Day, the Twenty Third

There is a World Elsewhere

There are towns and then there are Towns. I’d like to tell you about one, lost in the fog of car exhaust and crumbling brick.

Back during the Revolution, George Washington stayed overnight in Canajoharie, NY, at the Van Alstyne home. The house still exists. (I wonder if there’s a field guide out there of places where George Washington slept.)

The town was consumed by fire twice, the result of which is most of the historic downtown is made up of brick or mined local stone.

Susan B. Anthony taught school here. Actor Chad Michael Collins was born here. (Trust me, look him up.) George Mitchell, the founder of Cadillac, Michigan hails from Canajoharie. And Myron Frederick "Moose" Grimshaw, the star right fielder for the Boston Americans from 1905 to 1907 was raised here.

And before all that, Canajoharie, which is Mohawk for the “the pot that washes itself” was a critical hunting ground and fur trade route for the indiginous peoples that lived in the area. That pot: A great circular pothole in the Coanajoharie Creek just south of the town center.

From 1890 to 2011, Canajoharie was a company town, the Beech-Nut baby food producer company more specifically. The broken remains of the factory still remains, as shattered and torn as the town itself. When Beech-Nut left, Canajoharie crumbled along wth it.

And so, here we are, amid the slumping brick. But Canajoharie has a heartbeat. Faint, but it’s there. We find ourselves eating an early lunch at a hole-in-the-wall called Taco 29 (named after the exit on the nearby Thuway). The space is orange and yellow with brown faux leather chairs. Little Bean plays with a row of plastic cacti perched on a windowsill near our bare table. There is hot sauce nearby, and silver plastic forks. There is, inexplicably, cheesecake in the nearly empty Coke cooler.

There is country music piping in over the speakers above our heads.

Our food comes - crunchy, crumbly tacos with refried beans and a steak burrito on a cold tortilla and a taco bowl so overly packed with tangy onions that I’ll be tasting them for the rest of the day.

It is all so utterly, perfectly, generously terrible. The owners are direct and friendly, working hard to make us happy. The joint, like the town with its art galleries and “historic” museums, is swinging so aggressively for the bleachers that it’s hard not to smile. Like somebody wearing mismatched socks, or dancing on a street corner, they might be crazy or they might be crazy like a fox. Who knows.

After our meal, which Little Bean gives a 9 out of 10 because of the beans, we chat up the hostess about that Canajoharie pothole. She gives me a string of driving instructions.

“Are there signs?” I ask.

“Oh no no,” she says and laughs, and I understand. Signs would be, I don’t know, too easy.

But it’s not that hard to find. We follow the creek down a dead end road with the remains of an office warehouse on one side and an ancient, light blue house with a Wal-Mart’s worth of kids’ bicycles in the front yard on the other. You can see the pothole from a perch above the creek. Industrial culverts pop out of the retaining walls and the pothole looks more like a sluice than the circular natural formation of our imaginations.

“That’s it?” Little Bean asks.

“That’s it,” I say.

“Well how about that,” she says, pointing to the enormous, crumbling structure across the street.

We stand looking at it for a moment, all weeds and orange brick powder, and concrete. My wife, who has remained in the care (“In case you need a quick get-away,” she said) sees us staring at the monstrosity. She smiles and nods her head in the direction of the remains.

“Let’s go,” I say. Canajoharie calls. We answer.