12/31/2025
Christmas in upstate New York. Always an extra special time of year because it’s also my son Leo’s birthday on the 27th. And this year was extra EXTRA special because he turned 21!
My mom lives in Johnstown, New York, which is a sweet little town at the foothills of the Adirondacks, filled to the brim with history. My morning walk often took me to Johnson Hall, a gorgeous historic site near where my mom lives. A colonial cemetery stands sentinel nearby.
My visit home would not have been complete without going to Canajoharie, the town I grew up in. My old town was all gussied up for the holidays. I was delighted to see that the “dummy light” was back, one of only a few standing traffic lights in the country! A car crashed into it a few years back and they finally replaced it with a new light! It was fun to take a walk down memory lane with Leo. We stopped by the first school I went to, West Hill, on the NYS historic registry because Susan B Anthony taught there. Much before I went to school there 😂!
Apparently, the vultures really like Canjo. We saw many lurking about. Leo and I savored the post-industrial beauty of this place, harkening back to the days that Canjo was a factory town. Did you know the flat-bottomed paper bag was invented in Canajoharie?
For the first time, I went to Jim’s Irish Harbor, which has been there forever and played pool and had a pint with my 21-year old son! Very upstate New York! It may sound strange, but this was one of my favorite moments in my visit.
What’s the saying…”You can never really go home?”
I may no longer live in this place, but there’s still a part of me there. I’m a Mainer now, but I’ll always be a girl from upstate NY.
