Keuka

We are still learning this place, but Sunday decided to re-plow old ground and wander one of our favorite venues, the western shore of Keuka Lake.

Keuka is unusual among the Finger Lakes in that it is shaped like a "Y", while the rest are long, thin, north-south fjords dug out by glaciers during the last big Ice Age. It is ringed by expensive second homes and the occasional restaurant (one of which served us the worst nachos we've ever encountered last year, on my birthday. Barbeque sauce should never be served on nachos. How did we lose the war to these guys?). As one ascends the steep hills on every side, wineries emerge from the woods, along with the occasional brewery. The wine is, well, insipid, but after the first three glasses we never really notice the difference. Sometimes we'll buy a bottle in that tipsy state, thinking we'll bring home that wonderful feeling when we uncork the Cab Franc one night after work. Inevitably, when that evening arrives our response is more like "what in the hell were we thinking?"

This time on the way up we stopped at the Curtiss Museum, which documents the achievements of Hammondsport's favorite son, Glenn Curtiss. Armed with a tenth grade education, Curtiss designed bicycles, then motorcycles, then airplanes that were the wonder of the era. You probably remember one of the last in the Curtiss line, the P-40 Warhawk flown by the Flying Tigers in China during WW2.

They also have a really kickin' antique car collection spanning five decades.

Curtiss himself never saw the Warhawk, or most of these cars for that matter, having died of appendicitis in 1930 at the ripe old age of 52. He was on his way to court to engage in patent litigation in Buffalo at the time. I wonder if he would've bothered, knowing that was going to be his last day. We waste our days as if they're infinite, and I can think of few things as wasteful as the petty disputes that have sustained my profession for the last couple millennia.

I digress.

After the museum, we drove through Hammondsport, at the southern tip of Keuka, and up the hill to Heron Hill Winery. Peg sent me pictures of herself at an outing there with friends two years ago, and it truly has breathtaking views across the lake.

Of course, that was then and this is now. Masks are mandatory, and you have to call for a reservation before showing up for a wine tasting because of social distancing requirements. There's a reason the infection rate here is 1%, and it's 13% back in the panhandle. We bought a bottle of dry rose and moved along.

Next stop was Bully Hill Winery, just down the road. This was more to our liking because they had outdoor dining, and an amazing lunch menu. Peg tried the brie with champagne, and I went with roasted garlic and one of those insipid reds I was just complaining about. I made sure P ate some garlic as well, lest any notions of a later amorous encounter prove in vain.

And yes, the photos don't lie--it was chilly and windy up there, and we ate bundled up.

After lunch we headed back toward home. Just south of the lake we found one of those roadside farmer's produce stands with an honor box and a treasure trove of squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, onions, and farm fresh eggs from the farm next door. I did math to figure out what all we could buy with the $10 bill in my pocket, while P snapped photos of their barn.

As we were pulling back on the state highway, I noticed a campaign sign announcing a political affiliation for the farm family that was not my own. We rationalized that they probably wouldn't contribute the money we just dropped into the honor box to that bad person's campaign, and NY's electoral votes were not in doubt.

There are a lot of those signs once one gets out into the hinterland. The most baffling came as we drove into Bath, a crumbling but charming little town with the main courthouse for Steuben County, a big VA hospital, dwindling population, and per capita income well under $20k a year. It's truly seen better days.

So why are these guys so excited about the incumbent?

The diverse population we saw walking down the sidewalks and enjoying the afternoon air on their porches may have been a clue. It may also explain the Confederate flag, emblazoned with that perennial statement of faith, "The South Shall Rise Again."

Indeed. The ironies of this spectacle are twofold, here in the frozen north. First, it wasn't that long ago that the region's biggest employer was the POW camp just down the road in Elmira, at which thousands of underclad Southern prisoners froze or starved to death. This guy's great grandpa may well have been guarding a relative of mine or Peg's, who was captured serving under that banner.

The second irony is even more profound. This particular house is crouched at the bottom of a hill with a well-kept old war memorial erected by the GAR, most likely, in the last decades of the 19th century. Atop stands sentry a Union soldier (as always, much better equipped than the marble rebels you find in the courthouse squares back home), rifle cradled in the crook of his arm, gazing south toward the enemy. On each side of the monument are the names of the battles where the sons of Bath fell going on two centuries ago--Gettysburg, Antietam, Mobile. What would those young men think, looking down the hill at their descendant in his wife-beater, proclaiming fealty to a candidate who stands for everything they fought to eradicate, a true divider, and displaying a flag that has no meaning in these parts other than tribalism and race hatred?

Who knows, really. Soldiers don't go into battle for a cause--trust me on that one. They do, however, if they survive, fold that cause into their later narrative of their lives, who they were and what they stood for. Maybe Cletus's great-great grandfather just joined to go shoot rebels. But that's not the story we as a country remember. One thing is almost certain, however--the guy who owns the front porch in that photo didn't give any of this much thought.

On that cheery note, it is time to turn this gray, drizzly morning of faint light and hazy hills into billable hours. And so it goes.