Twenty-Five Acres of Memory
A childhood paradise and an adolescent prison, resurrected one image at a time
I made a list of random memories a couple of years ago, while walking my dogs along the Gihon River in Vermont, speaking them into my phone one at a time. They were research for the memoir I was writing, but they became something else: a raw inventory of childhood at Ledge Acres, our 1865 farmhouse on 25 acres in Armonk, New York. What I love about these illustrations is the way they reimagine some of my fondest, funniest, saddest, and most meaningful moments — giving them a life beyond words.
Rusty brought home a deer haunch.
Climbing the big pine and surveying my kingdom.
That Christmas when we all got skis and the presents filled the living room. It was epic. Looking in from outside the living room window into the Christmas tree environment there. And seeing the lights standing out in the deep snow and the warmth of our home. Nana putting on the tinsel one strand at a time. Ever so carefully. And then you show up and try to do it and she’d be like, no, you have to do it like this. It was beautiful the way she did it.
Nana’s grand mal epileptic seizure in the living room. And my mother telling me to go get a spoon, a wooden spoon. Just the sheer terror of watching that.
Peeking in on Jimmy Matsudo, our Japanese gardener, meditating in his room. I think he was just wearing shorts and had cones of incense on his knees. He was in the yoga position. He let them burn all the way down without flinching.
Jimmy Matsudo telling me if you hurt your leg to lay on your back and put your leg up in the air and shake it.
Playing on the cliffs out back and then falling. And when I landed, I saw a rock right next to my head, like a big rock. If I had landed a foot the other way, I’d probably be dead. Also knocked the wind out of myself and came running into the house sucking air.
Nana telling us, oh, you want to smoke? I’ll help you smoke. So we rolled cigars out of shopping bags and lit them. Boy, we never wanted to smoke again after that.
Nana, if you hurt her feelings, would give you the silent treatment for a few days. The sheer torture of that withholding.
The beer party up in the field. All the cars went up on a perfect summer night. You could hear them raging. My father called the cops. One squad car goes up. All the teenagers’ cars come back. And then the next day my brother and I walked up there and found all these empty beer cans and a few full ones that were warm from being in the sun and we sprayed each other with them.
Waking up early to go on fishing trips with my father and the Murphys. The excitement of setting the clock and getting up and finding the worms and going fishing was such a huge thing.
Playing in forts.
Jimmy Matsudo teaching me how to make cuttings of Marigolds, then place them in the sand tray so they could grow roots.
The Murphy’s train set table with realistic mountains, tunnels, all the artistry and time that Roger put into that train thing was amazing.
Catching a glimpse of the giant snake in the Murphy’s basement.
Dutchess, the Murphy’s German shepherd attacking me as I was walking down the driveway. Sinking its teeth into my left thigh, leaving two deep puncture wounds. Roger screaming at me, “you were scared shitless.” Yeah I was, thank you for reminding me. Another time it bit my brother in the face and then later it bit someone in town on their buttocks and had to be put down.
Carving sports cars out of balsa wood in my room with sailing ships wallpaper I picked out.
Molding my own soldiers. And then the mold was wet and the lead popped back out and landed on my hand. Right between my thumb and my forefinger on my wrist. Took all the skin right off.
My mother taking me to see Emile at Fox & Sutherland to get my first camera
Getting my first typewriter. I think it was a Royal. I fell in love with it.
Getting a skateboard and having those cool slip-on sneakers. Riding the new pavement on Byram Lake Road.
Loved my pompadour. And my blue jeans.
Going to Yankee Stadium with my father. Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle. How much I loved the Yankees.
Horseback riding lessons at Sunnyfield Farms. The Palomino horse I loved. That time falling over the handlebars and getting the wind knocked out of me.
Rolling the station wagon out of the driveway. Joy riding and then getting busted because somebody saw me and told my mother.
My father telling me that I couldn’t have tea or coffee until I was 14. Thinking it would never come.
Going with my father to North White Plains to get the racing form on the weekend. Along with the Herald Tribune. And then he made me read the articles to him in the car. Like a 45 minute trip.
Going to Aqueduct Racetrack with him and hating it. That time I found the $20 on the ground. And the screaming of the fans as a two minute race unfolded. Surge of that energy. Toxic.
Going to the yearling sales in Saratoga with my father, and seeing the way he would admire the rich swells like the Phipps and the Melons. Him telling me the best way to become successful is to find someone who is highly successful, and become indispensable to him…
My father taking me to West Point for a tour and me hating it.
My father telling me that since I had to go to Vietnam that I might as well join ROTC so that I could go as an officer, not a grunt. Me refusing, saying i’d rather flee to Canada than die in a rice paddy because of the “domino theory”
The time my father almost caught that giant brown trout in the mianus gorge. He was wearing waders. I had the net and he was telling me to get over with the net and then just as I was about to get it, it flipped off and got away.
