Home is where the heart is.
Dec. 29th, 2004 04:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"Where Life is Worth Living" -- Town Motto, Webster, NY, 14580
When people ask me where I'm from, I say "Rochester, New York." This is the smallest locality I can cite while still realistically maintaining the expectation that people will recognize it.[1] Even so, I am skeptical about the general public's true understanding of where Rochester, New York is. Sometimes I think it would be easier to just say "Earth," since this is what people are usually driving at when they're interrogating me anyway.
Just hearing "New York," many people assume that Rochester is a nearby suburb of New York City, like "Westchester" or "Harlem" or "New Jersey." This is a real annoyance to Rochesterians, who consider New Yorkers not only a different breed, but an entirely different species, with their far-flung multiculturalism and their "up yours" attitude and their overly permissive urination policies. In reality, Rochester is actually closer in distance and in spirit to Cleveland, Ohio, where people say "Up yours, please. Thank you" and generally make an effort not to pee on you or your belongings. But you have to say "Rochester, New York," or else people are liable to think you're talking about the smaller-but-still-noteworthy Rochester, Minnesota, home to the Mayo Clinic, IBM headquarters and many comical-sounding Midwesterners.
Along the state's western plain, the 36 square miles of Rochester is situated between Buffalo and Syracuse, nestled snugly along Lake Ontario, 150 miles due south of Toronto, Canada.[2] This tri-city area, connected by I-90 (The Thruway, motto: "America's Longest Bobsled Run"), comprises the most well-worn loop of the nation's Snow Belt. In the winter, area newspapers actually have a running "snowfall derby" feature in which the three cities' daily and season-to-date totals are compared. I'm not sure if they expect people to get a thrill by finishing first or last in this little contest. It doesn't really matter, since newspapers are only cursorily read before being burned for warmth.
The Rochester winter effectively extends from mid-October to mid-April. It means snow, freezing temperatures, and skies the color of prison cells. It is a hardy soul indeed who can withstand the brutal winter months without being stricken by either the astonishingly named Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) or a salt truck. I like to think, though, that it builds strength, character, and general imperviousness.
Spring takes place in Rochester on April 20 from 3:35 to 3:50 p.m. It is accompanied by rain.
Immediately following spring, summer descends on the region like the Hammer of God. The sun reappears, often for days at a time, and successive waves of heat and humidity grow stronger and stronger until people start praying for winter again. Flowers bloom with a vengeance, spewing pollen into nasal cavities everywhere. Lawns, once ravaged by frost, suddenly grow with the robustness of a Google IPO. Construction crews promptly get to work repairing ice-activated roadway damage and stay there fixing it until it's time for the ice to come back again.
Autumn, beginning with labor day, is beautiful in Rochester.[3] The skies get a little more gray, but the warm, wet air still carries in the afternoon breezes. Kids inexplicably drop their footballs and baseball mitts and flock en masse to soccer and lacrosse leagues, part of what I suspect is some kind of vast subliminal European indoctrination program. Homegrown apples are pressed into cider and served with "fried cakes," doughnuts baked with enough vegetable shortening to kill Seabiscuit. This helps the natives build the thick layer of fat necessary for the coming winter.
Why, then, do 219,773 still live in Rochester? Some of them are sealed in their homes by ice and rust. But many people take pride in the city's understated beauty. There is natural wonder in the form of waterfalls (The High Falls, part of the northward-flowing Genesee River), miles of lakeshore coastline replete with biologically viable microorganisms, and the city's official flower, the lilac.[4]
There is also man-made beauty in the form of Wegmans grocery stores. The Tao of Wegmans is probably fodder for an entirely separate journal entry. I will only say that Wegmans is so amazing, and inspires such devotion and loyalty, that it would not surprise me if we soon see upstate New York high school graduates named Wegman Jones and Wegman Smith and Wegman Benton-Kent. Also falling into the man-made category are Rochester's many distinctive delicacies. Where else can you find white hots, garbage plates, Abbott's Frozen Custard and Sal's Sassy Sauce?[5] Buffalo, NY may have invented the hot chicken wing, but Rochester is -- pardon the irony -- getting warmer.
