New York State Park Closure Protest

... And read how two children from New Zealand met their first American friend camping in a New York State Park.

Remembering Thompson's Lake

Read how two children from New Zealand met their first American friend camping in a New York State Park.

We stayed close that summer. Thacher Park and Thompson’s Lake beyond it were little over a half hour away from home. One had to be a little more careful about poison ivy and oak than on Cape Cod (not that they ever bothered me), but otherwise, this extra green of my own extended backyard was just as satisfying. Scampering over and under rocks, climbing trees, following every stream bed from the lake’s shore into the forest, I s’plored every nook and cranny for hours. When I’d come back to the campsite to eat or sleep the sound of my own voice would startle me.

Then two kids moved in to the next campsite. They said things a little like Faraway Grammy. It drew me to them. I liked to listen to the way they talked. I watched them from my forest a long time before they saw me. They were a happy family, naturally kind to one another, touching often. The kids were shy about s’ploring

and stuck close. They acted overwhelmed by what seemed to them to be a very big and exotic place.

They didn’t mix comfortably with the older kids either. They were a rough bunch always trying to play baseball in the field out by the entrance to the park. They spent more time trying to find the ball or even the bases than actually playing a game. The outfielders themselves would get lost, as they tended to disappear completely into the tall grass, unable to see where they were going or keep track of an incoming ball.

“I got it! I got it! I” Bonk! “Ow!”

Over and over they swung, ran, chased, tripped, slipped and fell. I tried to join in at first, but I never could catch or hit anything in motion. Just watching somebody else do it all day long, day after day, seemed kind of pointless.

I watched the new kids watch the spectacle for a little while and get just as quickly bored. More and more they seemed different in ways that I recognized. But I wasn’t ready to approach them and give up my solitude just yet. More and more I liked being on my own best.

The next day I was up before the ground fog had risen from between the trees and made my way to the lake. I liked the way the far shore would vanish behind the fallen clouds. Places like people could be hidden from sight but you know they are there just the same. There was nothing at all to rest one’s eye upon across the water, as if the misty morning went on forever. The new kids came out onto the beach from another path near by and ambled in my direction.

Suddenly, we all noticed the water a little ways out from shore had begun to bubble and roil.

Our mouths fell open in unison. From out of the water a shiny black head and a pair of eyes behind a glass face mask emerged and glided towards us. As ‘it’ came closer a nose rose above the water. Then a chin, neck, shoulders. He was holding his arms out. There was something in either hand.

All three of us took an involuntary step back. The scuba diver had two limp but still wriggling snakes by their heads! As he cleared the water I could tell that both were longer than I was tall.

The man spit out his mouth piece with difficulty. “Hi, Kids. Aren’t they somethin’? I just wanted to show someone.” With that he hurled one hapless creature and then the other back out into the lake. They spun end to end straight out like sticks and splashed far out into the water. We took another step back.

“It’s okay, they’re just water moccasins. They won’t bother you if you don’t bother them. I didn’t know we had any out this way.”

Bother them? What would you call what you just did?

The man didn’t bother to take off the fins from his feet but awkwardly flip flopped his way past the other two astonished kids on his way back up to the campground. Lloyd Bridges he wasn’t.

I looked out at the dark, still water that was now just as it had been before. “I don’t think I want to go in swimming today.” I said to no one in particular. We all nodded in agreement. The girl looked back at the diver and began to laugh as she observed, “He looks like a frog.”

“That’s why they call them FROGMEN!” We all said together, practically falling over one another laughing.

We introduced ourselves. Holly (pronounced Haw-lee) and Bill were from New Zealand, touring the United States while visiting relatives along the way. This was only their second stop so far.

“I thought moccasins were a kind of shoe?” Holly asked.

“Well yes.”

“But the aboriginals make them out of snakes?” Bill added.

“The What? No, I think they’re usually made out of leather.”

“Aborigines. Natives?”

“Oh, you mean Indians.”

Before I knew it I had gotten around to telling them about having Mohegan ancestors. Suddenly felt very proud of the Is-Sho-Da Girl Scout Day Camp patch newly sewn on my hooded sweater.

