ON THE FIRING LINE

         Life is less complicated when you know where you are going. In this part of the world, the traveler is helped by street names which do just that. Every hamlet and village has a "Church Street", a "School Street", a "Railroad Avenue" and a "Station Place". Perhaps because the Shakers were from these parts, simplicity is stressed with names like "Old German Church Road", "Red Barn Road", "Firehouse Road" and that classic of classics in Ghent, "Garage Place Road". I have yet to find "Medical Building Avenue" or "Strip Shopping Center Boulevard" but I suspect they are out there somewhere.

         Sometimes the object is not there anymore, such as the railroad, but I suspect "Railroad Used To Be There Road" is too long for the sign. The name is no attempt to trick the traveler; it was given long before the namee left town.

         Place names are used too: every town has 'Albany Avenue' and 'Hudson Street', but the chances of getting to these places using that road are nil, not only because Albany is north and west and the street of the same name runs south and east, but also because in a half mile the street name will change. The main intersection in Kinderhook ~~ the one traffic light ~~ has Hudson Street meet Albany Avenue meet Chatham Street meet Broad Street. Drive north on Broad Street through the light and you will be on Chatham Street, which does not lead to Chatham but to Albany. Drive east on Hudson and cross Broad/Chatham and now you are on Albany Avenue heading for Schodack.

         Some roads take on euphemisms: State Route 66 is the "Union Turnpike" and US Route 20 is the "Columbia Turnpike". There is also an 'Albany Turnpike'. The toll booths left a hundred years ago, and for the most part these are two lane highways. Don't look for them on the map or on road signs, but commentators such as the local weatherman will use these names.

         Poetry reigns when a hand-written sign saying "Turkey Shoot Sunday" is nailed to a post telling the driver he is on "Rod & Gun Club Road". I used to wonder who rounded up the wild turkeys to be cannon fodder. These almost flightless birds forage the fields and I thought it such a pity that they be shot at sunrise. I realized my faux pas when, before Easter, the sign read "Ham Shoot Today". It was hard to picture anyone out rounding up hams.

         I wonder often if anyone could enter their target shoot. I have few skills in this world, but amazingly one of those skills is the ability to fire the M-14 rifle, which was the standard training piece of the US Army in the mid-1960s. And I don't call it a 'gun' else I would have to repeat some obscene lyric of the time about the difference between my rifle and my gun.

         Delta Company, First Battalion, First Bridgade, Ft. Jackson SC, February 1967 had two crack shots: a Sergeant York imitator from Tennessee or Carolina and this left-handed fool from the Philadelphia suburbs who had never picked up a rifle in his life. York finished first with 77 of 84 targets, but somehow, maybe by clicking my boots together, I knocked down 76. The next year, while serving as a clerk on the base, I was taken out one day and told the nation needed me to re-qualify. I was handed a rifle, given fifteen minutes to practice, and obliterated 74 targets.

         I have not fired a rifle since; I doubt that the M-14 still exists, and I hate turkey, but if I won, I could trade the prize for the "Rod & Gun Club" road sign.


Valatie 11/10/00