5580. ELDRIDGE PARK

ELDRIDGE PARK

(elmira, ny, early 1970's)

Back in old Elmira, before the Agnes flood,

(that was June, '72), we had Eldridge Park and

Harris Hill to tend to   -   we managed our lives

back then by Schweizer Gliders in the sky and that

rickety roller coaster screaming by. Either way, was

one extreme or the other. The sky craft were so silent,

wide winged and skinny, as they soared. Kennedy Valve

made fire hydrants for the whole entire nation, and

American LaFrance, just as cool, made fire engines

that ended up in most every podunk American town 

you'd see. Quite a different world is was, back then,

for me. Then the waters came  -  uprooting graves and

caskets, knocking down walls and shredding the streets.

Everything was coated with a two inch paste of mud, and

we thought it'd never come back. This stupid nowhere town.

The dead city in the middle of beautiful hills. This small

prairie-like outpost amidst creeks and rocks and rivers.

Ah yes, the grand Chemung  -  the character, the killer,

the uprooter of all those trenches and graves. I was at

the college then, Gandy Brody teaching art (look it up), and

the ghost of Mark Twain in every post and pack and parcel.