Hudson Valley, Catskills, Capital-Saratoga

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"Dams of the Catskills"

By JoAnn Bartlett

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In my younger years my mother and the man who eventually became my stepfather, Larry, went for long drives, and insisted that I accompany them. I suppose that was their way of making sure I didn’t get into trouble on my own. At that time, driving was an inexpensive form of entertainment with gasoline at twenty-five cents a gallon.

Even though I was on the edge of being a young adult, mothers word was unquestioned. I had learned long before to do as I was told and riding alone in the back seat of the car wasn’t so bad. I even did my homework while watching the landscape pass by. In school, I studied the history of New York state. Though I didn’t realize it at the same time, I received an entirely different education bumping about the back roads of Central New York. While my classmates experienced soda shops, dating and high school sports, I learned how to tell if a dirt road lead to occupied homes (follow the electric lines strung from tall poles) and if that same dirt road was used frequently (not much grass in the middle of the two ruts). I learned to follow the sun as much as my watch; long shadows meant the sun was hovering on the horizon.

While many of our outings stayed within home county lines, it didn’t take much for Larry to say, “Let’s see where this road goes.” If an event made the news, we often made a trip. I suppose, looking back, these experiences may have steered me into journalism many years later.

I remember hearing Mom and Larry talking about the state building some new reservoirs so New York City could have water. I couldn’t figure out why the water was needed. After all, we always had enough water in the small village I lived in. But the conversations lead to more road trips.

Mom usually packed a picnic lunch; I put on my favorite shorts or skirt and waited for Larry to show up. Once he arrived, we took off for places far away.

I had never heard of places like Fishkill and Cannonsville before our trip to the Catskills. I had only heard of Rip Van Winkle, the Hudson River, and the Dutch who had settled in the region. The Catskills were mountains, like the Adirondacks, large bumps on maps that rolled down over blackboards at school.

We traveled through Sidney, a place I knew well because my sister and nephews lived there. I always had fun when in Sidney because it was the only place I was allowed to be a real kid. I got to play Monopoly, ride a bike, roller skate and peer into car engines.

Green, gold and brown fields appeared and disappeared as the car rolled along the highways. Hours later, the landscape changed. It was steeper and the houses seemed further apart. From the front seat drifted a conversation about how hard it must be to farm in such terrain.

The villages seemed much smaller than mine. White clapboard homes. Little stores. Not many people walking about. I peered through the window trying to see what was so important about these places. What I could not see, nor was I old enough to grasp, was the pain the families must have felt at being told to leave their homes. Behind the doors and windows, people were grappling with the fact that not only would they have to give up their home, but their entire village!

The conversation in the front seat had turned to an expressed sorrow for the people inside the clapboarded homes.

That was the first trip. Our next trip to the area was even sadder. The same clapboarded houses now had windows removed or boarded up. There were no people in sight. The stores were closed. All was silent. There seemed to be a lot of dust. Everything was covered in brown dust. Even though I was young, it all seemed weird, wrong and the sadness was palpable. Where had the people gone? Why was the store closed?

“Because this will all be under water,” Mom said as she turned slightly in the front seat the Larry’s Chevy.

What? Under water? How? I tried to imagine it and couldn’t. I simply didn’t understand. The trip home was quiet as I grasped for meaning in what I had seen.

The next trip to the Catskills was much noisier upon our arrival. And the dust was heavier. Huge machinery was pushing dirt around, as though God had not put it where it should be. Big yellow machines with huge black tires and monster engines creating black smoke coming from the exhaust pipes. These vehicles looked like yellow bugs dotting the hills outside my car window.

Some of the houses were gone, but not many. The brown landscape had no trees as the yellow bugs pushed and shoved the earth about in the distance. The conversation in the front seat mentioned cemeteries had been moved too.

Cemeteries moved? How could that happen, I wondered. The world just didn’t make any sense when we visited the Catskills.

When we made the next visit, all I could see was water. You mean that water covers up the houses we saw? And the roads we were driving on?

Yes, to both my questions. It was one more lesson in my unusual education. The needs of the city are greater than people in villages. I thought we all were created equal, at least unless you happened to live in the Catskills.

Years later, I remembered the events in the Catskills and began poking about for more information. The names were familiar: Cannonsville, Gilboa, Pepacton and Neversink. Ironically, Neversink sank beneath the water needed so people in New York City could have that water. In all, there were twenty-four communities that died so the city could live.

When I remember all the fun I had in Sidney, I now wonder about those who once lived in the Catskills. The kids there must have run along paths up the mountains, rode bikes and visited the cemeteries on Memorial Day. Where are they now?

By JoAnn Bartlett

Copyright ©JoAnn Barlet, 2004