June 28, 2026

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

If the summer morn rises with the warming sun and birds chirping; if there is no vehicle in sight off the Old Nyack Turnpike in Spring Valley, N.Y.; if there is a wildflower and oat-straw field; if all this is true despite being 2026 in built-up urban-suburbia, then it is really 1952.

Youth back then, before the post-war housing boom that advanced the middle class, woke up on Saturday or Sunday mornings wondering what to do, especially if your mom wanted you out of the house so she could clean. You had to get lost and find things to do.

In Spring Valley, and many other areas of Rockland County, N.Y., one thing to do in June was to look for wild strawberries, maybe raspberries and later in the summer wild blueberries. The strawberries and raspberries were intertwined with the oat straw, which by the way is called “haverstroo” in Dutch. The local township – Haverstraw (1666) – honors that name. Dutch sailors saw that the hillsides off the Hudson River were covered in oat straw.

Usually the fruit we youth picked, as with the later blueberries and grapes, was small and bitter, but mixed with sugar a treat, especially if you did not have any coins in your pocket to buy three Bachmann pretzel sticks for 5 cents.

Yet it was the search for fruit that was the treat; the marvel that nature returned each summer with these jewels of color after harsh winters. You had to move your hands a bit in the straw or the field to find the fruit.

It was simple activity on a warming morn, something to do while you got lost so your mom could clean the house without you in the way.

The writer is a retired newspaperman.

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