Credit: Augusts Upitis
From kindergarten through 12th grade, I attended a single school – Pine Plains Central School, in the building that is now the Seymour Smith middle school. Every day I walked a few short steps from my family’s home on Myrtle Avenue to the school on Academy Street.
As teenagers, complaining about the lack of things to do, we couldn’t wait to leave our small town. But secretly I knew it was a special and happy childhood: growing up in a place where everyone knew everyone else, neighbors looked out for each other’s kids, front doors were rarely locked, and car keys were left dangling in the ignition.
For all our complaints, there actually was a lot to do. We would go trout fishing or drift in a homemade kayak down the length of Shekomeko Creek from Bethel Bridge to Patchin’s Mill. In winter, we would skate on Pilch’s Pond and along a ditch to Stissing Lake for the best black ice on the planet, for either a hockey game or more skating, sometimes traveling on to Thompson Pond or what was then known as Mud Pond.
Sometimes we would go into the city and look at the diorama of Mud’s twin islands at the Natural History Museum. We hiked up Stissing Mountain many times: one time heading straight up with no trail; another time going up Little Stissing just to do it. We camped along the Roeliff Jansen Kill with only a can of beans, confident trout were available for dinner.
There was tennis every summer morning before an afternoon swim in Stissing, tapping maple trees on the hill behind the school for sap to convert to syrup, sneaking up into the coal silos of Deuel’s Lumber Yard to shoot pigeons with our BB guns. At school, we had talented teachers guide us, and played sports on winning teams with stories of their own.
The entire town and the nature that surrounded it were both a playground and an education. I hung around farms and helped with chores, gleaning knowledge that later helped with ag clients in my photo business. I went skiing down Carpenter Hill and Winchell Mountain – and once even skated down Carpenter when rain froze over a layer of snow.
We fished and hunted freely, and hiked the old grid of railroad tracks in every direction from town. At age 15, I got a junk Buick from the Ford Garage and drove it a mile up and down a cinder-covered track bed. We’d scale a skinny radio tower atop Winchell Mountain, and roam freely on our bikes, our only rule being that the Mount Ross bridge was our limit as we traveled northwest.
As teenagers, we were not without errors in judgment: there were car races on Briarcliff Flats, drinking parties and stacking empty beer cans into a giant pyramid under the stoplight for a passing semi to demolish at midnight. We boys could be chauvinists at times, buying into the notion of men being in charge and girls needing to look good. We upset teachers with our pranks.
Sometimes we would poach trout from a private stream or rig a tow rope behind a speeding car to ski the Lake Road ring around Stissing behind a speeding car. We climbed on school rooftops and explored the Prohibition-era tunnels that ran under Dutch Schultz’s bootlegging operation. We drove cars over Stissing Lake when it was frozen, assuming the ice was thick enough to hold us. (It was.)
Later in life, as I regaled my own children with these stories from Pine Plains, I came to reflect. What was more important — the fun of the adventures or the lessons that came from the indiscretions? Maybe every child needs both.
Alvis Upitis is a professional photographer who has gone on to live in Minnesota and Hawaii, and now lives in Texas. He can still visualize every house in downtown Pine Plains and every pool on Shekomeko Creek.
###
As we commemorate the 200th anniversary of the town we all call home, the New Pine Plains Herald wants to hear from you!
Maybe you have a family story that stretches back through generations. Maybe you remember a favorite walk, friendship or pet. It could be the winning run in a baseball game, the birth of a calf or the crunch of autumn leaves. There’s simply no limit to what Pine Plains represents to each of the people who live here.
Throughout the Bicentennial year, the Herald will be publishing your stories, creating a portrait of the town through your memories and images. If you’ve got a story you’d like to share, please send 200 to 500 words and a single photograph mypineplains@newpineplainsherald.org or editor@newpineplainsherald.org.
Please include your name, brief biographical details and contact information so we can reach you with any questions or edits.
We look forward to hearing from you!