The Farm upstate, beginning to end

It was the summer of sixty-six or maybe the summer of love nineteen-sixty-seven, after all these years it is hard to be sure. I always thought it was the summer of sixty-six, but all the pictures say sixty-seven. Whenever it was, our Neighbors, the Cockcrofts invite us to their farm in West Fulton, Schoharie County upstate New York. I am eight, nine years old, Ruth is about 6, Eric is about four and Karl the oldest is around twelve.
     The Cockcrofts moved into the house next to our's a few years earlier, maybe 1964 when the house was moved out of  Nyack or something like that. My Mom has memories of kids riding sleighs under the house, set up on blocks while the foundation is being finished during the winter. My Brother Karl quickly becomes friends with their son, Brian. My Mom became friends with Holly, Brian's mom. Karl got an invitation to go upstate first. He spent a weekend, a week, or a few days, I don't remember. What I do remember is an invitation coming to my mom from Holly Cockcroft to spend sometime upstate at their farm. It was the mid-sixties and my Dad was still in his faze of getting cars my mom couldn't drive. He'd buy or was given a car by someone. He'd bring it home and my mom would ask if it is an automatic or a standard? My Mom could never drive a standard shift car. Invariable the car would be a standard.
     For all You future people who don't know what a standard shift car is, because they are becoming rarer than hen's teeth these day, A Standard shift car would have a shiftier. It would either be on the steering column or between the seats, forward a touch, on the floor. A long metal rod with a ball on the end would extend up to a comfortable height. There would also be a third petal to the left of the brake on the floor. The first thing you would do once your were in the car would be to make sure the shiftier is in neutral. If it is it would move freely back and forth. If You start a car in gear it would buck forward out of control. Next You start the car. To move You would step on the clutch, that new third petal on the left,using your left foot. That is why You learned to drive using only your right foot. If You are still learning to drive a cars. The left is for the clutch which you press down to the floor,while your right is on the brake so the car doesn't roll. Then You put the shiftier into first slowly easing up the clutch and when you hear the RPM's of the engine decrease you take your foot off the brake and give the car a like gas. You continue easing up on the clutch until the car starts to move, adding more gas as needed.When RPMs get high and the engine sounds like it is racing, it is time to shift to second, then to third and on some to forth. Standard shift cars are fun to drive, but they have lost their audience and now are more expensive to order then automatics, just the opposite of before.
     My Mom had no car to go upstate, so Art Cockcroft, Holly's husband drives us up in his black hearse.
     Arthur Cockcroft was one of the characters on a street of characters, in a town of characters in West Nyack. Growing up there, it all seemed very normal.
     Mr. Cockcroft picks us up, packed us into the back of his black hearse and I assume the kids just hung out in the back of the hearse. It had no seats, there was no seat belt law,so why not. About three hours, one hundred twenty-three miles later we were at the almost peak of Rossman Hill, Schoharie County, New York. The trip was about one hundred miles up the Thruway to exit 22. Exit 23 at the time was closed for repairs. We then headed on mostly back country roads to the town of Middleburg. There You could get gas or a burger at the Middleburg Diner. Just outside of town after passing the closed movie theater you came to a fork in the road after passing the new convenience store. One way took you to Cobleskill, then to Richmondville and the long way to the farm or the left toward the Toe Path Mountain State Park and the unpaved Rossman Hill Road. When We first started coming up there, the eastern side of the mountain had emptied out for some unknown reason. Most of the houses were empty and some had begun to fall down. Mr. Cockcroft ever the adventurer took the route to Rossman Hill road. And he proceed up that dusty dirt road into what looked like the opening of a horror movie. Family of five turns onto dirt road and is never heard from again. Come see what happened to them!! Rossman Hill Road seems stuck on the edge of a mountain, much like an after thought. The First hundred yards you look over the too close edge of the road to the reseeding road below until blessedly some trees have seen fit to grow and obstruct the view. Some of the first houses you see are small hunting cabins surrounded by empty partly grown over fields where Cows must of grazed not too many years earlier. The First abandoned house comes up on the right not soon after, I think we are told it is owned by the Milengers who have been fighting over the property since their father died. Words that should have been remembered twenty-three years later when our father would die.
