Why “The Other Place?”
Well…
I grew up on a small dairy farm in Chateaugay, New York. The house and barns were located on a long thin parcel that started at the intersection of Route 374 and the Mcormick Road. The other half of the farm consisted of another lot about a quarter of a mile away. There were no buildings on that lot, just pastures, fields, and woods demarcated by barbed wire fence. There was a cement bridge over the brook that ran through it. My grandfather had inscribed his name: “P.J. Bradshaw” in the cement before it dried. An old horse-drawn dump rake sat rusting at the edge of a small hay field that bordered on the brook. My father called that field “The Glen”. Just across the brook, in the field on the left was an indentation that dad told me was the cellar hole of a long gone house. I trapped muskrat and mink in the brook, and attempted to hunt rabbits in the woodlot ( I never got one). My dad tapped the trees there and made maple syrup.
It was just a plot of land where we bailed hay and let the cows graze, but it was ours. We walked through it aware that we were wading through history, aware that our grandparents and great grand parents had worked the fields, and that someone had made their home there once. They were there right next to us, separated by a few inches and a few years.
We called it “The Other Place”.
So what does that have to do with this website? Well, first it’s an inside reference that only my siblings and possibly a few cousins will understand. Also, the domain name was available from GoDaddy. But mostly its because this will be where I post the OTHER stuff that I don’t post on Facebook or Instagram: Fragments of fiction I’m writing, opinions, musings, family history, linux-geek commentary, genealogy, eastern philosophy, and old guy get-off-my-lawn commentary.
I don’t expect a lot of traffic to this site, but I welcome comments.
Here we go…
Good read! Learned some new things about the farm! Have been thinking a lot lately about family history and wishing I had asked so many more questions from my parents. Just visited Pearl Harbor and knew my dad had been sent there after the invasion, but not much else! Starting to research!
Glad you liked it. Now that there’s so much available on the internet, especially historical newspapers, you can really go down the rabbit hole on famity history. I found the website that had all the old Chateaugay Newspapers and the next thing I knew it was 2:30 AM.
I read a lot of them too! Many of the articles very “small town”, very quirky …who was visiting who, etc.
Good stuff Pat, I do remember most of things about the Farm. I was an avid listener when UG told his tales. (after all he is my favorite uncle!!)
Never took many vacations other than our annual trek to the North Country and wouldn’t have had it any other way. I have the fondest memories of the farm and spending time with ur family.
Look forward to more…
Pat,
I so enjoyed reading this & look forward to future posts. I’ve been to “the other place”, have I not? I remember coming back from haying, sitting high atop a wagon load of hay bales pulled by a tractor driven by your Dad. Going over a small bridge (the cement bridge you mention?), the wagon tilted precariously & I thought we were going over. But it righted itself & all was well. Was that “the other place”? Do you remember that episode? I don’t remember who was there.
A good read indeed. Might actually be a decent foundation for a novel there.
I like your blog, but we need to spruce it up with a few graphics.
I’m open to suggestions.