Homesick for the Catskills

From the moment my parents left me at Cornell University to begin my freshman year, I was homesick. I had never been away from home before, and I was thrust into a world that seemed incredibly sophisticated. It was full of attractive, well-dressed young men and women, most of whom seemed to know each other and what to do. They not only went to class and participated in sorority and fraternity life, but they were engaged in fascinating extracurricular activities. They wrote for the Cornell Sun, rowed for the Crew Club, and performed with the Octagon and Savage Clubs. I would never be able to attain their level of savoir-faire. I wanted to go home.

But I had no home to go to. My parents, as usual, had gone to Miami Beach for the winter. Furthermore, even if I could have returned to my parents' home in Monticello, New York, the entire community would know I had failed at college. I decided to stick it out.

After I'd been at Cornell for three months, I could stand the homesickness no longer. I realized that I could return to Monticello for a visit and reconnect with it and my friends there. My high school classmate and friend, Doris Smookler, would put me up. I talked my roommate, Patricia Stewart*, into hitchhiking the 150 miles to Monticello with me for the weekend.

So, one Saturday morning in December, Stewie and I, dressed in our college blazers and skirts, said good-bye to our friends and headed for the main highway out of Ithaca.

Almost immediately, we got a ride to Monticello. Two men in their fifties, Harry and Jack, stopped for us; they had just visited their sons at Cornell, and were going through Monticello en route back to New York City. As the trip progressed, the men became more and more personal and kept proposing alternatives to our stopping at the Smookler residence in Monticello. "How about staying with us at the Concord Hotel, girls?" suggested Harry, the more aggressive of the two. "It's pretty fancy." When we turned that down, he said, "Why do you want to go to Monticello? It's a hick town. Come with us to New York. We'll show you Radio City."

I became frightened that they would not drop us off in Monticello. What would we do if they drove straight through town? But when we got to Monticello, to our surprise and relief, Jack gallantly opened the door and let us out.

We spent a fun day and evening with Doris and other friends. Sunday morning, Doris drove us to the outskirts of Liberty, the neighboring town, and we took up our stand on the road again, thumbs raised. The first vehicle to stop for us was a broken-down truck, full of chicken feathers in the back. I was loath to accept the ride because I had been allergic to chicken feathers as a child, and the thought of riding 150 miles with the smell of old hens was more than I could bear. But Stewie was already running to the cab of the truck, so I ran behind her. We jumped up, and found ourselves sitting next to a short man in his sixties, with stubby white hair. His name was Sam Kaplan, and he was in the chicken and egg business. He was going to Cortland, thirty miles from Ithaca, and would drive us that far. We were not too pleased at the prospect of hitching yet another ride from Cortland to Ithaca on a Sunday night, but since we were already riding along in Sam's truck, there didn't seem to be much he could do about it.

As we drove along, Sam had a story about the inhabitants of every house we passed along the way. At first, it seemed incredible that he could know everyone along the route, and then it dawned on us that he was making these stories up. He was one of the most charming liars we had ever met. We began to test him, by asking if he knew any number of famous people.

"Did you ever meet General Pershing, Sam?" I asked. "Oh, yes," he replied. I used to deliver eggs to the General up in New England--after the First World War. A wonderful man."

He went along that way for the remainder of the trip, telling us about the foibles and eccentricities of every farmer, merchant, and customer who supposedly lived in the little houses along the way.

"I bin in three-quarters of the world, girls," he said, "and done business with the other quarter."

When we got to Cortland, Sam insisted that we come up to see his house. He had lost his wife the year before and was lonesome. We sensed what our visit would mean to him and went along.

Sam lived in a little white-shingled house in the center of town. It was plainly a home that lacked a woman's touch, and we could see how happy Sam was to have some feminine company. Sam fluttered about, cleaning up, scrambling some eggs for us, serving us cookies, and generally keeping busy. After we had eaten and relaxed, he insisted that we all pile back into the truck so he could drive us to Ithaca.

During the remaining thirty miles back to Cornell, Sam entertained us with stories of the professors who lived in the houses we passed and who bought eggs from him. When he bade us good-bye at the door of our dormitory, he had tears in his eyes, and Stewie and I were weepy, too.

During the rest of my college days, every once in a while I would dial Sam's number in Cortland, and, after I identified myself, Stewie and I would hear his, "Hello, girls," coming over the telephone. He would regale us with new stories about his customers, and we would tell him about the courses we were taking.

It's been almost fifty years since I've heard from Sam. I hope he's still selling eggs to the "other quarter."

*Fictitious names are asterisked on first use.

Copyright 1999 by Sonia Pressman Fuentes