The Happy Post!

Amidst all those posts coming from Cleveland proper, I forgot to give you the Happy Ithaca Post! Sure, I was glad to leave, but I spent six years in and around Tompkins County and it would be foolish to dismiss all of those because of Greenstar Employees, FUBAR car alignments, and zydeco music. Not that Ithaca needs any more praise. The Ithaca Sound Machine goes all the way up to 11 and comes out every Wednesday.

Like many escaped Ithacans, I came as a pesky college kid. I remember that first day lucidly. My sister, brother-in-law, and 1-year old nephew driving up in late summer storm from Henrietta, NY. NYS Route 89 hugged the western side of Cayuga Lake and the vineyards seemed constant on the horizon. The first bits of goldenrod were blooming, but it wasn't until junior year that I would know to call it goldenrod. It was the yellow flower, like Vernes's red weed, except this one didn't kill you. The "brutal minimalism" of Talcott Hall seemed new and dynamic. It wasn't until I started moonlighting as a tour guide that I learned that these buildings were institutional and old-fashioned. Classmates in Boston has private bathrooms and a fire escape balcony. They would scream at girls on late Friday nights from the balcony to flash them and, sometimes, they would. My sister helped me make the extra long bed with these stiff sheet that seemed made of rejected canvas. The hunter green ink would rub off on the walls and slotted bed posts.

You hear a lot of people scream that college was great on their MySpace and Facebook profiles. And I enjoyed college, but not because I did a power hours of shots or watched the girls from the gymnastics team wrestle in gelatin. I did my share of stupid things, but these were all quite lame, only interesting in their silly timidity. Rolling twenty sided dies against dorm mates trying to guess our roles. Pushing a shopping cart into a snow back while we waited for the last bus back from the mall. We had just seen National Security and Just Married, sneaking into the later, another lame first.

No college was fun because I met people who I could relate to and excitedly poured over the course catalog. People, Plants, and Animals; Novel Writing; Science Fiction and Fantasy, were all fantastic sounding courses. Hell, I even considered Power Algebra just for the sheer beauty of the title. And there were fellow environmentalists! The only people concerned with anything in high school were the local stoners and we always antagonized each other. They thought I was a hack. And I reciprocated the feeling. Here was the Ithaca College Environmental Society with an on-campus organic garden, protest rallies, and campus policy changes. Senior year people considered the organic garden a great place to read and hangout amongst cosmos flowers and those last zucchini blossoms. Oh and teachers that were fun and inspiring. We had some cool teachers in high school, but you could take four classes with Jason Ockert, Kahtyrn Howd Machan, Pat Spencer, Susan Allen Gil, John Confer, Susan Swensen, or Katherine Kittredge. Sweetness. In high school, you took one year of biology with a cool teacher and then you went to the next grade and the punk ninth graders got her.

And there were people that liked to read and were nerdy and wimpy. Awesome! Seriously, high school was lame. I was part of the odds and ends clique and that made it all the more awkward when our senior class almost had a civil war of Puerto Ricans vs. Americans. Or, "La Familia" vs. Americans. Apparently when your a Jet, you a Je..err...I mean Puerto Rican all the way and I had to get an air soft gun to show off to the American kids. Six years later, it is silly to still spread rumors, but there were apparently whole organizational charts of both sides. So if Juan gets whacked by Bobbie Honky, it it OK because then Miguel will take over. I don't know how these would be helpful. Someone's mom wouldn't let them go to school that day and each group needed to fall back to lieutenant. We were all private school kids trying to say how we were owed something. If anyone from high school stumbles across the blog, please remember that you all were great individuals, but the Civil War thing was seriously stupid shit.

But in college, in Ithaca, you could hook with the artsy kids downtown for coffee and enjoy some free time on the Commons. And you could walk there or just chill for a bus, something so obstuse in Puerto Rico that people will holler at pedestrians as if were were fugitives. The Commons is a blast when your a college student and have time to kill between classes. The whole town seems tailor made for you and, if you go to IC or CU, please do enjoy the town. Just don't stay there after graduation.

My none college memories are just that...memories. They are also a series of firsts that I feel obliged to remember. My first rent check, cut on a sample check that featured Marvin the Martian. Those nice folks at CFCU that corrected my scribbled first deposit slips. My first job, which had we steaming pasta for four hours every Wednesday night in the dining hall. Those sixty dollar paychecks seemed like a feast to this freshman. My first "real" out of college job, which still feels like something too good to be true. First lovers and first loves. And I lost a bunch of weight that first summer! Now, I can strive to get back to my college weight. I blasted through the original Dune books on a fallen log next to Six Mile Creek. On another day, I tried to ford the river and almost stepped in a dead Yorkie someone had dropped into the stream. I never swam in Cayuga Lake, but I waded in it's waters everyday through streams that cut through the shale earth and eddied underwater pools on the creek bottoms. Coming from an island, I appreciated how everything still felt hydrated. There is beauty in the desert, but I could never live in it. And plenty has been said about Ithaca is Gorges and the Finger Lakes Region. The natives had it right, when they felt the hands of God somehow scratched their lands.

A lot of food memories, which makes sense in a town rumored to have the most restaurants in the nation per capita. I don't know what math was used to create that figure, but I could imagine some Cornell grad skewing the averages to create that for the Chamber of Commerce. You become a true regular a Just a Taste when Mike the Waiter gives you some respect and suggests to stay away from the ginger ice. But eat up the foccacia, warm brie, braised greens, and new potatoes. Gino's Pizza is great until you realize how great Sammy's is and, yeah, I worked at Gimme! Coffee. I wasn't' enough of a hipster to stay for long, but I had my customer fans.
The horrible peppery bit of Ithaca Brewing Company's Cascazilla, which almost thwarted my relationship with Amanda.

Everything is relative, even Ithaca. It has a wonderful quality of life for those that can afford it and/or those that can tolerate the Sound Machine. It is a wonderful place to learn and grow and my escape makes it feel alive in memories and not simmering in bitterness.

Peace!