Unionville

When asked if the name “Unionville, New York” had anything to do with the Civil War, a resident commented that the name “Unionville had nothing to do with the Civil War....in fact....Unionville has nothing to do with anything!”

He didn’t mean to give the answer a double meaning, but it seemed appropriate.

The Appalachian Trail (The AT) passes near Unionville and brings to it an odd assortment of hikers from all over the world. The AT starts at the top of Springer Mountain in Georgia and winds its way North across 14 states to the summit of Mt. Kathadin in Maine. When the AT crosses the Delaware River at the village of Delaware Water Gap the trail turns North and traverses the modest ridges along the north side of the Delaware River up to High Point State Park in New Jersey. Turning due east it then borders the New York state line for about 25 miles before it resumes its track north toward Bear Mt. in New York.

The hike over from Rutherford Shelter to Lott Road in Unionville is 11.3 miles. It is normally considered an easy eleven miles but a hiker’s attitude can somehow paint it black. There’s a con game long distance hikers play on themselves, and they can fall for this game in a big way. If the guidebooks mentions that there is a small village at the end of the day’s trail, then with every step a hiker builds an image of that village. The image is doctored to fit the fantasies of a depressed, lonely, fatigued and hungry backpacker. In the hiker’s mind it becomes a little Las Vegas, with dancing girls, gourmet meals, and plush rooms. It becomes a town that would welcome a hiker as a wondrous wondering hero with a backpack. The newspaper will want to interview you and take your picture. Church groups will meet to pray for you and wish you well over a covered dish dinner. Such expectations are generally crushed with a vengeance.

Arriving at Lott Road the hiker turns left and begins to wander down the streets of a seemingly deserted village. The destination in Unionville is the Back Track Inn and Hostel, where the guidebook promises a bunk for two bucks and a shower and towel for three bucks more. The town has a Post Office, cafe, general store, bar, and the cheap lodging at the Back Track, —all the key components of a good trail town.

Some trail towns are better than others. The few city blocks into the village of Unionville tell a grim tale. On the left is a huge deserted factory and on the right a rubber manufacturing company. The factory looks dark and depressing inside the open doors. The workers seem ghostly, covered in a gray talc. It looks like the kind of place that would spawn serious health problems. A cemetery next to the factory seemed all too convenient. Unionville is one of those places where the dead probably outnumber the living, where the sick and dying outnumber the well and those living well.

Several of the older homes were once fairly grand, but now seem hopelessly decrepit. In the backyard of one such old home was a target. It was a large round slice of hardwood tree trunk, sitting on a firm tripod....the kind of target one throws knives at or maybe hatchets. A grand white home fallen into to total dilapidation, impoverished and abused by a man who throws hatchets for backyard amusements. One old home has a for-sale sign on it, noting that it was a “three family” dwelling. It was an invitation to be a slum lord. If you estimated the probable selling price and rental rates for each of the three families, one could only feel an awful dread in empathy for the small-time investor who would squander his hopes on this venture. So much grief! So little profit!

Someone later referred to Unionville as a “welfare town” and told stories of hikers who had had their backpacks stolen. The guidebooks give the same subtle warnings too. Slowly the mythic Las Vegas mirage dissolves. The colors begin to fade, being replaced with a sooty gray overlay.

The men in the Back Track bar were skinny; the kind of skinny that looks like malnutrition and drug use. They were poor in spirit and character. They were grungy, not by fashion and intent, but by abuse and lack of cleanliness. This was authentic grunge, not GAP grunge. They drank beer and played three ball pool. Why shoot down all 12 balls for two quarters, when you can play four games for the same fifty cents. They played games of three ball pool for dollar bets, dollars that they didn’t have...dollars that could have bought food for their timid wives and unassuming children.

The only woman in the bar sat near the door with the leery look of a woman expecting violence to visit her at any moment.

The men wore gim’me-caps— backwards, and their music was the kind of music one feels, music that rattles your teeth. They seemed to like their music, but not enjoy it. There were no tapping toes, no one mouthed the words or seemed to be rhythmically moved to dance. It was like elevator music, merely something in the background to cover the shuffle of feet in a dreary beer joint. Be reminded, old man, If its too loud, you’re too old. Most sounds systems in movies, concerts, and clubs are too loud for undamaged ears. Where are those earplugs?

Many backpackers find wearing earplugs is the only way to get a good night’s sleep. Earplugs muffle the snores of other hikers, the rustling of field mice as they move from pack to pack in search of food. If you didn’t hang your food bag with the same preparation as you use for bears, you will find that the shelter mice have gnawed a hole through your pack and nested into your food bag for a happy noisy night of gulping gorp and oatmeal. If there is a skunk, or some mice or a deer or just the gentle breezes in the leafy trees, a long distance hiker would rather not know....leave him to rest and dream down deep in his feathery down sleeping bag.

The loud music limited the conversation around the pool table to a few shouted words.

“Your shot!”

“Never make that!”

“You in this round?”

“Who’s up?”

“Hoo, hoo, hoo....you blew that one!”

“More beer, honey! Where is that bitch?”

