July 8, 2024

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

(First, for any possible reader out there, my online column, in the air since it morphed from newspaper print in 2006, disappeared for a week or so because the hosting site changed and my words were in suspension, not seen, perhaps a charitable act. Anyway, the proof is that the column is back if you are reading this.)

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There’s been a move afoot – the family abode is now three miles from where it thrived for more than 50 years, a downsizing effort encouraged by son No.1, who lives in Upper Nyack, N.Y. The relocation to the east, close to the Hudson River, seems migratory since I’ve existed in Sloatsburg to the west, then down to Airmont, then Nanuet, Spring Valley, Hillcrest, Pearl River and Blauvelt, all in a march to a beautiful waterway, originally the “Mahicantuck,” the Lenape Native-American name.

Moving makes you pack mixed feelings, especially if you stay in one place for a long time. So many emotions – family growing, thriving, passing. You put down roots and suddenly there is a big tree with awesome branches. And you feed the tree with family history so that each branch knows how it began.

But the time arrives, for some of us, when change, which is constant, pushes you toward the door handle that the young once could not reach but then they did, leaving for adulthood. How many times was that handle turned in every emotion?

Your new location has a door, too, and the hope is for many grand turns ahead, for all comers.

The writer is a retired newspaperman.

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