The Markers Speak

Saturday was just an incredibly beautiful day, and I had been determined that on the first sunny day I was going to get over to Schenectady (The City That Used to Light and Haul the World) and wander around the Stockade getting pictures of all the historical markers that are scattered all over. These markers were put up by the State Education Department (apparently mostly in 1932) and are as much a part of the landscape as the buildings themselves. Brief, descriptive, sometimes fallacious, but they put the modern world into a context and say that history happened here. I love them beyond reason. Rebekah wanted to join me on this little photographic expedition, so we had a delightful afternoon wandering around the Stockade together while she learned to use the old camera. We had some great conversations about old buildings, floods, the ghost of the dog on the stoop of Arthur’s, and everything else. Got some great pictures, too, which I’m still uploading — click the picture for the markers, the others will be sprinkled around them in my photostream. Then we had a late afternoon snack in the café that has taken over the old Arthur’s Market, where some form of grocery store had operated since 1795. Now it’s a beautiful sort of espresso and panini place with a killer triple chocolate brownie, though I must say the service would have to come up a few levels to reach indifferent. It still seems to be something of the neighborhood gathering place that Arthur’s was, something very rare in our local cities.

Also got in a short bike ride on Saturday, just enough to say I’d been out. A friend told me last fall that the rollers would make my stroke smooth as glass, and he was right — I could really feel the difference out on the road. On the rollers, every hitch, every inefficiency is felt and challenges your balance, so you try to get rid of them, and it really pays off in efficiency on the road. I rode into some housing developments in North Greenbush that I didn’t even know existed — zero-lot-line condos and apartments as far as the eye could see. Quite unlovely. Remind me not to go back.