Rochester may also lead all other mid-level American cities in the sheer number of nicknames. Currently carrying the tagline of "An All-America City"[6], it has also been known as "The Flour City" (For its robust 19th Century bread production), "The Flower City" (For the mighty lilac, or as one of those Greenland-style marketing gimmicks), and "The World's Image Centre" (for those who like pretentious French spelling without the pretentious French attitude).
This last nickname refers to the many fine companies that were born and raised in Rochester, like the Eastman Kodak Company, the Xerox Corporation, and Bausch & Lomb. The implication is that all of these companies involve the rendering and sharpening of images. Incidentally, these companies could use a bit of image-sharpening themselves, since B&L headquarters closed up its Rochester shop years ago, and Kodak and Xerox are hemorrhaging employees like they have some corporate form of the Ebola virus.
Many fine individuals made their bones in Rochester, NY. Besides George Eastman, selfless benefactor of the University of Rochester and the Eastman Theater, Rochester nurtured such future stars as Cal Ripken Jr. (3rd Base, Rochester Red Wings, 1981), Cab Calloway (Jazz great, born in Rochester in 1907), and Taye Diggs (movie star "with ass that won't quit," says my co-worker, attended School of the Arts in early 90s).
Perhaps most importantly, Rochester was home to escaped slave Frederick Douglass when he published his "North Star" abolitionist newspaper, and was the base of operations for famed suffragist Susan B. Anthony, who tirelessly campaigned to give chicks the vote. New England or Virginia may lay claim to the title of "Cradle of Freedom," but Rochester should at least be considered "The Gymboree of Freedom."
But what makes Rochester special is its regular folks. Okay, so they short their left-hand turns. All right, maybe they chronically and arbitrarily slap apostrophes on all their signs and billboards with little regard for easily-distracted grammarphiles. Yes, they have some pronunciation issues. (There is a Charlotte pronounced "Cha-LOTT" and a Chili pronounced "CHY-lye." Natives also pronounce the city's name "ROCH-ster," omitting an entire syllable when we really should be accentuating our fine "-chest-".)
Those same folks are very sweet people. (This does not necessarily apply to the wait staff of Jay's Diner, which is built on what is evidently French soil.) Rochesterians are generally God-fearing, coffee-pouring, baggy sweatshirt-wearing people who will give you that sweatshirt off their back as quickly as they'll give you Canadian change. ("I'll trade you two ducks for a Queen Elizabeth II.") And they are a proud people, wearing ski masks as their war paint, ceaselessly defending their crappy little town until you admit that it really is a nice place to raise your kids.
Within those city borders, there is a hamlet called Webster, which is everything Rochester is except smaller. They have an annual Fireman's Carnival where half the junior high goes on their first date. They have a park and a pier that juts out into the lake so you can watch the sun set into the watery horizon. They have a high school marching band that operates with the same kind of wide-scale precision and commitment as Navy SEALs.
Within Webster's boundaries[7] there is a tract development called Beacon Hills, so named for a central 500-foot radio beacon flashing red lights at the top of a gentle glacial slope. So far there has been no conclusive evidence that this beacon yields any ill effects for local residents, although it could well be the reason I'm always getting the "Ridge Lumber" jingle stuck in my head.
(Find it all at Ridge Lumber, come on in or call this number:
Five-Six-Six Seven-Seven-Oh-Ohhhhhhh.)
Within Beacon Hills there is a Beacon Hills Drive South and a Beacon Hills Drive North. (There is also a private drive called "Blue Ridge" that houses mostly cranky near-death senior citizens and legally-separated dads. We'll avoid them for the purposes of this essay, just like we do in real life.)
I won't say which side I grew up on, but I will say that there is a slight economic disparity between the two, such that you could call my side the Beacon Hills Yankees and call the other side the Beacon Hills Devil Rays.
Nevertheless, as a whole it is a nice neighborhood where no one ever obviously attempted to run me over as I played in the street. Correspondingly, my neighbors were surprisingly understanding when I ran over their mailbox as I was learning to drive. ("It's okay, it's okay" Mr. Jones said. "Just stay away from my family.")
And when I was selling coupon books and tropical fruit door-to-door to raise money for my choir trips, most people graciously let guilt take over their better judgment. Honestly, what kind of person needs a whole crate of grapefruit?
