W E S T E R N   N E W   Y O R K

Thursday, September 16, 2004

This bike ride will be a special ride for me. While the scenery isn't at all spectacular, the history behind it is close to my heart. Why? Because it is -my- history and it has been a long, long time since I have tread upon this once familiar part of the world. The ride will take me from the once home of my grandparents (now owned by my aunt and uncle) near Medina, NY to Pine Hill Airport where my father taught me to fly a plane when I was 15 years old. From there I'll bike to my old hometown, Oakfield, NY.

I ready myself for my sentimental journey. I depart from the driveway of my aunt and uncle's house, looking forward to navigating the old route back to Oakfield, NY that I had taken so many countless times before. Whether it had been via my parents driving when I was a kid or by myself as an adolescent with a new drivers license.

I start up the road, on either side I see farmland. In all the times I've pass this way, I don't ever recall seeing corn planted in these fields, unlike the field next to my aunt and uncles place that always seemed to sprout corn. In these fields it was always something like beans, potatoes, cabbage or some other low-lying plant.