     After climbing the dirt road hill going around puddles and large divots in the road you come to a flat area where the car can pick up a little speed, sending a fish tail of dust behind it, the taste of it gets in your mouth and you wonder why are they torturing you, just kill us already. The final leg of the trip is a half mile road/driveway full of washouts, mud holes and drive arounds all accompanied by a high center of the road that you hear scrape against the underside of your car. When You think you can't take it any longer you turn a bend in the road, pass an out house and arrive at the farm. You open the car door to stretch your legs and the absolute quiet hits you in the face. Grasshoppers jump up as you crunch through the recently mowed grass. Blood pounds in your ears and you feel you will never hear anything but the pounding of your heart in your ears again.
     I don't remember much about the time we spent up there.We slept in a former living room,We went down to the ponds and swam in our sneakers because we were told to. Something about the rocks in the pond. We caught frogs, salamanders and grasshoppers. We hunted for fossils and picked blueberries. Before We knew it it was over.
     One Story I need to write down, it is funny and it is a what the hell were you thinking story. It started one day when Mrs. Cockcroft asks us if We want to paint the outhouse. We say heck, yes, who wouldn't. She brings out a barn red color paint and off we go. Its 1966 and I'm eight, Ruth is like six and Eric is four. Some time during the painting I am just watching. Ruth and Eric are getting paint all over themselves. So I say to them, "Why don't you paint your arms?" and they do. They paint them up over the elbow. I leave and head back to the house and they follow a few minutes later. They walk into view thinking this is funny. Mrs. Cockcroft and my Mom, I think in unison ask what have you done. I hear Eric after he realizes this is not funny say, Joseph made us. Thank God this comment is only heard by me. Now this paint is a 1960's lead based paint that doesn't come off with water, I didn't know that. For the next hour or so Eric and Ruth are scrubbed with turpentine and soap and water. I imagine their arms were a little raw for the next several days.
     Sometime in the not too distant future, I mean it was still 66-67,something like that, suddenly my Mom and Dad are looking into buying a place up there.I remember they even asked Karl and I to open our piggy banks. They shuffled through the money taking all the bills. In my exuberance to contribute I pushed all my change into Karl's change. After that I never remember having a piggy bank. I wonder if Karl got it all?
     That Summer, most likely the next one, my mom and the four of us accompanied by Mrs. Cockcroft and Brian are shown several pieces of property. One a fishing cabin,with a stream running through the property, an other is a hunting cabin and a farm located on Beards Hollow road near the Cobleskill fair. We see several properties and the one my mom picks, because my Dad is working, is the farm just down the hill from the Cockcroft owned by Bill Vines.
     I remember the first time I ever saw the farm. I was staying at the Cockcroft's and I went down to the Vines' to play with Bill's kids. I went down what once was a farm road, now overgrown with high grass and a few wild trees. The farm road started clearly at a line of trees west of the Cockcroft's house. It meandered over some flat land, into a little gully around some trees , then it started down the hill to the Vines property. An easy trek, Can You guess where this is going? The Trail/ road ended  as it passed the Vines barn on the right side. I see Bill taking a piece of clapboard off what was left of the garage to put on the house. I felt that was not the right thing to do. I remember ending the day getting mad at Billy, Bill's son and leaving, getting lost on the way home. I was so lost I crossed their driveway at least twice before finding my way home. An outdoorsman I was not.

     The Farm was purchased and We went up to it in I think 1967. There is a cloth calendar from 1966 that the Vines left that has hung in the Dining Room forever. Hopefully it is still there.  The Picture on the right was taken the first day we were there.