My biggest buyers, though, consistently ordering absurd amounts of tangelos[8] were the heads of my own household. Mom and Dad probably would have preferred to just give me the money rather than buy that stupid fruit, but maybe they wanted to teach me about earning something. (Or maybe my mom wanted to use them for decorative purposes. She watches too much Home and Garden Network.)
In that house, in Beacon Hills, in Webster, in Rochester, NY (here on Earth), logic has never been the dominant principle. Dad fumes when someone uses all the black coffee mugs.
ME: "Why can't you just use a white mug, Dad?
DAD: "The white ones are your mother's."
ME: "I'm sure she won't mind."
DAD: "I drink out of the black ones."
ME: "I don't understand. Why don't you --"
DAD: "I DRINK OUT OF THE BLACK ONES."
Okay then. It's no use complaining about the Byzantine dishwasher-loading system, or the wood-chip quality toilet paper in the bathroom, or the proper shirt-folding method, or Mom's odd compulsion to unplug every electrical item in the house before she goes out to get the mail.
Instead I'll focus on the way Mom manages to produce a suitcase-worth of food for me to take back with me after a weekend visit. I'll think about the way Dad hugs me two or three separate times before he'll get in the car after driving me to the airport. I'll remember -- or I'll try to remember -- to call them when I get home, even if it's 2 a.m. and I'll wake them both up doing so.
I'll think about how they've always been willing to give me the baggy sweatshirt off their backs. I'll think about how the house they built always gave me a roof and a light under cloudy skies -- and kept me warm through two decades of Rochester winters. I'll think about how going to Rochester is always "going home," and going to D.C. is always "going back."
When people ask me where I'm from, I say "Rochester, New York." This is the smallest locality I can cite while still realistically maintaining the expectation that people will recognize it.[1] Even so, I am skeptical about the general public's true understanding of where Rochester, New York is. Sometimes I think it would be easier to just say "Earth," since this is what people are usually driving at when they're interrogating me anyway.
Just hearing "New York," many people assume that Rochester is a nearby suburb of New York City, like "Westchester" or "Harlem" or "New Jersey." This is a real annoyance to Rochesterians, who consider New Yorkers not only a different breed, but an entirely different species, with their far-flung multiculturalism and their "up yours" attitude and their overly permissive urination policies. In reality, Rochester is actually closer in distance and in spirit to Cleveland, Ohio, where people say "Up yours, please. Thank you" and generally make an effort not to pee on you or your belongings. But you have to say "Rochester, New York," or else people are liable to think you're talking about the smaller-but-still-noteworthy Rochester, Minnesota, home to the Mayo Clinic, IBM headquarters and many comical-sounding Midwesterners.
Along the state's western plain, the 36 square miles of Rochester is situated between Buffalo and Syracuse, nestled snugly along Lake Ontario, 150 miles due south of Toronto, Canada.[2] This tri-city area, connected by I-90 (The Thruway, motto: "America's Longest Bobsled Run"), comprises the most well-worn loop of the nation's Snow Belt. In the winter, area newspapers actually have a running "snowfall derby" feature in which the three cities' daily and season-to-date totals are compared. I'm not sure if they expect people to get a thrill by finishing first or last in this little contest. It doesn't really matter, since newspapers are only cursorily read before being burned for warmth.
The Rochester winter effectively extends from mid-October to mid-April. It means snow, freezing temperatures, and skies the color of prison cells. It is a hardy soul indeed who can withstand the brutal winter months without being stricken by either the astonishingly named Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) or a salt truck. I like to think, though, that it builds strength, character, and general imperviousness.
Spring takes place in Rochester on April 20 from 3:35 to 3:50 p.m. It is accompanied by rain.
Immediately following spring, summer descends on the region like the Hammer of God. The sun reappears, often for days at a time, and successive waves of heat and humidity grow stronger and stronger until people start praying for winter again. Flowers bloom with a vengeance, spewing pollen into nasal cavities everywhere. Lawns, once ravaged by frost, suddenly grow with the robustness of a Google IPO. Construction crews promptly get to work repairing ice-activated roadway damage and stay there fixing it until it's time for the ice to come back again.
