A remembrance I penned twenty years ago, about a time twenty-six years before that, when I returned (for a while) to my childhood home in the shadow of the ADK…
The year is 1976. I lay in bed at the end of a long day, being lulled to sleep by the gentle thumping of the jukebox downstairs. I am 19 years old, a month away from turning 20. This is the first night I have spent at my aunt and uncle's tavern since I was a child.
From downstairs I hear muffled laughter and the occasional opening and closing of the door. I like the sounds... they are familiar and comforting. Upstairs it is still. My grandmother is asleep, and my aunt is reading in the living room. All is well. I have returned to my hometown of Perth, New York.
I remember thinking that even though I no longer lived in Perth, it felt good to have a place to come to… a place where everything still felt like home, a place that 'was' home to me... a special place, brimming over with family that I was dearly in need of. Laura was in California, and I missed her more than I had ever missed anyone before. The two, sometimes three, letters I received each week were a poor substitute for her smile and her touch. My heart felt empty.
Diane, my cousin, who was also staying at the Tavern at that time, was in town from Mexico. She was also missing someone dearly. She dubbed us "partners in misery" and consoled me more than she knew... as did just being at the tavern and being in my hometown.
I recall helping my uncle with a clambake (at Mickey’s Clambake Grove, in a beautiful tree-shaded location behind the tavern) and earning some well-appreciated money. I remember driving, for hours at a time, through the Adirondack countryside… thinking how wonderful it would be to live there once again. I wanted to come home.
Laura and I went as far as to make plans, via our letters, to move to Perth sometime after her return from California, but sadly we never acted upon them. I have often wondered what our lives would be like if we had moved to Perth in the mid-70's as we had planned. Being so far away for so long has left me with a longing to know what might have been.
These last few years I have visited as often as I can. Sometimes to be close to the family I seem to miss so often, sometimes to search for my past, and sometimes to say goodbye to a friend or family member.
Mickey's Tavern is no more. My uncle Mickey passed away in October 2001 and the tavern closed after 50-plus years of operation. My cousin Diane and her sisters still live nearby. My cousin Alan passed away in 1995 and my grandmother passed away in 1987, but my aunt still lives upstairs above the old tavern.
Downstairs is quiet now. The jukebox is gone as is the pool table. The shelves behind the bar are empty. But I have sat at the kitchen table upstairs with my aunt and listened to her talk about the old days. As she talks, the tavern comes to life again, in her eyes and in my mind.
Later, as I lay in bed, spending the night in the same room that was briefly my home in 1976, I swear I hear the door downstairs opening and closing, and then, in that fleeting moment before one slips from this world into sleep, I hear laughter followed by the gentle thumping of the jukebox, and once again I am lulled to sleep at Mickey's Tavern. – April 2002