That Summer I don't know how long we were up there, but We were introduced to Mr. Dibble who would come by and cut our grass for us and over the next few years Later,We would spend most of the month of August up there learning card games and spending a lot of time together doing stuff like going to the County fair.

The Horse barn

 During the Day We'd play outside in the cow barn or shoot bottles and cans we'd set up on the exposed rafters of the horse barn with Karl's 22. A Game was invented called keep out. How it was invented and by who is a mystery. It's premise is simple. One person or maybe two would be outside and those inside would keep them out. After all the windows were locked and the doors closed the one fly in the ointment that no one counted on or considered was the insider. Yes the insider, the one who wanted to add a little spice to the game by going around without anyone knowing and unlocking a window or loosing a door, but who would do such a dastardly deed? Well of course, our Mother. She'd sit at the Kitchen table engrossed in a book seemly or sipping her tea all innocently and by some magic a window would become unlocked.
    It was always the four or five of us up there mostly. At Night We'd  play games, mostly play card games. My Mom taught us Canasta and 500 Rummy, games that filled the nights with family fun and memories that I still can look back on and feel. The slap of a hand as someone stole from the discard pile a card they didn't realize could be put on someone else's cards.
     We used gas and kerosene for lights. There was no electric and you could only get one TV channel on the radio. Yes the radio. I remember listening to the Merv Griffin Show on the radio one hot summer day walking down the driveway to meet expected guests and I didn't even like the Merv Griffin Show.  A Few Years later We would buy a portable battery powered TV to use upstate. It was an amazing evening. A strict rule was no TV until night. The Battery didn't last too long. When it needed charging We'd bring it over to the Dugas' Farm. We watched the moon landing on the set, the battery dying, no sound, the picture slowly shrinking as the battery slowly die. I had trouble telling what was going on. All I could see was shadows on the black and white TV,  like above, yet I know where I was when man first stepped on the moon. Once my Mother allowed us to bring the battery over to the Dugas' farm in a cart we called Herbie after the Disney movie. These two former Brooklyn residents came up to West Fulton in somebody's distant pass and became farmers. Mr. Dugas worked the night shift at GE in Schenectady to help make ends meet. In later years We'd go over to the Dugas Farm to watch TV in the evening. In 68 and 72, presidential election years the frustration of having to sit through the Democratic and then the Republican Conventions on all the channels. TV shows, so close yet so far.
     Around this time, one bright sunny afternoon, a snake was discovered between the milk house and the northern end of the house, a little toward the back of the house. I don't remember who discovered it, but of course we all had to run over to see it. There are some dangerous Snakes in the north east and no one knew if this was one, so if memory serves someone decided to try and trap it with the pitch fork and in the process nearly took its head off. We all consoled ourselves with the thought that we didn't know if it was dangerous and the nearest Hospital was in Cobleskill about forty-five minutes away and no one wanted to make that trip with a person who may be dying of a snake bite. Later that day or the next We find out it is a milk snake and harmless.  
     Necessity is the mother of invention; I don't know who said it first, but it was something We practiced regularly upstate. The Bathroom upstate, when We bought the house had minimal plumbing. The Toilet flushed and the Kitchen sink had running water. None of us did plumbing at that time. The minimal crawl space under the bathroom and wood shed of less than three feet didn't encourage anyone to try either. So one rainy afternoon it somehow became time to wash our hair. You went outside on the porch, as the rain poured off the roof and onto the porch roof and off toward the ground and wet your hair. Then a little shampoo, some rubbing and rinse before the rain stops.
     Friends and Neighbors were invited upstate to spend time with us. Our Friends the Fishers who would drive us to Church on Sundays when we were younger came up. It was night time when they got there. The Road to the House back then even in the best of times was overgrown and trees hung over it occasionally scratching against your car. Driving down our driveway at night is a little like the "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,"  if you thought about it too much, a headless horsemen would jump out to scare you away. They managed to get to the house, then turn around and leave after about ten minute though it was after nine at night. I remember being excited to have company, then confused that they left. Mom saying something like they were uncomfortable being here. I didn't understand why.
