My favorite stretch of road these days is Route 136 that runs 1.7 miles from Center Rd in Easton to the light at the Intersection with Route 58.
The journey begins, at the Intersection of Center and 136, and it is one of my favorite places… two white Church buildings stand on opposite sides of the road, diagonally across is a small general store with two gas pumps, and just as the road begins its dip, there is a historical building, also white, that was once a one room class room… and that is now a historical building. It looks like a tool shed. Maybe that’s where the Town of Easton keeps its lawn care equipment.
At that point 136 begins its descent from a ridge line. The road serpentines its way thru a wooded region that hugs the narrow lane. With each turn the road drops altitude, then in a brief straight away there is a series of descending bumps that gives the ride a roller coaster feel.
Even without great speed, the road is a hoot to drive. Towards the end of this section, the road takes a good bend down and to the right as it approaches the lower tip of the Aspetuck Reservoir & the Route 58 light. Savvy drivers apply their brakes before entering the bend, knowing that lurking out of sight is a nesting place for the despised gendarmes.
These days the blacktop is sprinkled with dried leaves… and some portions of the road are beginning to show an early accumulation. On this day I am trailing in the wake of a car (a fancy Lexus) that is speeding off into dawn’s grey light. If that cop isn’t busy eating a donut he will nail his ass for sure.
In the meantime, Mr. Fancy Lexus has kicked up the leaves and re-scattered them before me. I feel like I am flying thru the leaves. It’s fun. But not as much fun as riding a bike thru a leaf pile.
Let’s say that it’s 1960.
Tom Singelton is on his way to leading the Yale Varsity to an undefeated and untied season on the gridiron. It’s late October and most of the Elms and Maples in New Haven have lost their complement of leaves.
This was in the day before leaf blowers and leaf suckers, and the common implement for leaf removal was the rake.
Homeowners had already organized leaves into neat berms that lined the streets of Westville. This was also the time when a few folks would burn their leaves. I loved that smell. I would go thru the neighborhood seeking the guy in a tweed cap & cardigan sweater, piped clenched in his teeth, tending his simmering pile of leaves with the same love and care that he looked after the Borkum Riff burning in his pipe. The aroma of those charred leaves was intoxicating!
Bessie would tell me that in her native North Carolina folks would bury potatoes to roast at the base of their burning leaf piles. Sort of a “leaf crock pot”!
Geeze, does that sound good! Too bad that environmental concerns have put burning leaves on the same level as bus exhaust. I mean, would you but a ‘tater in the exhaust pipe of a bus? I don’t think so!
Jumping in a leaf pile is good, too! Although it was not as much fun as jumping into a snow bank. One time I must have overestimated the depth of a leaf pile, or in its ability to cushion a landing; but I hit my tush on Alston Avenue with a force that I can still remember.
Maybe that’s why I preferred just trudging about in a leaf pile… not that disrupting a neat pile pleased the architect of the pile.
Then there was the day when I acquired bike riding skills and “two wheel proficiency”. Now I could hit and run… ride thru tidy leaf piles and flee the scene before the guy with the hat and the pipe discovered the crime.
And then there was the day when even that was not enough.
No… I would take my bike to the top of the hill on Chapel St., which at the time I thought had the vertical drop of the Matterhorn. This was the staging area for my downward run. I waited ’til no cars were in sight and then I pedaled down the hill… furiously pedaling, gaining speed ’till the three-quarter mark, then coasted into the turn on to Alston Avenue.
I cut the corner on the turn, then went wide to begin my run thru the leaves that our neighbors had put on the street. The first two homes (which included my own), I hit with pure speed… I would raise my legs off the pedals… at my selected point of attack, the depth of the leaf pile would have been six inches or less… but those leaves flew as surely as if I had been driving a Ferrari (or even a fancy Lexus).
After two homes, I would have to begin pedaling again to regain speed, and to continue my strafing run. Pile after pile, leaves being lifted from their cozy piles, darting and dancing in the currents… and I was the instrument of their chaos.
Yes, I love driving the twisting path of Route 136. In the absence of a row of well conceived leaf piles, the arbitrary placement of leaves on 136 is fine and good… even if I have to follow Mr. Fancy Lexus.
I wonder what would happen if I put a spud in his tailpipe?