The balls crashed and scattered. Hit them hard and hope for a score...maybe one will fall in a pocket if you really jam it.

Later outside they smoked grass and coughed and lighted their pipe with every hit and held the smoke deep inside...crash the lungs with dope and hope for escape, hope for a high, hope to make life blur and fade,... make life soften, ... make it manageable and enjoyable, ... going for a high that never seems to come. The relief is always just out of reach. Life will always be just out of reach in a “welfare town.” Smoking marijuana was not the joyous hippie celebration that it was in the 60’s...no raucous laughter...no ravenous eating....no Cheech...no Chong. It seemed like it was mostly effort without reward.

“Do you smoke marijuana?”, they asked.

“No... I don’t smoke”, an answer that tried not to seem like the voice of a self-righteous prick.

The implication and flavor of the question was....”We are going to smoke dope....if you make a big deal out of it we won’t, but if you want to, we will let you smoke some of ours.

“Do you mind if we do?”

“It doesn’t bother me.” said in one’s best “man of the world” tone of voice.

The man on the right seemed to own the pipe and the stash of grass. He explained that he had traveled to Amsterdam this year for a cannabis fair. He told tales of the wondrous events there, smoke so strong you would wobble. No law to worry about. Everyone there was happy and free. He told of prostitutes sitting in the windows of their apartments. For forty gilders you could have any woman you wanted...just tap on the door when the blinds were open. When they were closed she had a customer.

“The prostitutes are like this.”

He held his hands together forming the biggest circle he could form with his skinny fingers.

“Me....? I’m like this!”

He held his fingers to indicate about a one inch penis.

He came home from Amsterdam with a tiny gold earring, a few seeds of grass and a couple of five minute stories to tell. The flight and his trip to Amsterdam had cost him $1,200. For a kid from a “welfare town” this was probably the high point of his life...a most excellent adventure.

The barkeeper announced that hot showers would be impossible. The water for the outdoor shower was not yet turned on for the spring season and unless a reliable plumber happened by the bar for an afternoon beer, there would be no showers. Again...good by Las Vegas, the mirage, ---hello Unionville, the reality.

The hiker’s room was just off the bar, a closet with four narrow bunks. The dingy mattresses lapped over the edge by a foot. If a hiker rolled over on that edge of the bed he was doomed to slide off the unsupported ledge. The old mattresses were dingy with years of grime. Spreading out a bedroll on the bunk seemed criminal, but it was getting dark and the die was cast. The muffled unfamiliar hard rock music seemed to shake the bar’s walls but not the walls of the hostel.

During the evening, arguments and animated discussions erupted just outside the door. The door was locked and reinforced with the back of a chair, something seen in old black and white movies, and by a walking stick wedged between the door and the beds.

The bar patrons always seemed to come out of the bar and drift over to the front of the hiker’s bunkroom and then begin to agitate for some agreements about the remainder of the evening. They argued their real passions, thinking they were alone and unheard by others. These were arguments they had had before; arguments they will have again. These were the midnight discussions of a million couples in front of a million bars, in a million towns across the globe.

“Don’t drive Johnny!” pleaded a soft female voice.

“I’m driving!”

“Please Johnny, let him drive. You’ve had too much to drink!”

“Don’t be stupid. I’m driving!”

“Come on Johnny....don’t.”

“I’ll drive real slow. Shut up and get in the car!”

Later another couple....affected by their drinks and sensitive to their slightest mood swings....

“What are you so huffy about?”

“Why did you have to say that?”

“I didn’t say anything”.

“Why? Why’d you say it?”

“I’m tired....let’s go”.

“You always have to say something like that to piss me off!”

They never said what the offensive remark was. The game had no winner. They were tired of each other and tired of themselves being tired. They argued back and forth for half and hour and finally left. There was no resolution. There never was.

The resolutions to these hopeless lives lies out in the cemetery. There...everybody finally agrees to stop the chatter. They pronounce the arguments ended. They have no choice but to let it be... forever.

These were hapless organisms that lived and died without nourishment, happy to avoid nourishment. They lived and died without nurturing, happy not to be nurtured. They knew not what nourishment and nurturing would have meant to themselves or what their nourishing and nurturing would have meant to others in their lives. So this poor sample of the citizens of Unionville, continues to lead their poison lives, content to frustrate themselves on a Saturday night. No help is on the way. No renaissance is brightening their horizon. No helpful, dynamic reformer is enroute to Unionville.

On the early morning hike out of town, gray water flows out of several houses directly onto the streets. The run-off was foaming up in the gutters and from the gutters into the creeks. The little pond at the end of town was half covered with foam.

An angry frustrated dog barked and howled behind the cemetery that overcast morning. It was the same barking heard on the walk into town and incessantly throughout the night. The barking was part of the background noise in Unionville, and only when all the other sounds of the night had silenced was the barking dog somehow able to distinguish itself, its grief, its pathos. In the predawn hours an eagerly departing backpacker was the only one to give a caring thought to that poor unseen animal... but the hiker was happy to be hiking out of town and beginning, already, to dream about the next trail town a week away.

End

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