The Erie Canal

The Erie Canal from Lock 21 (near New London)

When I was in Miss Underwood’s fourth grade class, our music lesson was one of the highlights of the week. One of our favorite songs was “Low Bridge” (The Erie Canal Song). As fourth-graders we were still not very self-conscious. Therefore, we sang the song unabashedly and at the top of our lungs. Shouting, “Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal!”  It is one of those songs that is a cherished childhood memory. When the song reached the chorus, we would once again yell, “Low Bridge! Everyone down!” Even today, when I hear references to the Erie Canal, like an earworm, the song filters back into my mind. I can’t but help to recall the opening lines, “I’ve got a mule, her name is Sal.” I find myself, for a few days afterwards, still playing the song in my head on a loop.

A gold finch along the canal

As a fourth grader, I am not sure that that I had a sense of what it meant to be traveling from Albany to Buffalo. I knew that the song was in New York, but that could have been Mars to me. Running 363 miles from Albany to Buffalo, as the song indicates, the canal was a technological triumph of the early nineteenth century. Over the past few years, I have taken a few walking excursions along the Erie Canal. I have thought about the hard life those who worked along the canal, and all canals in the eastern United States, must have had. Today, these paths are primarily for pleasure with blacktop that makes the journey easier. But the journey, hauling barges and battling insects, must have been very difficult. Even though I know this, I can help but thinking of Sal, and the extraordinary adventures of the Erie Canal.

John J. McGraw

John McGraw Monument, Truxton, NY

Traveling on New York State Route 13 in Truxton, the road makes a long, sweeping bend of nearly ninety degrees. At the apex of that bend there is a white stone monument with a baseball atop, easily missed to those not paying attention. The monument honors baseball great John McGraw, a player and manager elected to the Hall of Fame, who was born in the village in 1873.

McGraw played in the major leagues between 1891 and 1906, and went on to coach the New York Giants, first as a player-manager, from 1902 to 1932. His career was legendary; he was considered one of the best hitters of the dead ball era. Among a younger generation of baseball fans, I think that McGraw is largely forgotten. He did not hit a lot of homeruns, there are very few, if any, films of him playing. McGraw has been reduced to a baseball immortal that you read about.

The monument is a symbol of the importance of baseball in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the United States. It reflects the influence the game had on binding small communities across the country to a game, stories and narratives. It helped to create a sense of narratives, the statistics used to describe the game were easily transcribed into newspapers. Because many people played the game, as it was easily accessible, many could translate those newspaper articles into an imaginary highlight reel. The game also allowed for a narrative in which a small-town boy, in this case from Truxton, New York, could make good and succeed; his deeds and character would be rewarded.

McGraw Grandstand from the infield

On 8 August 1938, a game was played between the Giants and the local team from Truxton to raise money for the monument. The game was presumably played at the field now named in McGraw’s honor. I stopped by the field to find grass mowed, but the infield overtaken by weeds and grass. It obviously had not been used as a baseball field in quite some time, despite bases still be affixed in the ground. The small grandstand, which bears the native son’s name, is in good repair but not used. Indeed, Truxton itself, show signs of decline. It reflects the place of baseball in our society.  

Raspberry Picking

I was walking on the Cumberland Valley Rail Trail early in July, when I happened upon a young Mennonite girl of about eight years and her younger brother, who was no more than five. On my way out, I passed the two riding their bike. She was wearing a green patterned dress, her long blond hair in two braided pigtails; her brother, in suspenders and a hat that covered his shortly cropped blond hair.  We exchanged brief greetings as we passed and I noticed, as unobtrusively as possible that the little guy was unsure of his bike and working very hard to keep up with his sister.

On my return trip, I saw their bikes parked near a small path that ran off the trail. As I neared area, the girl appeared with a big smile on her face, carrying an empty plastic tub. I asked if she were picking raspberries, and she replied, “Yep, if we can find ‘em!” Given their empty container, and her brother’s mischievous grin, they had found the raspberries, they just never made it to the pail.