Autumn, beginning with labor day, is beautiful in Rochester.[3] The skies get a little more gray, but the warm, wet air still carries in the afternoon breezes. Kids inexplicably drop their footballs and baseball mitts and flock en masse to soccer and lacrosse leagues, part of what I suspect is some kind of vast subliminal European indoctrination program. Homegrown apples are pressed into cider and served with "fried cakes," doughnuts baked with enough vegetable shortening to kill Seabiscuit. This helps the natives build the thick layer of fat necessary for the coming winter.
Why, then, do 219,773 still live in Rochester? Some of them are sealed in their homes by ice and rust. But many people take pride in the city's understated beauty. There is natural wonder in the form of waterfalls (The High Falls, part of the northward-flowing Genesee River), miles of lakeshore coastline replete with biologically viable microorganisms, and the city's official flower, the lilac.[4]
There is also man-made beauty in the form of Wegmans grocery stores. The Tao of Wegmans is probably fodder for an entirely separate journal entry. I will only say that Wegmans is so amazing, and inspires such devotion and loyalty, that it would not surprise me if we soon see upstate New York high school graduates named Wegman Jones and Wegman Smith and Wegman Benton-Kent. Also falling into the man-made category are Rochester's many distinctive delicacies. Where else can you find white hots, garbage plates, Abbott's Frozen Custard and Sal's Sassy Sauce?[5] Buffalo, NY may have invented the hot chicken wing, but Rochester is -- pardon the irony -- getting warmer.
Rochester may also lead all other mid-level American cities in the sheer number of nicknames. Currently carrying the tagline of "An All-America City"[6], it has also been known as "The Flour City" (For its robust 19th Century bread production), "The Flower City" (For the mighty lilac, or as one of those Greenland-style marketing gimmicks), and "The World's Image Centre" (for those who like pretentious French spelling without the pretentious French attitude).
This last nickname refers to the many fine companies that were born and raised in Rochester, like the Eastman Kodak Company, the Xerox Corporation, and Bausch & Lomb. The implication is that all of these companies involve the rendering and sharpening of images. Incidentally, these companies could use a bit of image-sharpening themselves, since B&L headquarters closed up its Rochester shop years ago, and Kodak and Xerox are hemorrhaging employees like they have some corporate form of the Ebola virus.
Many fine individuals made their bones in Rochester, NY. Besides George Eastman, selfless benefactor of the University of Rochester and the Eastman Theater, Rochester nurtured such future stars as Cal Ripken Jr. (3rd Base, Rochester Red Wings, 1981), Cab Calloway (Jazz great, born in Rochester in 1907), and Taye Diggs (movie star "with ass that won't quit," says my co-worker, attended School of the Arts in early 90s).
Perhaps most importantly, Rochester was home to escaped slave Frederick Douglass when he published his "North Star" abolitionist newspaper, and was the base of operations for famed suffragist Susan B. Anthony, who tirelessly campaigned to give chicks the vote. New England or Virginia may lay claim to the title of "Cradle of Freedom," but Rochester should at least be considered "The Gymboree of Freedom."
But what makes Rochester special is its regular folks. Okay, so they short their left-hand turns. All right, maybe they chronically and arbitrarily slap apostrophes on all their signs and billboards with little regard for easily-distracted grammarphiles. Yes, they have some pronunciation issues. (There is a Charlotte pronounced "Cha-LOTT" and a Chili pronounced "CHY-lye." Natives also pronounce the city's name "ROCH-ster," omitting an entire syllable when we really should be accentuating our fine "-chest-".)
Those same folks are very sweet people. (This does not necessarily apply to the wait staff of Jay's Diner, which is built on what is evidently French soil.) Rochesterians are generally God-fearing, coffee-pouring, baggy sweatshirt-wearing people who will give you that sweatshirt off their back as quickly as they'll give you Canadian change. ("I'll trade you two ducks for a Queen Elizabeth II.") And they are a proud people, wearing ski masks as their war paint, ceaselessly defending their crappy little town until you admit that it really is a nice place to raise your kids.
Within those city borders, there is a hamlet called Webster, which is everything Rochester is except smaller. They have an annual Fireman's Carnival where half the junior high goes on their first date. They have a park and a pier that juts out into the lake so you can watch the sun set into the watery horizon. They have a high school marching band that operates with the same kind of wide-scale precision and commitment as Navy SEALs.
