Rochester Night Life
1972 ADIRONDACKS SPRING REUNION
SATURDAY, 5/19/72: We were told about the netters who waded into the stream to get basketsful of the two-inch fish, and found the margins of the stream littered with desiccated bodies, which make me hate the fishermen more. Then about 9 they started gathering at the inlet, and worked their way upward and in density until some were forced out of the water, to skip across a foot or more on their tails in a frenzy of progress. I felt like a criminal shining my light on them, since it seemed to confuse them: if they were in advanced pools, they sometimes slipped back, if they were negotiating a rapid, they wouldn't make it. Surely 90% of the time they wouldn't make it anyway, and. I just got a cross-section of what was happening, but I felt strangely interloping if I FOLLOWED them with the light and their motions made it apparent it distracted them, and they needed every ounce of their energies for the battle upstream. Further up there was only a fish or two, and at a flat rock there were none, and as the evening progressed, the Pond that had one or two became thick, there was at least one at the flat rock, and the entry-way was clogged with the dark swimming bodies. I saw the white specks of eggs scattered along the side, wondering whether they were the ones that didn't succeed, or whether they would live to hatch the next generation. No one was catching them, but it seems they couldn't possibly make it all the way back, since they couldn't even, it seemed to me, get above the next section, but I never found how much they moved, and was possessed for the rest of the evening with their gallantry and efforts, thinking of unfortunate analogs with human experience, and John mildly berated me for thinking of comparing them with humans: the Japanese would only observe without emotion, he said rather tartly. I found their sleek bodies on the sides of the stream in greater numbers the next day, but on Saturday they were running in lesser numbers, and on Sunday they weren't going any more, so it was only the four days from Wednesday to Saturday, and I was happy to have seen it: the ice only left the lake on the previous SUNDAY, and we were there the first weekend, with the cursed putt-putting of the fishing boats and the dizzyingly stupid conversations.
ROCHESTER NIGHT LIFE
SUNDAY, 5/21/72: Glad they close down the window service, because everyone seemed to come from miles around to sit on the picnic benches and talk from their cars while eating ice cream and hot dogs. Cars buzzed up and down the road looking for the non-existent excitement, a guy--well-built and friendly--tussled with his gal in the grass, later interrupted by another gal who seemed to be either a former beau or his sister, but she was friendly too. Kids had contests on the sidewalk to see who could cause the longest skidmark with brakes on their fast-pedaled bikes, and adults either sat on the porches or hopped into their cars to take off for a spin in the clear night air. The birds could be heard in the spaces between the cars, after the sounds of the motorbikes from the track down behind the main street and the church stopped. When went over to investigate the sounds, we spent nice minutes cropping grass to feed a chomping horse who seemed to take care not to bite the hands grassing them. John laughed at the antics of the people from the porch in his stoned condition, and the American Youth Hostel church spewed forth over a dozen youngsters who roamed up and down the street, talking in French, or in what John called a perfect stage-babble: loud enough to he heard, but indistinct enough so that not a word of what they were saying could he discerned. The night fell slowly, people from the hotel came out to chat about cars and school the next day "you poor thing" for the children "who should be in bed," and kids hopped into cars for other spins about, and in minutes they were back to go into their houses. John had fantasies about the teenagers in the hostel getting undressed at unshaded windows, but that didn't happen, and finally I got tired of the studied non-excitement of the town. The "move-up" game continued, from desperation, far past dark, and there were a number of fellows in the colored undershirts who looked worth pursuing, but when we looked at them for more than a moment, they stared back belligerently, and in another moment there would have been some remark, so we looked the other way. Was sorry to find John asleep when I went up, but I showered and got into bed to sleep with earplugs, since the TV from downstairs and intermittent cars were noisier and more bothersome than the steady monotonous traffic on West 57th Street.