Probably the most exciting thing that ever took place in the tiny town of South Hamilton, other than Reverend Ross's heart attach preparing for his trip to Canada and the death of the Johnson boy due to a motorcycle accident, was the day my two children and I moved into the big gray house on the intersection of Excell and Williams road to live with a man who teaches biology at the local high school and is somewhat older. He just happened to of been my Biology teacher. I always thought he was quite nerdy in high school. Handsome but nerdy. We worked together at the Sherburne Inn and then again at the Colgate Inn. After my first marriage went totally fatal. I was literally stuck in the basement of a beginner home my first husband and I had bought. Beautiful piece of land, fifteen acres with a waterfall and a capped cinder block foundation. The plan was to finish off the basement, which we did and eventually build up instead of buying a trailer. So there I was, with the first husband out on the road trying to still find himself, and with two babies. It was the winter of 93 and I was buried under 4 feet of snow when I decided to give biology Bill a call. The rest is history. He was alone in a big house with a room for a little boy and a little girl and I just happened to have one of each. After my family helped me move and my sister advised me not to f--k it up. I was home.
All around this country block, tongues were wagging out of the mouth's of the gossip starved locals driving by when they noticed that the teachers driveway, which usually only held one car, now held two along with children's bikes, balls, cats, rabbits, iguanas and a big brown dog. Since then, with the dust of moving settled, kitchen cabinets reorganized, bachelor days aired, there's been time to see that this quiet country space was actually quite productive once, and lingering still, a few spirits with stories to tell.
Originally, South Hamilton began as a logging town. In the early 1800's a dam was built downtown, (I say down only because South Hamilton was built on a hill) to form a small lake which powered a sawmill, which in turn became the reason for what's left of a few, still standing structures that form the thriving metropolis of South Hamilton. The hotel is now a private home belonging to the Diamond family, The house below, now belongs to a nice couple from Jersey. The house above belonging to widowed lady who has more daffodil's bloom in the spring than the Netherlands. Above her home is a small chicken and horse farm where I get the best fresh, orange yolked, organic eggs for two bucks a dozen. Across from there, the Johnson's with their outdoor wood stove that when in winter, smokes out the whole valley. Next to the Johnson's a small house that is constantly turning over families.
Down the hill and across from the old hotel is where Iris used to live. Her old home is a saltbox shaped, red home with more antique dishes, clothes and just stuff piled everywhere. Iris passed away a few years ago out living her second husband, which infuriated her to the point of throwing his cane and some other of his belongings over the hill and into the meandering stream below her house. Sadly, Iris's house just sits. I remember taking a walk around this country block on a warm spring morning and in passing Iris's house, she eagerly waved at me from her window to come in. Standing in her kitchen with dirty cat food dish's all around her feet and in piles of clothing, (This is when I learned that Iris was quite a dresser and the bomb on the New York city streets back in the day) antiques and just tons of stuff. She took me into her bedroom to show me something and there on her bed was a large black cat. I should back up a bit here. The fall before spring, Bill and I loaded up the kids and drove down to Florida to visit Bill's father in Cocoa Beach. When we returned we learned we were one cat less. Our large green eyed, black cat, Jack had disappeared. Well, there he was, seven month later all curled up and purring at the foot of Iris's bed! I was amazed! I stood there, hands on hips and yelled, "JACK!" The cat jumped up out of his morning cat slumber and just stared at me. It was Jack all right! I said, "Jack, I mourned you!" He just sat down and circled a few times and curled up and went back to sleep. Iris, dumbfounded said, "Thats not Jack, thats Bucky!" I asked her how long she had the cat and wouldn't you know it. Seven months. My kids were happy to learn Jack was still alive and we all agreed that Iris should keep the cat.
Above Iris's house there is the sweetest little country church with a stained glass window in the bell tower that says, Built by the willing workers. This church was remodeled by the son of the Diamond family, into his home sweet home for him and his second family. Sadly, the son was killed in a car accident on the way into Hamilton leaving his girlfriend with her children. I don't know how Mrs. Diamond survives across the road knowing her son will never come back. The saddest thing I ever saw was the little boy just standing of the doorway of the church looking across the road to the old hotel where his almost, dead stepfather parents lives and hearing the most pitiful moaning and crying. This just left me with the most empty feeling of sadness and doom that children have to endure so much.
Then there is the one modular home tucked behind the pines. Before the modular home, I remember a fallen down home that housed another long ago, struggling family. The daughter of this family in her teens had become pregnant by the Johnson boy before he had been killed in the motorcycle accident. The young girl had the baby and then the young mother came down with a backed up bile duct causing the bile to back up in her liver thus killing her. Everyone knows just about everything in these small towns. Whether they want to or not. Sorry, sad but true.
No one knows why they call it South Hamilton when this exhausted little town is actually east instead of south. Maybe the first settlers got lost as people still do when they journey out to make it on their own, axes in hand, women in tow to rid of what the valley's and hillsides had a lot of…tree's.