     One person who came up and stayed was Uncle Buddy. He married a much older women and looking back on him it was obvious he married Aunt Helen so he would not have to grow up. He was like a big kid, always very friendly and willing to be just one of the group. I guess he came upstate to visit us to get away from Aunt Helen for a few days. It never hit any of us kids why he might have been there, we just enjoyed his company. Years later He would divorce Aunt Helen when she was up there in age in a move that still looks cruel, but you can never tell looking in from the outside.
    One Summer my brother Karl did not come up. Suddenly he no longer liked going upstate. He said he rather spend his time at the beach. I don't know,but I think he had a girlfriend.
     My First trip up state I took without my parents was with my cousin Joe. Everyone told me I knew the way up there so I'd be OK. Well after a few wrong turns, one heading up Route 81 I did manage to get us there.
     The late 70's was the start of the four wheeling years. It started with Ruth's boyfriend,Bobby Hamilton getting a red Jeep CJ 7. I heard about them going off road for a season or two. And so in 1979 I bought my own Jeep, a CJ 5 for $9,800.00, more than my parents paid for their house in 1952-3. The Adventures heading out on unknown,untraveled and unmaintained roads is exciting. During the late 70's and early 80's the top of the mountain and the side toward Middleburg is largely empty. One Trip down an old road ended at a point were several huge trees had fallen across the road. Another trip took us off the mountain onto route 145 about an hour from the farm by regular road, it is a boring trip back. Friends are finally coming upstate. It is a cool place to go. Everyone comes up in large groups. There are several who have Jeeps and it seemed everyone has a rifle to shoot. No One seemed to ever want to go hunting, at least during these trips.
     As the middle 80's bloomed, the place upstate starts to become a battle ground. It starts small at first. One person would do something and another person without knowledge of what the other had done would undue it or make it useless. The Outside shower with brush covering it from the road and me coming along and cutting the brush down. Our Parents had quit coming upstate by the mid 80's. I think my Father had not been up there since the very early 70's and my Mom has not been up there at least since my Dad died. Instead of a large group of friends and family coming up, coming together several competing groups form.
     Then my Father died.Things changed as I have said in several other posts. The Farm upstate becomes a major flash point that never recovers from his death and our family would come out the other side of it different. Little things became unusually large problems. The Four of Us were all in our late twenties and early to mid thirties and should have been better people. We were all grieving our father's death in different ways. My way was anger. I was so wrapped up in it that I can't tell you how the other's dealt with their hurt. It continued to spiral downward. Alcohol and Guns were very big up their at the time and Thank God we were all smart enough to keep them separate. What We could not keep separate was our disapproval of other family members.
     One Night Eric decided to come up in the middle of the night. In his effort to be quiet he goes onto the field road near where the remains of the Barn and the garage are, near the route to the Cockcrofts/ Koenigs property. He gets stuck on some logs hidden in the grass. He revs his engine rocking his Jeep to get it out of the fix it is in. Instead of sneaking in quietly he manages to wake everyone in the house up. Tempers being what they were at the time it is blown up and it may of not been the start of Karl and Madeline not talking to Eric for several years, but it was a contributing factor. Things would only get worse as it devolved into who was not talking to who and whose feelings were hurt. Something happened and the distance of time has caused me to forget, but after it happened Karl took his family and was not around for several years. He would talk to everyone except Eric and he and his family quit coming over to Mom's house. They disappeared and everyone let them go. I did nothing and I don't know why. Maybe I was still processing the grief over the death of my father, I don't know. What this period of time did to our family still resonates in the family today. Karl and Eric get along, but the relationship is a little distant. They are friendly, but not close. They go upstate to their respective homes and even do things for each other, but it seems a little polite, if you know what I mean. My Mother's relationship with Kristen never recovered. They are not as close as they were or could have been. My relationship with Karl and Madeline is good, but my relationship with Kristen is distant and I am her Godfather. It is a very sad period of life to look back on and I don't think anyone is at all proud of it.
