@Seneca Falls
NY
“Oh but ain’t that America for you and me…”
Dateline: 13148
We are, where we been.
We are, where we from.
We are, oceans.
We are, lakes.
Rivers.
Plains.
Mountains and deserts.
We are amber grain.
We are spacious skies.
We are brick houses.
We are concrete towers.
We are 5th wheels with mailboxes.
We are weathered clapboard.
We are white picket fences.
We are chicken wire.
We are big cities.
But most of all,
we are small towns.
Here.
@America.
“…ain’t that America something to see baby…”
The third installment of The Bass Pro Shops Northern Open finds itself on Cayuga Lake, The Finger Lake area of New York State….
…@Seneca Falls.
Small town America.
@Seneca Falls…population 6,681 or so depending on if a new neighbor is moving in or an old neighbor has moved out. The small town is made up of about 48% guys, about 52% gals. Median age is 41, married folks are 55% of the population, 85% finished high school with 22% having a college degree. The village was incorporated in 1831, and according to the FBI numbers no one has been murdered in town since at least 2001.
@Seneca Falls sits on the north end of Cayuga Lake…Cayuga Lake is a glacial lake about 40 miles long, 66 square miles in total with an average depth of 182 feet, the deep spot is way down there at 435 feet.
According to the NY State Department of people who count fish the lake is filled with Rainbow Trout, Lake Trout, Brown Trout, landlocked Atlantic Salmon, Yellow Perch, Northern Pike…and the gills we are here for…Bass of both large and small mouths.
It’s a multiple personality lake…it can be glass like calm, but when the wind blows up from the south for some 40 miles, dudes, you better be belted in.
Some say it can completely freeze over in the winter.
Some say it don’t.
I say, I prefer my frozen lakes on the rocks, margarita style.
“…ain’t that America home of the free…”
Here in @Seneca Falls, we small town.
Main Street.
Flags and flowers.
Awnings and CIRCA plaques..
Copper and bricks.
On one side street I had to stop the 4Runner and wait for the young QB to hit his receiver as he did a buttonhook at the fire hydrant.
Street football…field of play was lamppost to lamppost, curbs out of bounds…parked cars were in the field of play. Young masters of the bounce off the hood catch.
Everywhere I looked I saw kids, and adults on bicycles. Saw bikes leaned up against trees, a bike rack with bikes…none locked.
@Seneca Falls…sacred ground for the Women’s Civil Rights movement in America.
It began here.
On a corner…a street corner…pretty much where all rights movements begin.
On July 19, 1848 a bunch of women got together @Seneca Falls to “…discuss the social, civil and religious condition of women.”
The next day they met again, this time they let the men in as well.
And on that day, the movement for Equal Rights for Women began when the 100 or so people of all ages and genders signed the Declaration of Sentiments.
@Seneca Falls where women voted for themselves…and then went on to be able to vote for anyone they chose here @America.
And right down Route 5/20…some 3 miles at mostly 30mph lies the small town of Waterloo, NY…home town of Super Bowl winning NY Giant Head Coach, Tom Coughlin…and,
Memorial Day.
Yep, it wasn’t the canyons of NYC, Chicago, Boston or Los Angeles that came up with Memorial Day…it happen right here.
May 5th, 1866…Waterloo, NY set the day aside to close up all the shops and schools in town so as to honor those who died in the Civil War…a war that had ended just a year earlier on May 9th, 1865.
Wounds still fresh, grief still running down cheeks.
One Hundred Years later the United States Congress and then President Lyndon B. Johnson says, yep, it happened here, and formally state that Memorial Day began here,
in small town America.
We are, where we been.
We are, where we from.
We are, at the Bass Pro Shops Northern Open #3.
The final shindig for the Opens up north.
We are,
@Seneca Falls.
“…little pink houses for you and me.”
Pink Houses
John Mellancamp
[Click here to see db’s pictures of Seneca Falls]