“Our first friend in America and you’re a Native Indian?” Holly enthused.

“Not most of me. I don’t think. It was a long time ago. Ummm.”

“Nonsense, Jack. You’ll be our Indian guide and take us on safari!” I protested that safaris were supposed to be in Africa, but to no avail. Bill also continued to call me ‘Jack’ the whole time, although I never figured out why. I didn’t care, I could listen to him talk all day, and I did. They asked so many questions I never learned anything about where They were from, except that it was somewhere all the way around the other side of the world.

I showed them every path and navigable stream bed, took them down the road to the little general store and around the lake past the swimmer’s beach. Showed them where to avoid the poison ivy and where the prettiest flowers were hidden. In the evening, we took in the cricket concerts and firefly ballet. Stuck marshmallows on long branches into the campfire and burned them to a delectable char-sweet, sticky, crisp. There were so many things they’d never done before. They didn’t even know what the Big Dipper was! The next day, we poked about the rocks looking for fossils and unoccupied snail shells. We swam and dove underwater, splashed and dunked one another. Holly cried so we didn’t do it anymore. I didn’t like getting dunked much either.

We dangled from tree limbs like Tarzan and hunted toads and frogs. I taught them how to hold them so gently and think at them so kindly that the little greenlings would sit as contentedly in an open hand as on a lily pad. Bill never quite mastered the trick, however, and was often left with a palmful of fright-induced toad poop, with which, of course, he was just as glad to harmlessly menace his beloved sister.

The day after that, we bought a box kite at the general store. I was disappointed that they didn’t stock balsa airplanes. The kite was a flimsy thing, hard to put and keep together. Over my protests, Dad took it away and made it himself, grumbling and cursing at it until it stayed put together out of sheer spite.

While the baseball players were off swimming for a change, Holly, Bill and I took the kite into their field to try and fly it. There wasn’t very much wind so we ran hand in hand in hand as fast as we could through the grass, dragging the kite behind us. One tripped and the other two toppled after.

Holly made a surprised, but pleased sound. We had nearly run out of string but she still had a hold of the end of it. All the rest rose up into the air in a shallow arch and disappeared. We had tugged the unwilling kite aloft after all!

Laying back, catching breath in lungfulls, all one could see was a golden ring of tall, ripe grass encircling a deep blue pool of sky. Our mis-shapen little kite floated in the middle of it as if some of Dad’s glue had perfectly stuck it there.

That was all there needed to be in the world in one moment.

But it could not last.

After awhile, the string broke and our kite disappeared in an instant, a foreshadowing of the day when Holly and Bill’s parents started to load up their car. We stood around watching, not letting go of each other until the very last minute. Their Mum borrowed my camera to take a ‘snap’ for me to remember them by. “Oh you’re just so sweet together,” she gushed as she clicked the shutter.

I didn’t feel sweet at all. I had had a brother and sister for just one week and now they were going to be gone. Gone ‘round the world somewhere, like our kite with the broken string. There was nothing, not anything, sweet about it. I stood in their emptied campsite until the last straw-thin twist of smoke from the last glowing ember of their extinguished fire puffed its last.

© 2009 copyright SAWiltse All Rights Reserved.

Save Thacher Park

My favorite memory of walking the edge of the escarpment of Thacher Park was the day after Thanksgiving in 2001. Nothing had been normal about that holiday thanks to 9/11. But I will never forget how many fathers we met walking with their wives and children that day. It reminded me that for those youngsters, 2001 might be remembered as much for the time that their families learned how to become closer and happier walking the trails of Thacher Park.

A few questions I'm going to ask my reps: Has there been any planning in regards to Thacher Park after closure? If it is to be left wild, then for how long? How will this affect the communities around it? Their safety issues, their economies? What are the plans regarding the park's reopening? Will it cost more to reopen Thacher Park then was saved by closing it in the first place? Or is this all a prelude to the state divesting itself of public parks entirely?

Rally at the Capital Wednesday March 3rd!