This past week has been a
whirlwind for me, as I busily finished out
my contracted work
assignment at GE in Schenectady.  A little known
fact about
me, that I do not like to get out, is that I grew up there.

That's right, a born and bred Schenectadian.  We are a special
breed,
by the way, if you aren't aware.  And for those of
you scratching your
heads right now wondering what that might
possibly mean, I reference
the past famous TV show Will and
Grace, where Grace exclaimed on one
espisode that she "was a
good girl from Schenectady".  Which, by the
way, in our
teen years is not a phrase that we would ever put together

because we weren't very good girls...even the best of us..because it

was a tough neighborhood, even for the catholic school girls.


But I digress. 

I grew up in Northern Schenectady, but
once out on my own I moved into
the Stockade, below the downtown
area.  North Ferry to be exact.  It
was an extension of
S Ferry, which meant the buildings on my block
were newer than
the traditional buildings of the stockade.  But it
didn't
really matter to me; I was in love with the idea of living in
the
stockade, period.  And that is where I settled for the first
three
months of my solo adult life.

The past week at GE
I have been taking day rides at lunch to visit
some of my old
favorite and... not so favorite, places. 

On Monday, I
drove to the River Road Park and walked up and down the
walkway
there.  There have been some renovations since I was there

over 15 years ago now.  They have some observation areas that
are paved with brick pavers
now and a railing for tourists to
stand on and look out over the river on.  It
depressed me to
see the change because it was such a natural wild area
to walk
along back then, behind all the old houses, along the river.
 

As I strolled I came upon many a friendly dog and his owner,
which was
certainly reminiscent of the way it used to be way back
when.  I was
glad some things didn't change.

I sat
on a bench to rest for a moment and I had a sudden recollection

of my favorite house on that block.  I stood up and walked a
little
further, to see if it was still there.  Down a block
and on the right,
yes...yes, I could see the gates from 20' down
the road....my secret
garden. 

You see, my
favorite house there is not really my favorite house.  It
is
my favorite back yard.  The back yard has this huge stone wall

surrounding it, with large copper gates in the back, facing the
river
walk and with a magnificent view to the river.  There
are large stone pillars in
the backyard.  If you walk along
the right side of the back of the
house, you would see that the
stone wall has a single, oval topped maple door set in it,
with
iron detailing.

The garden beyond the gates is completely
overgrown and dead.  No one
has laid a hand in this garden
for easily 20 years now.   I remember
the first
day I discovered this yard.  I would spend hours in my mind

designing and constructing it to perfection.  The clematis I
would
plant, the morning glories, the white eastern pines, 
the begonias and
asiatic lilies, and of course the herb garden
somewhere just outside
the actual house for quickharvesting when
I would be cooking inside.  I never
really saw the yard as
it was; I only saw what it could be back then.
I had forgotten
about that place and also, about the person that use to dream it into
perfection.

On Wednesday, I drove down to Jumpin Jacks
(which is really like an
old Jack in the Box).  I had to see
if it was open yet because it is
an area favorite of mine. 
I was sad to see that it wasn't open yet
but excited to see that
there were cars there that seemed to moving
some equipment in to
the Buildings, as if the time of the season's
start was just
around the bend.  I smiled to myself as I slowly drove
past,
remembering Friday night dinners as a child where you would wait

in line for 45 minutes for your fast food and then sit under the
wood
umbrella's by the river in the dying scorching heat of a
July evening
while you shared your meal with what seemed like 30
different tame
sparrows but what was probably the same five that
kept coming back to
fill their bellies before sundown.  The
place smelled of revved
engines, hot pavement and grease, and it
was wonderful.  After dinner
most nights, my sister and I
would trounce down to the river and find
the flattest rocks to be
found and have a rock skipping contest.
Sometimes, we would walk
down past the soft ice cream building and get
on the small stage
that they had built there and pretend we were
actresses.  My
father really got a kick out of that.  That was one of
a few
worlds when I was a child.  Now, driving by, the place seemed
so
small to me.

On Friday, I drove down my old street. 
I paused in front of the
building for a moment, remembering how
terrible the parking on that
street was, especially in winter with
the odd even parking system.  I
had over 20 tickets when I
left that apartment, which my poor father got
stuck paying when he
tried to register his car the following spring
because, to his
dismay, my car had still been registered in his name. 

My first little apartment
was on the top floor of a third story building.  The best part
about that apartment, in my mind even now, was the roof.  I had
the fire escape ghetto back porch, which, at the time, was a real
find.  The roof was accessible by the fire escape which I
had discovered my
first week there.  I would go up there
sometimes and sit by myself and just
stare at the stars and ponder
life’s mysteries.  It was a place I could
be alone and
undisturbed because no one knew about the place but me.
Except
Brian, apparently.  One night in the extreme upper 90 degree
heat
and 95% humidity I climbed up to the roof with a beer to find
that I was
not the only roof dweller.  The second floor
story tenant had found my oasis and had apparently been going there
off and on to ponder his own mysteries late at night, with beer. We
became fast friends. There were many many hot summer evenings spent
together having late night talks while breathing in the hot tar off
the roof, combined with the other city smells, enjoying warm beers
and laughter. We never hung out or talked except on our rooftop
together and even those nights were always unplanned and random. He
was my secret rooftop friend. I wonder now whatever happened to my
rooftop friend. We exchanged numbers when he moved the end of that
hot summer, but neither of us kept in touch.

The worst part of
the apartment though, was the woman downstairs from Brian who had the
eight year old daughter. The little girl was about small for her
age, very shy with greasy disheveled brown hair, freckles on her
cheeks and she had those glasses that magnified her eyes. She picked
her nose when she was nervous, which was quite often I think because
the only times I ran into them in the hallway, she would start
picking her nose and cock her head sideways while she stared at me.
One hot night in June, I heard screams coming from their apartment.
Screams that carried over my stereo which probably was blasting some
Stone Temple Pilots song at the time. I turned the music down to
investigate. The screams were traveling from one end of the building
to the next, as if someone was being chased. You could hear very
clearly “OWW, no Mommy, OWW, stop it, owww” with shrieks and
cries. This carried on for about ten minutes the first time I heard
it, which seemed like an hour to me. This turned out to be an
episode that would happen once every few weeks. I finally called the
police in one night when the crying and screaming became unbearable.
Two days later I received a threatening letter from her mother in my
mailbox. I moved from that apartment shortly after that due to the
fact I was broken into and I didn’t feel safe there anymore. I
wonder what ever happened to that little, shy, nose picking
freckled-face girl. I hope she got out of that home as soon as she
could. I’ve thought about her a lot through the years.

So, my week working at GE is
now over and I will again go on to new and exciting things, which of
course I look foreward to. New experiences, new people, new
challenges; they are what makes us grow as individuals, stronger in
spirit and mind than the person we were even six months ago.

But I also think that there
is something to be said for revisiting your past now and then.

It is a good thing to
sometimes remind yourself where you came from, and who you use to be.