happiness. He was a self-described tree hugger. I used to think of him as just another old hippie, in Oneonta on the edge of the Catskills, not too far from where Woodstock took place, and with all the hills around the radio station had a real voice. Everyone always thinks of New York as urban, but the upstate part is really spread out, and hills and valleys pretty much cut us off in Oneonta from any real civilization.
But nonetheless, I spent my days and nights rambling around Oneonta as if it were a real city, and to me the old storefronts, Victorian houses, and grid pattern of streets felt more like New York and New York City than anything in Virginia or DC ever would. And I met guys like Irwin, who seemed as if they fit in with flower power 1969 New York as much as they did in my college era, years later.
Anyway, I usually showed up about fifteen minutes before the end of Irwin's show which he always ended with the long version of The Chamber Brothers' "Time Has Come Today," giving us a few minutes to chat as he packed up his gear, which mostly consisted of similar-era music, a bit more diverse from what was played on the local classic rock station including a lot of Grateful Dead, most likely bootleg, and most likely also quasi-legal to play on the air as the rights had not been granted.
On one particular night around the beginning of May, he had a companion. There was a woman with him, or somebody who appeared to be a woman, a few inches shorter than me, not thin but fairly attractive, and somewhat alternative in her dress, with bright red hair. I ended up talking to her a bit and Irwin ended up leaving for the evening right after I started playing music shortly after midnight. She was friendly towards me and we ended up staying on the air together forty minutes past when I normally signed the radio station off at two in the morning.
So the funny thing was that Leila was not a student. "So, how old are you anyway?"
"Well, I am not in college. I live in town."
"Oh really? Where?"
"I live on Cherry Street."
"You mean on the hill?"
Cherry Street was notorious. Our college took its place on the side of Oyaron Hill. In many places, Oyaron would be considered a mountain which was entertaining to those of us who grew up in upstate New York. Unless you're deep in the Catskills or around the high peaks of the Adirondacks, there are no mountains in upstate New York. There are merely hills which are minor conveniences to drive around or over, and Hartwick was on an inconvenient hill. And the easiest way to downtown when walking was down Cherry Street, a hill so steep that if you owned a house and were sitting on your side porch, you would be looking into your neighbor's bedroom twenty feet to the east.
Leila lived on the hill and I came to discover that she was only fifteen, about to turn sixteen, and living with her mother. But like many of the women of my adulthood, I was drawn to her for some reason. She was freakishly bright and was curious about a lot of different things. For some crazy reason, after that night I gave her my phone number and she started calling me.
My roommate was a bit entertained by this. She came to get me when I needed a study break, a couple of times in which I was out at the library, and he would tell me later, "Somebody came looking for you."
I would say, "Which one?"
And he would say, "The redhead." Not to be confused with a couple of the other hippie women that were around in my life that year, not like Liz who he called "The weird one," or Erin who he referred to as "The shy one."
And Leila cooked me dinner one night. When summer was nearing and I was preparing to go home and work on a landscape crew, she offered me a chicken dinner. So I took a break from studying and went to her mother's red house on Cherry Street Hill, and we sat around and talked a bit. I met her mother and her mother was going out.
"I'm a sophomore in college," I told her, as I still looked young. "Do you think it's normal for your daughter to spend time with college boys?"
She gave me a funny look, as if to imply that it seemed that I was judging her poorly, and said, "Sure. There is nowhere else that she will meet anyone who matches her intellectually."
Leila cooked me dinner and we talked for a while and eventually I returned to the library that night. A few nights later when I was done studying, I met her late in the evening for a walk. I guess you could say that was the night we encountered skunks.
We walked across town to the other side of the valley, to a park where I would later chase my roommate's escaped Siberian husky. We sat on a picnic table for a while and drew fairly close, with the type of closeness where you would eventually expect a kiss. I ended up being a friend, though. We talked, and that summer we exchanged letters, with her asking a bit about what I, Rob, could possibly be anxious about? And me asking where she would be in the fall.
It would later turn out that she left town two years early destined for a college designed for high school students. I saw her once more that fall in an awkward meeting with one of her local friends, but years later we are in touch again. She studied religion to the Master's level, as philosophy, at Harvard Divinity School and now does community organization in Baltimore.
Much better than living in Oneonta surrounded by college students.
That night, we walked to another park and sat on a bench. As we were sitting there, the Oneonta Police came through. It was last call at the bars and they were also chasing everyone out of the parks.
She and I started walking away. I said to her, "Walk a different direction until they leave please. I'll get in trouble if the stop us."
"I'm not stupid."
I remember scenes like this while sitting at home on a Friday listening to records. Right now, I am listening to The Pet Shop Boys, and the third piece off of their Discography LP from 1991 has an eighteen second intro that mostly sounds like crickets keeping a beat in the background.
