Personal Post Sunday

Friday night, I saw my little cousin get married. It was a pleasant ceremony in the back of country club. It was probably made more pleasant by the fact that sound system went out, so we were unable to hear the father-in-law recite an unscripted poem to the couple. The maid of honor, my cousin Debbie, rolled her eyes from the alter and mouthed to the guests It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

Inside for appetizers. Veal marsala. Some sort of a chicken thing. Lobster claw. Mussels. Clams. Calamari. Eggplant rolatini. 7 cheeses. Crudite. Mini quiches. Potato pancakes. Fruit platter.

All two hundred wedding guests filed into the hall. Every single one dressed in black and carrying a fat envelope of cash. With Steve home with the kids, I danced with my sister and dad as the band played Van Morisson. It was a nice evening.

Saturday morning, with only a few hours of sleep, I packed up for an overnight camping trip with the kids.

I have been feeling over scheduled and was craving some quite time in the woods away from the phone and computer and neighborhood kids. I imagined finishing off my Gopnik book on a picnic table and even brought along a pack of thank notes to finish off. Yeah, right. Mostly, we spent the time packing up the supplies, unpacking the supplies, putting up the tent, burning the hotdogs, and trying to get some sleep in a hand-me-down tent that smelled like old feet. Then pack up again, unpack at home, and put everything in the wash.

In between all the packing and unpacking, we did have fun, even if it wasn’t finish the novel sort of fun. We were up in the Catskills at an area we visited a couple of years ago (and even blogged about it). We stayed at a campsite that is mostly populated by people living in semi-permanent rusting trailers in the woods. Second homes in a can. They put in decks around the trailers, arrange rock gardens, and ride their quads through the peaceful forest.

The campsite has been there for years. The kids played on their rusting playground, which featured a 20 foot rocket with slides coming out its side. Has to be from the early 60s. The Catskills has come in and out of fashion for vacationers for decades.

When we were done roughing it, we drove into Livingston Manor, which is the closest town, for a couple of iced coffees at the coffee shop.

Two years ago, Livingston Manor had a camping/fishing shop and a diner. Now, it has two art galleries, a book store, antique shops and a bed and breakfast. In two years, that’s a huge change. Another group of second homers were transforming this town. Upper Middle Class New Yorkers who console themselves with their studios in the city pick up a four bedroom Victorian in the country for weekends. Also, bloody wealthy New Yorkers who have both the million dollar duplex in the Village also grab up the Victorian. These $100,000 homes are chump change to New Yorkers who are used to paying $400,000 for a studio apartment.

Is the second home binge due to a lot more people having money or is it because the same people have so much more money?

Anyhow, I was going to write a lot more about this transformation of a small town, but the Times scooped me. There was an article today on Livingston Manor.

We’ll be up there one more time this summer. Maybe this time with a proper tent without the foot smell. It’s a deadly combination for us — clear, crisp air, hiking trails, lofty vistas WITH pretentious bookstores, iced coffee, and properly weathered antiques WITH an undefinable funkiness.

In addition to the guys in trailers and the coffee shop followers, there are all sorts of other types on vacation up there. There a vast number of Hasidim in bungalows. The fishing/gun types. And even a few old Jews left over from the Borscht belt years. Class, ethinicity and age collide.

When you drive through the side roads, you see the sedimentary layers of vacations gone by. Right next to new hotels sit rotting motels with boarded up windows. The rusting playground with the rocket motif.

Fun defined hundreds of ways.