Tannery Brook
K76+
All 29 chapters of Kingston 76 have been published!
If you missed any, you can still access by clicking here:
Have no fear, you’ll still be receiving new Substack installments every Wednesday, beginning with a series of K-76 bonus tracks.
This first one is called “Tannery Brook.” It’s a quick read about the same brook, same time period featured in K-76. I wrote it for the Story Slam at the Woodstock Book Fest last year, at the end is a link to me reading it live, in case you missed it.
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I sat straight up in bed.
Washington Avenue in uptown Kingston lie in ruins, and it was all my fault.
A hundred yards of asphalt reduced to chunks and powder. Closed not only to trucks and busses but local traffic as well. Hardworking taxpayers, unable to access their own driveways, cursing the City of Kingston.
But it was all MY fault.
FLASHBACK…1976.
Was there a better neighborhood to grow up in during the bicentennial than one that had actually been burned by the British? Colonial stone houses, secret alleyways, haunted funeral homes, you name it.
But perhaps the most subtle attraction was Tannery Brook which flowed silently through the backyards of Uptown, wild and free, in the midst of civilization.
You could catch tadpoles, collect old beer cans, cool your feet in its icy waters if you tiptoed to avoid broken glass.
You could also occasionally fight the forces of nature.
Damming the Brook required strength and engineering skills, to lift rocks and place them effectively. It also required speed and agility, because the biggest single obstacle to damming the Brook was Mr. Jack Porsch, whose home and yard happened to be right next door.
Mr. Porsch would sweep out of nowhere and suddenly be standing over you, eyes bulging, making your life a living hell until every last stone was removed.
He was a formidable adversary who thwarted many attempts. But on those occasions I succeeded? The results were fantastic.
Two and a half backyards flooded. Timed correctly, it’d freeze into a hockey rink—you’d be a neighborhood hero! A summer pond was just as interesting, one year we caught fish!
The 80s came. My teenage pursuits of freedom didn’t so much involve damming the brook. Mr. Porsch, for his part, ran a successful campaign and became Alderman of Ward 5 in the City of Kingston.
Although I’d played Dennis the Menace to his Mr. Wilson, I had to admit it was pretty cool to have an elected official just three doors down.
Funny thing though. Sometime after he got elected, City of Kingston backhoes arrived, and constructed a very elaborate culvert the length of Mr. Porsch’s house and much of his backyard.
I’m not suggesting undue influence, but the attention lavished on our tiny street was impressive considering the number of engineering projects around Kingston remaining unaddressed.
Even if a new generation of brook dammers should rise up to take my place, Mr. Porsch’s backyard was no longer in danger of recreational flooding.
And yet, someone at the engineering department started getting ideas. Like a plastic surgery junkie who starts with a little nip-and-tuck then doesn’t know when to stop, a plan was devised to deal with this pesky brook once & for all.
After running free for thousands of years, the Brook was unceremoniously diverted into the sewer system beneath Washington Avenue. All that was left was a dry bed: The Brook was no more.
Forget the daydreams of generations of kids, or that the Brook was a biome for countless species. Forget history, because didn’t Stuyvesant himself choose this Brook as the southern boundary of the village that would grow into our fair city?
But how could one fail to conceive that on a stormy day, the section of the brook that still raced freely down Linderman might just overtax an aging system that could barely process the rainwater it was already designed to carry?
A mysterious pot hole appeared on Washington Avenue. Not uncommon. The DPW filled it with asphalt.
The hole soon reemerged, only this time it was a sink hole.
The DPW dug deeper, added gravel, regraded a small patch before resurfacing.
This didn’t hold either. The hole continued to reappear, widening each time it reasserted itself, and no one seemed to make the connection.
No one, that is, except for me.
Because I knew that it was ME who’d dammed the brook, which led to Jack Porsch running for Alderman, which led to the culvert on Warren Street, which led to the Brook running into the sewer system…
Culminating in the destruction of a major traffic corridor, the diversion of busses onto quiet side streets, a tax burden of millions, the wrath of countless individuals, and the tragic, permanent relocation of DiBella’s Pizzeria from Washington Avenue onto Lucas.
And it was all my fault…
Or, was it only a dream?
you naughty boy you!!!!
Glad I can still get my weekly Kingston fix. I was dreading a withdrawal...