I remember when I played on college radio, it was the perfect piece to accompany a 15 second promo tape, and the music would kick in just as the tape ended. And that's what I used to do. I could pretty much do whatever I wanted to do on our radio station - I went on at midnight on Sunday, not a hugely popular night for people to be up late, so there were not many listeners, but the ones I did have tended to be loyal and called in. I came on right after a guy named Irwin Gooen.
It was odd that Irwin had a radio show, but he was one of a handful of townies who had shows on our campus radio station. His he devoted to peace, love, and happiness. He was a self-described tree hugger. I used to think of him as just another old hippie, in Oneonta on the edge of the Catskills, not too far from where Woodstock took place, and with all the hills around the radio station had a real voice. Everyone always thinks of New York as urban, but the upstate part is really spread out, and hills and valleys pretty much cut us off in Oneonta from any real civilization.
But nonetheless, I spent my days and nights rambling around Oneonta as if it were a real city, and to me the old storefronts, Victorian houses, and grid pattern of streets felt more like New York and New York City than anything in Virginia or DC ever would. And I met guys like Irwin, who seemed as if they fit in with flower power 1969 New York as much as they did in my college era, years later.
Anyway, I usually showed up about fifteen minutes before the end of Irwin's show which he always ended with the long version of The Chamber Brothers' "Time Has Come Today," giving us a few minutes to chat as he packed up his gear, which mostly consisted of similar-era music, a bit more diverse from what was played on the local classic rock station including a lot of Grateful Dead, most likely bootleg, and most likely also quasi-legal to play on the air as the rights had not been granted.
On one particular night around the beginning of May, he had a companion. There was a woman with him, or somebody who appeared to be a woman, a few inches shorter than me, not thin but fairly attractive, and somewhat alternative in her dress, with bright red hair. I ended up talking to her a bit and Irwin ended up leaving for the evening right after I started playing music shortly after midnight. She was friendly towards me and we ended up staying on the air together forty minutes past when I normally signed the radio station off at two in the morning.
So the funny thing was that Leila was not a student. "So, how old are you anyway?"
"Well, I am not in college. I live in town."
"Oh really? Where?"
"I live on Cherry Street."
"You mean on the hill?"
Cherry Street was notorious. Our college took its place on the side of Oyaron Hill. In many places, Oyaron would be considered a mountain which was entertaining to those of us who grew up in upstate New York. Unless you're deep in the Catskills or around the high peaks of the Adirondacks, there are no mountains in upstate New York. There are merely hills which are minor conveniences to drive around or over, and Hartwick was on an inconvenient hill. And the easiest way to downtown when walking was down Cherry Street, a hill so steep that if you owned a house and were sitting on your side porch, you would be looking into your neighbor's bedroom twenty feet to the east.
Leila lived on the hill and I came to discover that she was only fifteen, about to turn sixteen, and living with her mother. But like many of the women of my adulthood, I was drawn to her for some reason. She was freakishly bright and was curious about a lot of different things. For some crazy reason, after that night I gave her my phone number and she started calling me.
My roommate was a bit entertained by this. She came to get me when I needed a study break, a couple of times in which I was out at the library, and he would tell me later, "Somebody came looking for you."
I would say, "Which one?"
And he would say, "The redhead." Not to be confused with a couple of the other hippie women that were around in my life that year, not like Liz who he called "The weird one," or Erin who he referred to as "The shy one."
And Leila cooked me dinner one night. When summer was nearing and I was preparing to go home and work on a landscape crew, she offered me a chicken dinner. So I took a break from studying and went to her mother's red house on Cherry Street Hill, and we sat around and talked a bit. I met her mother and her mother was going out.
"I'm a sophomore in college," I told her, as I still looked young. "Do you think it's normal for your daughter to spend time with college boys?"
She gave me a funny look, as if to imply that it seemed that I was judging her poorly, and said, "Sure. There is nowhere else that she will meet anyone who matches her intellectually."
Leila cooked me dinner and we talked for a while and eventually I returned to the library that night. A few nights later when I was done studying, I met her late in the evening for a walk. I guess you could say that was the night we encountered skunks.
We walked across town to the other side of the valley, to a park where I would later chase my roommate's escaped Siberian husky. We sat on a picnic table for a while and drew fairly close, with the type of closeness where you would eventually expect a kiss. I ended up being a friend, though. We talked, and that summer we exchanged letters, with her asking a bit about what I, Rob, could possibly be anxious about? And me asking where she would be in the fall.
It would later turn out that she left town two years early destined for a college designed for high school students. I saw her once more that fall in an awkward meeting with one of her local friends, but years later we are in touch again. She studied religion to the Master's level, as philosophy, at Harvard Divinity School and now does community organization in Baltimore.
Much better than living in Oneonta surrounded by college students.
That night, we walked to another park and sat on a bench. As we were sitting there, the Oneonta Police came through. It was last call at the bars and they were also chasing everyone out of the parks.
She and I started walking away. I said to her, "Walk a different direction until they leave please. I'll get in trouble if the stop us."
"I'm not stupid."
