RVing with Jim and Chris 2013: You Can Go Home Again

My first home in Ghent, N.Y.

Standing with Bill-the current owner who gave us a tour of the interior and grounds.

We have traveled on to stay in Austerlitz, New York for two days. Here my father was born and I lived life from the age of five to sixteen in nearby villages called Ghent, Chatham and Red Rock, N.Y. I have seen the graves of my grandparents and their parents, taking time to clear away the grass that would otherwise erase their names if given just a little more time to grow. For the time being I have preserved their memories and honored our heritage in some small way. Thus I have achieved a sense of satisfaction in my heart that their existence will not disappear into nothingness quite yet because I still remember. We have driven by stone walls marking a property now claimed entirely by trees that once held the house which sheltered my adolescent father and these same ancestors. This property within walking distance of the cemetery, a church and a one room schoolhouse were the nucleus of my father's youth.

We have photographed kindergarten, grade school, middle school and high school grounds and hallways where the names of teachers past have come to mind. I have climbed the steps to my first, beloved library and strolled the streets of a town where I can name almost every business that existed there fifty years ago. I have stood in the home that housed me at the age of five and gazed at the pale blue walls of my childhood bedroom in Ghent, N.Y. We have driven up the driveway of a home my parents sold to Harry Belafonte in 1967. Peering across the closed gate to my former home's front porch, the house is now even more inviting than when I claimed it as my own and surrounded by grounds exquisitely maintained to beyond anything my parents had the time or money to achieve. A feeling of happiness that this place I considered to be "heaven on earth" as a child is indeed still so. This makes the effort to see it one more time (even if only from afar) satisfying beyond measure.

The home we sold to Harry Belafonte in 1967.

The current name of our family home above.

I have seen the ghosts of my parents and grandparents in the memories these places evoke. I stare into the faces of those who appear to be my age searching for familiar people whom age has disguised. The town is a little worn around the edges but a shoe store, the movie theatre and a book store remain.

The graves of my ancestors in Austerlitz, N.Y.

Most businesses I remember are gone or a few in some cases have moved such as the post office where my Grandmother worked for so many years. Homes here now are beyond the reach of any price I could afford, whether the ancient ones with peeling paint or most certainly the newer or refurbished ones situated up long, tree lined driveways with gates and “No Trespassing” or “Posted” signs prominently displayed.

At the Chatham Book Store

My beloved childhood library.

Doors to my high school-now a middle school.

The movie theatre where twenty-five cents got you a seat.

But I have seen places I remember, roads still familiar and through all of this I have evoked memories I did not know still existed. Names are remembered for houses that now host new owners, but it doesn’t matter that the occupants are different because I have remembered. For what will probably be my last journey to this spot on earth in this lifetime, I have validated the “me” that existed here and for now that is enough.