and, as we grow, become a reservoir, gathered by steep stone walls, then shot over a spillway, and sent with purpose to countless people with a desperate thirst. Don’t discount the power of your own water. It is worth more than millions. The more we look back to the places we grew up, the more we understand the significance of home. Julia Bobkoff grew up in Croton-on-Hudson and is remembered by one of her elementary school classmates as “The first person I knew who self-identified as a writer.” She is a screenwriter, violinist, and is currently at work on a historical novel. *
unholy place. Our woods were deep, our rivers deeper still. A summer current could swallow up even the best, young swimmer or spit him back out, we never knew which. It was a town where, just like the dam, no quitters were tolerated, you either hit a home run out of the park or got back in the dugout and vowed to try again. And if you got a black eye fighting over the score, just like the rioters did laying down their hammers, you still got back up and put your head in the game. The wounds of fighters were worn in Croton like a badge of honor. And if you had to get another black eye on the way home, you did because we lived by our fists as much as our
of the divers, seeking the pilot, accidentally swam through a window from one of the old buildings submerged during dam construction. He had to find his way out blindly, an eerie, death-defying experience. On a brighter note, Donna Nikic, another childhood friend, remembers walking across the top of the dam in the fall. She describes the experience as being caught up “in a painting of the most amazing, deep colors.” Winter also captivated her; she especially loved “the collection of icicles that formed along the lower falls and the patterns they generated.” One of my strongest memories involves a special meeting at the dam. My father, who was adopted, had gone on a long search and found his birth family. The big day finally arrived when he wanted me to meet my great grandmother. The staging area for this auspicious event was, of course, the Croton Dam. I was 14 at the time and I remember meeting her at a parking lot overlooking the reservoir. Her car approached slowly across the narrow span of the dam. I saw tufts of white hair through the window and a small, inquisitive face. Finally, they pulled into the lot and she stepped out. It was a windy day and in the distance I could hear the roaring of the reservoir as it chugged over the spillway and shot into the gorge. When she saw me she held out her hands and said, “You are the spitting image of me. I had thick braids just like that when I was your age.” That first hug is somehow mixed with the memory of that raw, wonderful place. And what a place it was! I grew up with the great grandchildren of those first immigrant laborers. The last names of those brave stonemasons, written in the history books of dam construction, were the same names scrawled in childish print across the tops of school papers. I laughed and fought, climbed trees, and hit balls with the best of them—all those scrappy, independent, strong- willed descendants of dam builders. I would not be who I am today without rubbing shoulders with all of them. Many of my friends displayed the stoic attributes of their forefathers, men who shouldered burdens without complaint, crossing themselves and offering up prayers to St. Michael before inching along the slatted bridges that swung over the hollow of the dam. In my town there were always church bells ringing and the stone of their structures not only came from the same quarries as the dam but were often built by the same men. After a long day of work many of them met up at the local bars. Ah, Croton--you wild, untamed, holy and
CROTON DAM PHOTO COURTESY OF
WESTCHESTER COUNTY TOURISM AND FILM
adventurous spirit. And like the Hudson itself, which originated from a cold, clear tarn at the top of the Adirondacks, and traveled through Feldspar Brook and the Opalescent River--great distances--to finally touch our shores, we were all a work in progress, our origins pure, our current pressing south, or sometimes flowing both ways. Even the Lenape tribe knew nothing was predictable. Towns and their constructions, childhoods and memory, somehow become a seamless whole. Just as the New Croton Dam combined a manmade flow of steps with the natural rocks of a waterfall, all of us are a construction of engineering and natural flow. Our individual stories may begin as a raw river
CROTON GORGE PHOTO COURTESY OF
WESTCHESTER COUNTY TOURISM AND FILM
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