Squeeze the day!

How many summer things can you squeeze into one day? It’s easy to forget what a beautiful, diverse area we live in, how much is going on, all the things people are up to, but yesterday morning I took an easy bike ride from here up to Watervliet and back, and I saw (in absolutely no order whatsoever):

• A cab driver from Africa who wanted to know how my wheels held up to the potholes
• Happy families taking the train to NYC for a day trip
• Recreational runners, bikers, bladers on the Corning Preserve bike path
• Beautiful view of the Hudson River from the Dunn Memorial Bridge (more on the Dunn later).
• High school rowing squads in 4’s and 8’s out on the river
• Hundreds of people heading up to the Freihofer’s Run for Women — didn’t go this year, Hannah wasn’t running and we had too much to do
• Hundreds more people who had never been to Albany before, heading for either the PromiseKeepers rally or the NOW rally protesting the PromiseKeepers rally (NOW hasn’t yet figured out that if they didn’t protest this thing, no one would even know it was going on).
• A seaplane on the Hudson River (they used to be common on the Mohawk, but I don’t remember seeing one on the Hudson)
• The beautiful replica of Henry Hudson’s Half Moon, still docked at Albany
• Art for sale all along Lark Street
• And, in the new Schuyler Flatts park in Watervliet, I saw people playing cricket.

Yes, I said I saw people playing cricket. I looked hard and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just a flashback, and I don’t think I ever hallucinated cricket players in my youth. I’d have stopped and watched, but there wasn’t time.

I also got a chance to read the plaque honoring Parker Dunn, for whom the Dunn Memorial Bridge is named. The Dunn is the second Dunn bridge connecting Albany and Rensselaer, and is the southernmost of the Albany bridges. (It’s also the southermost toll-free bridge, so plan your travels accordingly!) The original was, I think, a lift bridge, but I can’t find a picture of it just now. The “new” bridge is very high and quite unlovely, and was originally meant to be part of some grand expressway idea that would have busted Rensselaer into pieces. It never came about. We hear about the Dunn just about every single day — around these parts, it’s currently most famous for hosting the FalconCam — but I don’t think anyone knows about the Medal of Honor winner it’s named for. Parker Dunn was a private first class from Albany, and was killed in The Great War near Grand-Pre, France. Here’s the citation on the plaque:

“When his battalion commander found it necessary to send a message to a company in the attacking line and hesitated to order a runner to make the trip because of the extreme danger involved, Pfc. Dunn, a member of the intelligence section, volunteered for the mission. After advancing but a short distance across a field swept by artillery and machinegun fire, he was wounded, but continued on and fell wounded a second time. Still undaunted, he persistently attempted to carry out his mission until he was killed by a machinegun bullet before reaching the advance line.” (Thanks to this Medal of Honor page.)

So, a little late for Memorial Day, a note of remembrance to Parker Dunn.