Places Still Have Names

I just visited Beacon, New York for the first time.

It was absolutely stunning, gorgeous, diverse, fun, and mind clearing to get out of the City for the day.

I wandered with a family member. Their farmers market was plentiful, I truly enjoyed the vendors. They were all so knowledgable about their respective stocks. We went in and out of cute, little shops. We bought crystals, incense, books for a dollar from the library, and even spent a half hour in their cat cafe.

There are two places I visited as a kid, which I think about on occasion.

In spite of time, and all things COVID, they both remain open. Old Bethpage Restoration was one of those places you would visit every year on a class trip. Imagine an immersive art exhibit meets Little House on the Prairie. You step off the bus and suddenly you cross through a time doorway. The idea is to learn what Long Island looked like, and how people lived, in the 19th century.

We would collect eggs from the farm, and bring them to the mercantile. The merchant gave us currency, with which we used to by horseshoes from an active blacksmith, to bring back to the farmer. It was dirty, filthy, and lovely all at the same time.

Less than five miles away, on Route 110, is a lawyers wet dream. I knew Adventureland as Adventures Inn. It's a small suburban amusement park, which has been around forever. The first roller coaster I ever went on was at Adventureland, and my cousin once got stuck in the dark tube of the Toboggan ride. Being the youngest and smallest in my family, I spent a lot of time alone on the kiddie rides. My favorite was the choo-choo train, which I would frequently ride with my dad. He lived through his first heart attack in 1973, so he couldn't go on the scary rides.

I remember having truly vivid, recurring nighttime dreams, that the Adventureland choo-choo train would cut through our living room and back yard. Not recently, we're talking about four and a half decades ago.

When Jay and I flew to Amsterdam, we had a layover in Reykjavik, Iceland.

I had never been out of the country before. Beer runs to Canada from Buffalo don't really count. I was in college way before 9-11, so we were able to visit our northern neighbors without a passport. They didn't care that we were driving into their country just to spend money, and leave.

I was expecting Iceland to be, well, a land of ice. We left JFK I think around ten o'clockish at night, and the flight was six hours. It was very strange, we landed somewhere between five or seven in the morning, their time. And as the plane descended, I didn't see anything which looked like the Fortress of Solitude, nor did I see Superman and Margo Kidder spooning.

There was snow in the ground, as it was February. But it was gorgeous and breathtaking, and I couldn't believe that I was in Europe. Reykjavik seemed like quite a civilized metropolis. Had I known how beautiful it was, I would have extended our layover, but then again, we were going Dutch.

In our 20s, my best friend from 2nd grade and I, used to go camping.

We met a group of fellas at a bar, with whom we became quite friendly. Oh my gosh, the bar. We affectionately referred to it as Tony's, after the establishment's owner. Let's be real here, his wife truly ran the place. But Tony, although small in stature was larger than life, and kept us entertained for years. Ironically, Tony's was located just a few blocks away from Adventureland.

It was dirty, filthy, and lovely all at the same time. There was a lot of nookie and drinking, which occurred with these fellas in the woods. And that's okay, because it doesn't really matter who any of us slept with 30 years ago. But there was this one time, when we got lost for eight hours, while hiking the White Trail at Clarance Fahnestock State Park. Do you know what the White Trail is? Neither did I, but I have since learned that the White Trail is a part of the 2,000 mile Appalachian Trail, which connects 14 states. This is information which would have been advantageous to us 30 years ago, before we got lost on the White Trail...for eight hours.

I wasn't a real camper. I went to summer camp, which to me, meant sexy 18 year old hippy counselors, strumming folk music from their acoustic guitars. These fellas from the bar were grown boy scouts. But don't worry, my second grade friend and I arrived (ahem) prepared

I had an opportunity to think about this recently, while driving through Fahnestock with my family member, on our way to visit Beacon. What a perfect setting in which to shoot a film, no?