AS TIME GOES BY

We drove further northeast through more country roads in Pennsylvania and then our navigator hostess suddenly welcomed us to New Jersey. We didn’t linger in the Garden State since we were on a mission to get to our camp in New York. Our park was just north of Newburgh, which is about sixty miles north of downtown New York City. Let us say emphatically, we were out in the sticks.

The silver lining is that we were in the Hudson River Valley. The leaves had not really turned autumnal, but it was beautiful. We took the opportunity to visit the home of Franklin Roosevelt near Hyde Park in Dutchess County. We went on a tour of the house led by a Ranger with the U.S. Parks Department. He explained the ins and outs of life at Springwood. We have to say that we’ve never lived at a house with a name. We got to see how the rich cats lived.

FDR’s parents owned the house when he was born and he spent many wonderful years there. As a child he developed a love of birds and became a local authority on birds and he was more than happy to share his extensive field notes on his “birding outings.” In addition to his love of birds, he was also quite the collector of model ships, stamps, and coins. At FDR’s death, his collection of stamps included very rare items and numbered more than a million. FDR also got his political start there, and hosted dignitaries there like King George VI, Queen Elizabeth, and Winston Churchill. The story goes that Winston would “cannonball” into the pool and visit FDR later in the evening for a drink and a chat, sometimes holding court with FDR “au naturale.”

FDR’s mother, Sara, lived there with FDR and Eleanor. FDR kept his mother, the queen bee, ensconced in the largest bedroom suite until her death. His mother was a stereotypical mother-in-law: my boy can do no wrong and she was mean to Eleanor. Mean with a smile. Mama was so loving that she commissioned a portrait of herself for FDR and placed it in FDR’s bedroom. Eww.

During the summers when Eleanor would take the children to Springwood, she still insisted that they continue their studies, even half-days on Saturdays. She also declined to have electricity or a telephone to be installed in the house. She treasured a peaceful and productive environment.

The museum for the FDR National Historic Site was really interesting. One of the guys who worked there told us he had been welcoming people there for seventeen years. He said that the upstairs was a repository of about 20 million documents from FDR’s presidential years. He said that he had read about 17 million and wanted to get through the rest by the time he retired next year. Hmmm. He reminded us of Walter Banks, the usher in for the Atlanta Braves who has worked for the Braves since they came to Atlanta in 1966 and he’s now over 80 years old. He’s an ambassador and an entertainer.

We saw the garden where FDR and Eleanor are buried. Beautiful. Fala, their famous Scottish Terrier, and Chief, a German Shepherd, also owned by FDR are buried there as well. Then, we drove the three miles to see Val-Kill, Eleanor’s retreat. We liked it better. Much more homey. By the way, if you have the opportunity, we suggest that you read Eleanor, the biography by David Michaelis. The Roosevelts were achievers and, despite their upper crust upbringing, seemed to have a heart for the working people and poor of our nation.

Springwood has a view of the Hudson River. The Roosevelts were one of many rich families who had homes by the Hudson. For instance, we drove through the grounds of the Vanderbilts’ mansion just up the road from the Roosevelts’ place. The Hudson River is beautiful and much wider than we had imagined. The valley is a huge forests with incredible hunks of rock formations.

If you ask a hundred people for their opinion about the Roosevelts, you’ll probably get a hundred and one different opinions. New Deal. That was good policy. That was bad policy. Putting people back to work. That was brilliant. That was socialism. Court-packing. Political overreach and unconstitutional. No, that would engender broader diversity of opinion. Mistresses and same-sex partners. That was independence and showed they were good political partners. No, that was immoral and hurtful. One of the cats on our tour said his father always believed FDR was a criminal. We think of the Roosevelts as great people who weren’t perfect.

FDR was elected President in the 30s and, significantly, he was the President when the USA declared war after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. While we visited locations associated with the Roosevelts, we thought about the music that was being produced during that time. So many big bands, jazz ensembles, and of course, the songs in the moving picture shows. One of our favorite movies is Casablanca. It came out in 1942 while FDR was President. “As Time Goes By,” the song made famous by the film, was written by Herman Hupfield for a 1931 Broadway show, “Everybody’s Welcome.” Dooley Wilson sang the song in Casablanca.

That evening, we had dinner at Essie’s, which is a small restaurant in Poughkeepsie. The town is built on the hills which run down to the Hudson River. Very quaint and cozy. We went to Essie’s because we saw it featured on a CBS Saturday morning show and we liked the chef, Brandon Walker. Our meal didn’t disappoint. Betty had the Jambalaya Croquettes and Buster had Cavatelli. Essie was Mr. Walker’s grandmother who taught him and inspired him to preserve their Jamaican heritage. The chef has put a sophisticated spin on food inspired by Jamaica and the Carribean islands.

The next day we drove to Kingston, which is a town on the west side of the Hudson River. Kingston is 91 miles north of New York City and 59 miles south of Albany. As early as 1614, the Dutch had set up a trading post in the area which became Kingston. In 1652, the Esopus people ceded land to the Dutch and they established a permanent settlement. Kingston became New York's first capital in 1777. During the American Revolutionary War, the British burned the city on October 13, 1777, after the Battle of Saratoga.

Again, we had seen a Kingston restaurant featured on CBS Saturday morning, so we sought it out. Top Taste is the creation of a husband and wife who love their Jamaican heritage. Albert Bartley and his wife Malenda have been serving great food and filling the streets with the smells of Jamaican spices since the early 2000’s. Albert was nominated for Best Chef in New York State by the James Beard Award in 2020 and 2022. The restaurant has also been featured in Bon Appetit’s list of America’s favorite neighborhood restaurants in 2018. We sampled the real deal. Buster had goat stew and Betty had chicken curry. Yum. Plus, Top Taste is a tiny little place built into a triangular-shaped building. There’s just enough room for locals to come and go, so we felt lucky to get the chance to experience it. Another part of the cool factor for us is the fact that the restaurant is smack in the middle of a neighborhood which is not going to make a list for most desirable neighborhoods. In fact, we saw Barbie doing some nude sun-bathing on her porch. She didn’t care. We glanced but just kept on walking. We toured downtown and then stopped for a cup of joe at Village Coffee and Goods. Average coffee in a nice setting.

More later,

Betty and Buster

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