Within Webster's boundaries[7] there is a tract development called Beacon Hills, so named for a central 500-foot radio beacon flashing red lights at the top of a gentle glacial slope. So far there has been no conclusive evidence that this beacon yields any ill effects for local residents, although it could well be the reason I'm always getting the "Ridge Lumber" jingle stuck in my head.
(Find it all at Ridge Lumber, come on in or call this number:
Five-Six-Six Seven-Seven-Oh-Ohhhhhhh.)
Within Beacon Hills there is a Beacon Hills Drive South and a Beacon Hills Drive North. (There is also a private drive called "Blue Ridge" that houses mostly cranky near-death senior citizens and legally-separated dads. We'll avoid them for the purposes of this essay, just like we do in real life.)
I won't say which side I grew up on, but I will say that there is a slight economic disparity between the two, such that you could call my side the Beacon Hills Yankees and call the other side the Beacon Hills Devil Rays.
Nevertheless, as a whole it is a nice neighborhood where no one ever obviously attempted to run me over as I played in the street. Correspondingly, my neighbors were surprisingly understanding when I ran over their mailbox as I was learning to drive. ("It's okay, it's okay" Mr. Jones said. "Just stay away from my family.")
And when I was selling coupon books and tropical fruit door-to-door to raise money for my choir trips, most people graciously let guilt take over their better judgment. Honestly, what kind of person needs a whole crate of grapefruit?
My biggest buyers, though, consistently ordering absurd amounts of tangelos[8] were the heads of my own household. Mom and Dad probably would have preferred to just give me the money rather than buy that stupid fruit, but maybe they wanted to teach me about earning something. (Or maybe my mom wanted to use them for decorative purposes. She watches too much Home and Garden Network.)
In that house, in Beacon Hills, in Webster, in Rochester, NY (here on Earth), logic has never been the dominant principle. Dad fumes when someone uses all the black coffee mugs.
ME: "Why can't you just use a white mug, Dad?
DAD: "The white ones are your mother's."
ME: "I'm sure she won't mind."
DAD: "I drink out of the black ones."
ME: "I don't understand. Why don't you --"
DAD: "I DRINK OUT OF THE BLACK ONES."
Okay then. It's no use complaining about the Byzantine dishwasher-loading system, or the wood-chip quality toilet paper in the bathroom, or the proper shirt-folding method, or Mom's odd compulsion to unplug every electrical item in the house before she goes out to get the mail.
Instead I'll focus on the way Mom manages to produce a suitcase-worth of food for me to take back with me after a weekend visit. I'll think about the way Dad hugs me two or three separate times before he'll get in the car after driving me to the airport. I'll remember -- or I'll try to remember -- to call them when I get home, even if it's 2 a.m. and I'll wake them both up doing so.
I'll think about how they've always been willing to give me the baggy sweatshirt off their backs. I'll think about how the house they built always gave me a roof and a light under cloudy skies -- and kept me warm through two decades of Rochester winters. I'll think about how going to Rochester is always "going home," and going to D.C. is always "going back."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
[1]
Date: 2004-12-29 08:16 am (UTC)[2]
Date: 2004-12-29 08:17 am (UTC)The ferry still sits at the dock, as Rochester politicians and businessmen try to figure out how to get it moving again. So far, the most appealing option is to accept a $40 million loan from Australia (yes, Australia) and using that to develop a local government-run ferry authority. I think everyone is simultaneously hopeful at this prospect and fearful that the city will default on the loan and end up being annexed by Australia, at which time our more attractive neighbors will quickly be snapped up by rugged Australians with fanciful accents.
[3]
Date: 2004-12-29 08:19 am (UTC)[4]
Date: 2004-12-29 08:20 am (UTC)[5]
Date: 2004-12-29 08:21 am (UTC)[6]
Date: 2004-12-29 08:22 am (UTC)[7]
Date: 2004-12-29 08:22 am (UTC)[8]
Date: 2004-12-29 08:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-29 06:56 pm (UTC)Honestly, I have nothing witty to say, and I don't think I write as profusely (or as well) as you, but I hope you'll befriend me, too.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-30 02:45 pm (UTC)Despite your rather gross screen name (and a list of "interests" that make an upright-downright-forthright-square like me feel a little naughty), I am happy to officially call you a friend. Keep on rockin'.