     At some point Karl is given several acres of the farm to try to keep the peace by my Mom. Ruth tried to stay out of it to the point that she said I could have her third of the remaining property. It was in name only and I tried to keep that in mind as I navigated the suddenly rough waters of my family. This was something new for the remaining five of us. We had never been extremely close, but We were always there for each other before, now I wasn't sure. My Mother tries to stay out of it and just let us work it out like the adults we were supposed to be. She is dragged into it by Karl writing her letters detailing his complaints about everything. I don't know if he was not talking to her or if he didn't feel heard by her. Karl, Madeline and Kristen started to spend more time with Madeline's side of the family. This would go on for several years. No One ever thought to bring up the Milengers.
     Peace was never declared, no one got together, shook hands, hugged or forgave each other, well at least not publicly. The Combatants just sort of lost steam and realized they, all of us had changed and the damage that had been done to the family would never end unless they ended it. Tentative feelers were extended to all sides. Invitations to family gathering, offers of help on each others places upstate. Eventually everyone reconciled and life went on in it's new version until it became the norm.
       At this point in time, everyone is more or less friendly with each other. If They are not, they keep it quiet. There is no open warfare among the survivors. Everyone carries around their scars quietly. Maybe I am being overly dramatic here, but I remember the days We would all go upstate to the farm and the disappointment I felt when my brother Karl was old enough to not want to spend time with us there. And later when We all seemed to drive four wheel vehicles and would drive all over the mountain discovering trails and old roads. That is all gone now. I haven't been upstate in five years, Ruth ten or more and my Mother hasn't been up there in nearly thirty. It's just all different. The Place I grew up in and loved was purchased by Eric, or at least the remaining two thirds of it during the dark days. He used money he had and completely rebuilt the place. He replaced aging windows who's panes were held in by nails after the putty covering them had dried and fallen away. He insulated the house, put back the interior to the way it was before Bill Vines had taken down some walls to make a living Room with a fireplace. He expanded and rebuilt the kitchen adding the wood shed as part of the living space. He moved the bathroom and completely renovated it. It feels like a house back home until you turn on the water and it just trickles out of the faucet like it is coming down off a mountain from a spring. And I guess that is the problem, it's not the house I grew up in and loved. It's my Brother's house that he rebuilt.
     The last Time I was up there I wanted to get away from everyone in the kitchen. What I used to do is go to the Living Room and read. It would be quiet and everyone in the Kitchen would seem far away and muffled. I quietly leave the Kitchen closing the door quietly behind me like I always did. I walk through the Dining Room looking at the cloth calendar from 1966 still hanging in the window shaped section of the wall dividing the Dining Room from the Kitchen, it hadn't changed. I walked toward the front door and stopped to look at it. It too had remained the same, solid still standing the test of time. I looked behind the curtain covering the stairs to the second floor,it is dark up there like it always is, it smelled a little musty. I am reminded of a time when we had poodles and I'd throw a ball from the bottom of the stairs and they'd run up the stairs to retrieve it. The whole House back when it was ours had a particular smell to it. A combination of kerosene and age. It was a comforting feeling of sameness.The Stairs to the second floor had a memory of that still. I turned to enter the Living Room and I am confronted by someone's bedroom. The Room I was heading to had ceased to exist several years ago and I'd forgotten. The Room I'd spend many hours in reading curled up in a big overstuffed chair, or sleeping in, getting up in the middle of the night to put another log on the fire is gone. It's Eric and Lynn's bedroom now. It's too late to hold a funeral, the dead have been buried. Reborn in its place a vaguely familiar clone of the house I spent many summers in has replaced it. Outside the stars are still bright, giving the night sky that familiar milky haze, but inside it's someone else's house.














n