Article 4 - Travel in Local Spaces, “Cannonsville Reservoir” April 2006 edition of First Church of The Streets

One of the nice things of living upstate is going for rambling drives. Upstate New York is known for its rolling hills and small towns. It is also peppered with numerous reservoirs, bodies which serve as artificial sources of recreation. Many of these serve as vital water supplies for those in New York City, even those who are unaware of how far the reach goes to ensure their survival.

We left for our drive in the morning, not sure where we were going so we just let the car and the road lead us to where we were supposed to go. It was already hot. The June morning felt like a July afternoon. The roads were crumbling, partially melting from the sun, partially still destroyed from the winter. Sunny green fields everywhere still slumbered, while the lullaby of Pink Floyd was on the radio. Birds sang mating songs of joy that juxtaposed the darkness of "The Wall". There was the local car haven that we passed; it looked like it was competing with the Cadillac Farm in Texas. Riding on the roller coasters of county highways with some near misses and open pastures for scenery provided adventure. The lyrics of "cozy and warm" in Pink Floyd's "Mother" taught us need to experience danger to grow. Maybe they were talking about this highway, I don't know.

Our drive took us past quaint upstate trademarks, like town yard sales, high school girls practicing for colorguard, dairy farms and other small businesses that defiantly proclaimed by their existence that mom-and-pop enterprises weren't completely dead. People crossed oak-lined streets and lazily congregated on corners, basking in the heat of the morning, already drowsy and satiated by the hot summer day. There were banners proudly announcing the village boy scout troops, and a regular standby of pranks, speed limit signs transformed by graffiti from 30 to 80, which might just give the sign of bored or disenchanted youth.

As we rambled on the road, we started thinking about going to the reservoirs in Delaware County. We weren't exactly sure what direction to go, but with enough meandering, we found ourselves at the junction of NY 8 and NY10, down by Masonville. Our journey there took us on a long road going anywhere, homesteads with large spaces between people. A large track of woods marked the beginning of the state forest, with a deserted dairy bar nearby state forest as though civilization was encroached by nature, the only sign of man's successful manipulations. As we approached the reservoir, that would all change, where man's manipulations would determine nature.

I don't know what I was expecting when I got there. Maybe I thought, considering the terrorist threats, that the place would be littered with law enforcement. But it wasn't. The only people I saw were people fishing in small accesses by the side of the road, with their cars nearby. It gave the impression of a quick getaway in case this nature thing got too hard to handle. Most of the cars, I noticed, were out of state plates. Vermont and Pennsylvania identified many of the visitors, as well as a representative from North Carolina, but the most common out of state sojourner seemed to be New Jersey. Until the end of our trip, we seemed to be the only New York plate.

As we drove on the forested road adjoining the reservoir, there was a site that looked like memorial dedicated to war veterans. A flag with several headstones decorated with plaques sat near the edge of the reservoir, providing a semblance of quietude for those who wished to reflect upon man's deeds, both in wartime and peacetime. Driving past it, I saw the slogan,"Boys of Tompkins who served in World war." I don't know if it was World War I or II, and I wasn't reflective enough to stop to see.

    And now, for the reservoir itself, a representative of the cultural and economic contention between upstate and downstate. The signs, "Former site of Cannonsville" and "Former site of Rock Royal" indicated what had been sacrificed in order to supply the neighbors to the south. Easy to side with the fact that hey, people in the biggest city of the United States needed clean water. But there also was the side of those who had to sacrifice their way of life, their very towns, for people they might never see and a place they may never go to. Easy to forget there were two sides when the sheer weight of numbers on the one threatened to overwhelm any other reality.

    Deer meandered along the road with us, darting and disappearing in the woods scattered about, giving the impression of undone spots. No other cars shared the road with us. If it weren't for the out-of-state hunters and fishers parked alongside the reservoir, you would think people had been banished from here, along with the doomed towns. The artificial lake sparkled in sun; a decorated mistress Like a siren, it made me want to jump in hard in the simmer of the day. Only a water intake chamber by overpass betrayed its ephemeral beauty, reminded you of what it really was, brought you back to reality. But the sparkling continued. And it was beautiful.

    The haze of a hot noon disrupted much of the photography of the open water, as though it wanted to hide itself. We stopped to take picture of a bridge, where there were more solo fishers. This time, I didn't see where the cars came from. This was the West Delaware Intake Water Supply, which announced "no entrance city of New York". I walked over to the bridge, and looked at the water still glistening below, splashing up against boulders littered along the shore. Still inviting, still tempting: what part of nature had not been blighted by man? Was it not the flow of life, the time and the season for life and death for all things? Enjoy the beauty now, however she may show her face.

After about an hour and a half, a DEC police officer pulled up. He didn't inquire why we were taking photos. Instead, he just wanted to let us know our vehicle was blocking an entrance and could we move it. I don't know where he came from, if the whole time he'd seen us on some camera somewhere at some dispatch office. Or maybe, it was just a stop on his usual round. Such as it was in a post 9/11 world: you don't know where or how the security works, which could be a strategy in itself.

As the day was getting cloudier, it was time to call it a day. Time to escape the control of New York City. Far away, and yet maybe not so far away, if you thought about it, taxis sped, subway trains screeched to a halt, cars upon cars swarmed past each other. And the blood of this water flowed to them, to sustain life, even if they weren't aware of it. But I was, and so were the ghosts of the lost towns of Cannonsville and Rock Royal. The clouds clustered in about the reservoir, carrying the memories in their mist.