How often do we pass by a spot, a street corner, a house, an old building and give it no thought, only to have that place become a center point in our lives at a later date?
When I was a wee lad, still confined to a stroller, my father would take my brother and I into an empty field to fly kites. At the time we were living on the corner of Margaret and Floral Avenue in a second floor apartment. At the other end of Margaret Street, the old Kilmer farm lands were empty fields. The only structure in the area was the National Armory. Now, I was all of three years old, so all I know is what I was told, but apparently I sat in my stroller and watched clouds float or grass grow, because it seems the kites rarely flew. But once the kite disappeared, or crashed beyond repair, I would be freed, and the three of us would cavort all over the empty space. Incredibly, at some juncture of space, the three year old me wandered over the exact spot my someday three year old grandchild will wander over. Only it will be his living room.
How many times did I walk through the halls of Lincoln School as a child with no idea I would end a career there? Or when I sat in Mrs. Latta’s sixth grade class, could I have imagined that one day I would be in charge of that same room?
One year, we took a field trip to Cooperstown. On the way there the bus stopped in Oneonta at this dumpy diner on Chestnut Street. Nine years later, I would live a few yards from Nick’s and would spend a lot of hours there.
While at Oneonta, I would often hitchhike home for a weekend. Most of the time, I would be deposited someplace near Hillcrest. I would walk to the old Grand Union ( Now Laura’s Luncheonette ) and call home. Dad would jump in the car and come to fetch me; I would start walking down Chenango Street watching for the old Crown Victoria. How many times did I walk by 719 Chenango Street with no idea I would spend most of my life there?
In the summer of 1965, my mother, father and I drove around the state of Vermont. Dad and I spent several weeks pouring over maps, planning our route. We wanted nothing to do with driving through a gigantic city like Albany so we decided to cross the Hudson River at Catskill and take route 9 north. After passing through Hudson, we must have driven through a little wide spot in the road named Columbiaville. In one of those houses we flew by without much thought there was a young lady. What was she doing that day? Was she in the yard, glancing up as our car whizzed past, totally unaware that she would spend three quarters of her life with the driver?
How many unnoticed , unthought-of places did I pass today?