August 2, 2026

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

There was a particular road in the rural I once knew that offered emotion in summer evening silence as simple but profound as you might write poetry about a tree.

In the heat of August that lingered without respite, with no air conditioning save that in the movies or a few eateries, a night walk to McNamara Road brought a whiff of a breeze on the hill toward Pomona, N.Y. There was utter quiet, a stray streetlight or two on the country utility poles that carried just a few cables for electricity and telephone service. No need yet for more than that because growth, which often seems inevitable, had not yet found McNamara. (It did eventually, and cheers for those who have enjoyed the road, its homes and its people.)

In the former time though, a night walk along McNamara was without much surrounding light. You could then look toward the top of the utility poles and see illumination in the sky, not utter darkness. Cables strung from glass insulators on cross arms provided contrast and directed you down a bit to East Willow Tree Road. Lines of imagination as you walked.

It was the simplicity of it all: The dark kissed by sky illumination, a few cables strung toward infinity, and especially the quiet – all gave relief from summer’s daytime heat, which in its way can be intrusion when you seek no company. Nary a car nor another person about, just crickets.

The writer is a retired newspaperman.

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