One summer day a huge Budweiser truck was creeping up the road in front of my house. The driver leaned out his window and asked for directions to route 12. "For a six pack, you got it!" I yelled. He gave me a case.
Strolling through my scanty little town, I've often thought it would be better to rename it, Small Dog being as there's just about as many small dogs as there is people. Even though the people rarely come out of their houses, you know they are in there. Especially in the summer because each shady old house has a small dog sleeping in the road out in front. Snoring little mats of fur just sucking up the heat of the pavement to later warm the toes of their owners. And it's easy to tell when the little dog's owners are out for the road is passable once again with the doggie speed bumps now inside scrambling against the wavy glassed windows like giant dormer flies.
Walking past where the sawmill was, which has long since fell in and the lake whose plug has long since been pulled and past the church and the hotel whose owners are the save-everything-and-store-it-on-the-front-porch people. You'll see the three remaining stone steps that used to lead to a door where a one room school house once stood and a few children once learned while their father's tangentially cut down the trees and shipped them in wagons to build homes for other children in nearby thriving towns.
After the the loggers moved on, the farmers moved in and a short life time later, the hilltops were farmed and abandoned due to the thin, poor rocky soil on the mountain tops. It was during these early times that a cheese house was added to the village. In the winters this small community became isolated due to poor roads and heavy snow storms. The cows would still produce milk so the locals busied themselves making cheese. Sharp cheddar cheese because of the bacteria and molds that contaminated the wooden walls of the vats that held the milk. The milk, now cheese could be stored and sold in the spring when the dirt roads became passable again.
Hiking up to one of the recommended hilltops to hunt for the remains of an old farmstead and graveyard. I stumbled upon a logger of a different kind. Even though more than a century had passed and natural succession had re-wooded this area, the only thing that differentiated this nineties logger from yesterdays, what a chain saw, a four wheel drive truck and a can of Genny of which he emptied in one long draw. Needless to say, this awkward sight blew my wood land vision of a muscle armed logger in a red checkered shirt and trousers held up by a piece of bailing twine, drinking pure spring water from tin ladle. All in all it did confirm the fact that things seldom change.
Small farms throughout these narrow valley's lasted longer. Farm's large enough to house and graze twenty to thirty cows and old McDonald like everywhere else, tried and plundered. Most surviving farms have been bought up by the larger dairy operations and the farms that didn't get so lucky fall prey to decay or get burnt down with the acreage sold to the tiny trickle of city people or Colgate professors who try not to run over the sleeping little dogs lying like speed bumps in the sunny South Hamilton streets.
One of the last old time locals to pass away at the age of ninety three was Mrs. Groff. After meeting a South Hamilton purebred during World War One, Mrs. Groff left her home in Cleveland Ohio where she was a concert pianist to spend her life on a farm on good ole main street, South Hamilton. Mrs. Groff's purebred died in 1956 (because she probably killed him for bringing her here) and after his death Mrs Groff continued to live alone in the tiny three roomed farm house with out any central heat. A Steinway filled the front room where she gave piano lessons to god knows who. I was told the sweet sounds of her music filled the valley. For that I would of climbed the hill over looking her home just to sit and listen. For the last twenty years of Mrs. Groff's life, she never wandered more than ten feet from her house. A neighbor bought her clothes, the local grocer delivered her food and a doctor stopped in once a week to check on her. Blindness finally forced her into a nursing home until her death in 1991.
Walking up from Mrs. Groff's farm, I see my new-old house, so majestic in all its farmhouse-dom, over looking this tucked away, peace filled valley into South Hamilton through seven ancient maple trees planted when the dirt roads were finally paved. The barn and milk house, now long gone once stood across the road to the east. When summer dies down and the gardens begin to dream you can make out the area where the barn foundation once stood. The horse barn was out back where one of my garden beds are. I still dig up an occasional broken horse shoe now and then. The house itself was a double family home with a kitchen wing jutting out of the back where our garage is now. It's a grand ole house and over looking what I call my own hidden valley. I wonder back to the days when the Excell family owned and farmed the land surrounding the town, back to when there was Victorian porch on the house, back to when horses and wagons were tied up to a rail. I can hear the voices of two woman who broke in this land before me. Hannah Williams and Elizabeth Excell in the apple orchard now over grown. The driveway is paved with blacktop and new dreams. New sounds come from my home and new smells from my kitchen. I had a big brown dog way back then named Marley. Bill's dog at the time was a yorkie named Marlo confirming our reunion. Marley and Marlo turned into a dropped off, all American rat dog named Ed and Ed turned into a little white dog with apricot ears and a yellow miniature tennis ball in his mouth named Lou. Bill's kids came and went and so did mine. Well almost. And now through the door come the grand children. Change always changing. Sunny South Hamilton. My home. My town. All in a wave of a brown dogs tail.
