News
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June 16, 2009
My childhood began in Geneva, NY ...
Not that I was born there, no that was Bristol, Pa. I lived other places before Geneva as well. I vaguely recall a white house with brown shutters. Then there was the little house with the HUGE yard (would I still think so now?). The people who owned it lived up the road. They had a big red barn and lots of golden retrievers. We had a garden, a water well with a pump, lots of places to find snakes (which I did often), and a stream where I could watch my Dad flyfish. It was also where I met my first friend, whose nickname was Kiki. We both went to the same lady’s house after school. If we mis -behaved, she would put us in time -outs in separate rooms. Unknown to her, we would situate ourselves on furniture so that we could see each other across the hallway. The time -outs weren’t so bad. Kiki and I both loved Bobby Sherman, and she was born the day after me. I have no idea where she is now, but every year on October 29th I wish her a Happy Birthday.
I moved to Geneva just before 2nd grade. Apparently my mom met another mom in the grocery check -out, and after chatting found out that they both had daughters named Lauren, and we were the same age. Almost. She was born in July, so she was three months older. I hated that when we were young, but have loved it since we turned 30. It was neat that we had the same name, as it wasn’t very common in those days - in fact we knew no one else with the same moniker. It was what bonded us, and from there on out we were the “two Laurens.” In high school we even took out ‘happy ads’ in our town newspaper wishing our teams good luck before a big game and signed them as such. She was 100% Italian, dark and curvy. I was considered tall, blond, and skinny - that is until my senior year of high school. B.D. shouted out that I had knobby knees in my cheerleading uniform during a pep rally. That led to a concentrated weight gain effort which sort of backfired. I became the proud owner of a huge butt. It seemed to o well by me in a town predominately made up of bodacious Italian girls, but when I got to college it forced me to do hours of jumping jacks and crazy dancing in my dorm room to shed some pounds. Sarah Lawrence College didn’t really have a gym, but now I’m getting ahead of myself.
Geneva is a town of about 18,000 people in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York. It is on Seneca Lake. Seneca is the ‘big finger’ in the 'hand’ of lakes, and there was a sign that proclaimed it “THE LAKE TROUT CAPITAL OF THE WORLD.” There you go. There was one Main Street, and a highway that ran through the middle of town. There was a very good Liberal Arts College named Hobart and William Smith, a Libby’s canning factory, and the ‘Experiment Station.’ I don’t really know what that was, come to think of it, but I remember stories of them growing new species of plants…Most everyone’s parents worked at one of those places. My dad taught comparative literature at the college, and my mom was a student there until she went to nearby Cornell University to get her PhD. I had a job at the end of high school in the Libby’s canning factory. I worked the night shift, wore a rubber suit, hair-net and helmet and worked the ‘palletizr’ machine. Very Laverne and Shirley.
When we first moved there we lived in an apartment. The complex had a playground. In the spring it would get overrun by frogs. In the winter I remember so much snow that I could jump off the top of the slide into it. We lived there when my brother , Nick, was born. My parents gave me a giant, white, stuffed bear when that event happened. We moved soon after, and both the bear and my brother came with us…
To be continued…
