A Brief Visit to Liberty, New York

 

Liberty is a part of the Catskill Mountain region of New York, It is also where my grandparents on my mother's side lived and raised their kids, including my mom. Their home in this town figured prominently for much of my life, particularly as a kid growing up.

Since then, I have not gotten here as often as I would have liked to. And now with my own son, I realize that perhaps he was not there nearly as often as he should have been, even for brief visits. In fact, prior to this admittedly brief visit on our way back from western New York state to visit my mom, I could only remember having brought him up there twice before, once in 2010 (with both of my parents and me, along with him) and once much more recently, in 2010. Both times, he was still mostly a kid.

This time, he was much closer to being a grown man. My aunt still lives in the house, so we thought it would be good to at least pay a brief visit, even just having lunch together. This we did, and my son wanted to explore, particularly outside. He remembered some of the pictures, particularly from the earliest visit. And so we went outside together, and tried to recreate some of those old pictures, to update them, if you will.

Below are some of the pictures from this recent trip (from Wednesday the 12th, just two days ago as I write this now).

Enjoy!

An old rotary phone without even an actual dial, which I remember from my own childhood, but which now is actually a bit of a source of fascination to me.

The garage at the end of the driveway, close to the house. I remember before this was built, and how it felt new. Now, it is looking a bit more aged. As a kid, we used to play ping pong here with my father. 

My son in Liberty 2010:

My son in Liberty in 2023:

2010:

2023:

My son by the Liberty sign, 2018:

My son by the Liberty sign, 2023:

Liberty is a part of the Catskill Mountain region of New York:

The house as it looks now, above and below, with the garage in the picture. 

Some Pictures of Liberty From the Past:

Another picture of my grandparents on what looks to be their wedding day. This one was taken on a sunny day in front of their house at Liberty, New York. 

Another picture from what appears to be the wedding day of my grandparents in front of the house in Liberty, although I cannot admittedly identify who exactly the other people in the picture are. 

A picture from inside of the dining room in Liberty, New York. Presumably, like the other pictures, this was taken on my grandparent's wedding day, although I could be wrong about that. 

Another picture of some members of my family from well before my own birth. I believe that this is the road in Liberty in front of the house, back when it was a much quieter, more wooded area. If I am right, this is at the corner of the property heading towards neighboring Loch Sheldrake, and nearby these days, there is a cement mixing factory. 

This is one of my personal favorite pictures of Liberty. Here is my immediately family, with my mom and my father, my brother in between them, and me (the youngest) sprawled across all of them. This also shows the brown, false wood carpet, the brown curtains hiding the storage shed behind, the orange sofa, and the tables with the Buddha-style lamps. This picture was taken sometime in the early eighties. 

During some cleaning a few years ago, I unearthed some old pictures from my childhood. Here are some pictures of me when very young, flirting with being a Dallas Cowboys fan. It was between them, the Giants, or the Jets, with my grandfather and my brother being Jets fans. The Cowboys were the flashiest team, and at the time, a model of success, so they appealed to me, before I got some sense and gravitated towards my natural favorite, the New York Giants. But this particular jersey - a Rawlings jersey with the distinctive name of the team on the front of the jersey just above the numbers, which was the style at the time - lasted me years and years. I was much older in the latter two pictures, but still wore that damn jersey, even though the numbers had faded and were hard to see following a laundry mishap. Lol!

And here is another picture from Liberty, which I thought would be appropriate to add here. I posted a similar picture some time ago back when I found another, similar set of pictures. But this one is slightly different. Again, this was from sometime in the early eighties (possibly, but not probably, even the late seventies), although I really could not be specific with the year. 

Here are some other, somewhat related pictures - including that similar picture to the above which I mentioned earlier - from us in Liberty, back in the early eighties:

My grandfather (left) and my father (right) holding either me or my brother for this picture, either from the late seventies or early eighties (not sure which). 

A relatively more recent picture of my son in Liberty from a visit we took back in 2018.

Some more pictures in and around Liberty: