For me, this is a "memory" review, as I don't travel upstate nearly as often as I used to (or would like to), but it constitutes, oddly enough, one of the most pleasant and beautiful aspects of my early life up until my middle-aged years, and if I'm having a particularly stressful day(s), going back in my memory to those portions of the winding, pastoral Thruway scenery that are indelibly etched into my mind and soul can serve to relax me, to transform my mood from one of nihilistic agita to...if I'm lucky...beatific contentment, and transport me to that special "happy place" that I have to assume everyone has on reserve deep within their visceral self for those dark, grim and awful days that life subjects us to all too often.
Am I overstating the case? Making too much out of a simple highway? Maybe, maybe not.
As a family, we traveled upstate on a semi-regular basis, from the days of my earliest memory. In October, we went to an antique fair in Salisbury, Ct. Often, my father would take me to West Point to watch a football game. I never developed a love for antiques or football, but I came to love the rolling hills and greenery of Rockland, Orange, Dutchess Counties, up to and including the Catskills and portions of the Adirondacks beyond.
I'm old enough to remember when Rt. 287 did not connect to the Thruway. You had to drive from Wayne (my hometown) in NJ, to Oakland, through Mahwah, past Ramapo, into Suffern, where you could then connect to the Thruway.
The Thruway wound through cliffs (which had netting on them so rocks wouldn't fall arbitrarily and pulverize passing vehicles) and valleys, and past the "last civilization" outpost of Sloatsburg, and the Sloatsburg rest area. After that, we were in, as far as I was concerned in my youthful innocence, bucolic wilderness, but what lovely wilderness it was! I was an impatient kid with a short attention span, but I always loved these trips, no matter how long they seemed.
You pass through the busy Harriman tolls, the "gateway to the Catskills," and you're on your way, leaving behind the detritus of whatever might be troubling you, even if it's only a temporary "stay of execution." Rolling fields, verdant hills and mountains, occasionally distant houses or buildings to signify that we hadn't completely left civilization behind (in my juvenile mind, NJ and NYC constituted civilization...everything else was "wilderness").
As an adult with access to a car, I came up this way often, particularly when I was stressed out. It was an escape, but...to my mind...a healthy escape, a way to recharge the batteries, to have what they now call a "mental health day." Occasionally I'd drive up Rt. 17, which essentially parallels the Thruway. Sometimes I'd come up with friends and we'd stop at West Point, or Cold Spring, or New Paltz, or Poughkeepsie (not necessarily a beautiful place, but it still had its charm for me), or Saugerties, or Kingston, or Acra (where I was able to tour the still standing home of my childhood idol, Prohibition gangster Jack "Legs" Diamond), located near Cairo. Sometimes I'd come up on my own, to find some peace, to restore some sense of tranquility. It was an "escape," but certainly a healthier one than the opioids that I also sometimes utilized back in the day to achieve a similar, but much more potentially hazardous, result.
I remember one stretch of the Thruway below Newburgh that had a panoramic cluster of majestically sprawling mountains that always left me awestruck. Nearly breathless, I'd finally let my gaze drift down to the speedometer, and I always, almost unconsciously, would be doing close to 90 miles an hour. I'd quickly step off of the gas pedal, berating myself for succumbing to the siren call of nature's magnificence and perhaps endangering my life (or, less ominously, for going well over the prescribed speed limit and perhaps earning myself a speeding ticket that I could ill afford to pay). But I seemed to do it every single time.
Of course, like every other highway and roadway, it's not always a "dream drive." In later years, I had friends living in Kerhonkson and would visit on weekends. On the drive back, I'd often encounter a paralyzing stream of bumper-to-bumper traffic. Still, if it's inevitable that I have to be stuck in traffic, I'd rather be stuck on the NY Thruway as opposed to the L.I.E. or the Belt Parkway or the Cross Bronx Expressway or the NJ Turnpike. At least on the Thruway, you have the loveliness of the surroundings to divert you from the stress of your plight.
I suspect that if in the (hopefully far) future, the fates allow me to die in my own bed, with some measure of peace, the last images I'll see in my mind are those I've stored deep within myself of the Hudson Valley, the Catskills, and the Adirondacks.
Not such a bad way to go, if I do say so myself. read more
