Tag: Binghamton

Almost drowned, almost arrested

Rockbottom Dam in the Susquehanna River in Binghamton, NY

My dear friend Carol, who I’ve only known since kindergarten, sent me this link to a WNBF radio story, “Rockbottom Dam Removal To Be Studied By City of Binghamton.” That would be in my hometown. She asked, “Didn’t you almost drown there?”  

I replied, “Why, yes, I did. And I almost got arrested for skinny dipping the same day.”  Carol noted, “I see a blog here, unless you’ve already done that.” No, I had not noted when I almost drowned. I said, “Okay, a blog post it will be! Thanks. I always need content.”

First, a bit of description. “The Rockbottom Dam, which has been a fixture in the Susquehanna River for two centuries, might become a thing of the past.” I did not know this: “According to historians, the dam was built in 1828 to power a nearby gristmill. The city acquired the structure several decades ago to control river levels for the nearby water filtration plant.”

And: “Three Binghamton firefighters died in the flood-swollen river near the Rockbottom Dam over a two-day period in September 1975. The mayor said the dam continues to pose a ‘‘huge safety risk’ for the downtown district and prevents people from safely using the river.”

Sketchy recollection

Here’s the thing, though: I don’t remember a lot of the details of my misadventure. For instance, it was likely in the summer of 1970, when I would have bicycled there. But it could have been the year before or after. I don’t know what month it was.

Obviously, it was hot enough for me to decide to go swimming. It was a spontaneous decision to go into the river. I didn’t have a swimsuit, but I figured I wouldn’t be seen from the nearby Brandywine Highway. I was only in the water above the dam for about five minutes when I obviously got too close to the undertow. For about 30 seconds, I was pretty sure I was going to die.

I have never been a strong swimmer, though I was pretty good at holding my breath underwater, a skill I honed from hanging out in the above-ground pool in the backyard of my maternal grandmother’s next door neighbors; one of the girls who lived there was one of my sister Leslie’s best friends.

In any case, I made it to the shoreline. I put on my underwear, pants, and shirt. At that point, two city of Binghamton cops came toward me from the roadway. One asked, “We got a report of a man skinny dipping here. Were you skinny dipping?” I lied, “no.” The cops looked at each other, shrugged, and one said, “Okay, then.”

I went home. I don’t recall that I told anyone, such as my family, though OBVIOUSLY I told friend Carol. I don’t remember doing that either.       

BCHS reunion

Mount Prospect

Binghamton Central High School, NYIT’S ALL JAZZ: Saturday, September 26, on what would have been my father’s 100th birthday. After breakfast, Cee and hubby went to a scarecrow event; they brought their own straw and other accouterments.

I spoke to a couple of cousins, my sister Leslie, and others.

PLANNED (I LOVE planned!) My friend Bill picked me up for my BCHS reunion. That’s Binghamton Central High School. It merged with Binghamton North in 1982, but the school is still the building that Rod Serling and I attended (not together), though it has been expanded.

Bill came with his wonderful wife, Brenda, and his nifty sister, Wendy.  The event was at Ely Park Golf Course on Mount Prospect, which I believe is the northernmost point of the Appalachian Mountains.

The base of the mountain was very close to my grandmother’s house when I was growing up, but I hadn’t really been up there in decades, not since they took down the steps that ran from Prospect and Oak Streets up a couple of hundred steps. They tore them down when they built the “new” Route 17 in the early 1970s.

The upside was seeing Lois, like Bill, another Dickinson alum, and a bunch of other folks. There were fewer people than five years ago, but for me, the crowd was more manageable. Kudos to Helen, Sharon, Bonnie, and Susie for organizing the event.

The downside was that it was REALLY windy at times, so the staff people putting out the food thought it prudent to turn off the flames under the heating trays. I had a cold hamburger late in the 2 to 6 pm window, which wasn’t terrible. Fortunately, I had my autumn jacket.

Improv

PLANNED: Cee and spouse picked me up, and we went to the UU church, where I first heard the Beatles’ white album in 1968; ah, the LRY (Liberal Religious Youth) that my high school friend was involved with.

We saw the improv group Cherry Bomb, which has nothing to do with the song by The Runaways.

A member of the audience suggested the beloved Binghamton location for the group to riff on: the Rod Serling statue. One performer misheard it as the Ron Serling statue; fortunately, the piano player had attended Binghamton University, so he was required to know who Rod Serling was.

It was entertaining enough. I laughed a lot. But they must have had some bits already in their performance arsenal.

At about 10:30 pm, I received an email: my Flix/Greyhound bus back to Syracuse and then Albany, scheduled for Sunday afternoon at 2 pm, had been canceled. I don’t know why. I got a refund. It’s a good thing I had a backup plan.

Mixed together

Speaking of the reunion and the white album: when I was in high school, I rewrote “Back in the USSR” in my head as “Back at BCHS” (ain’t you a mess).

Those Central girls really knock me out

They leave the North High behind

And Central girls make me sing and shout

That Bulldog’s on my-my-my-my-my-my-my-my mind. 

The Bulldogs were Central’s mascot, the blue and white. North’s were the Indians, the blue and red. Now Binghamton High School – red, white, and blue – are the Patriots, of course.

Binghamton: This happened instead

FlixBus

When I mused about Binghamton, NY, and the weekend of September 25-27, I had a plan, though only part of it took place. This happened instead.

(This, by necessity, is in parts because the damn thing went 1800 words.)

PLANNED: Friday, September 25: I was writing a Sunday Stealing post, but I ran out of time. But I’m taking the laptop; I’ll finish it later. Right?

PLANNED: I was going to get a ride from a friend, but she’s taking care of a dear friend of hers, whom I know.

NEW PLAN: Once upon a time, I could take a bus from Albany to Binghamton, but that’s what popped up. So I took a Greyhound bus to Syracuse, but it’s not the familiar vehicle. It’s a FlixBus. What? “Flix SE acquired Greyhound Lines Inc. in 2021. Having already been present in the North American market with its FlixBus services since 2018, the purchase of Greyhound brought together two leaders of the bus industry, combining FlixBus’s innovative global technology and expertise with Greyhound’s iconic legacy and nationwide network.”

But this bus is much less comfortable, with less legroom and narrower seats than the old-line Greyhound buses I’ve ridden. Oh, it has numbered and assigned seats. They printed the seat numbers and placed them near the stingy overhead space. Humorously, they printed 13A/13B and 13D/13C; someone at the bus company changed the 13s to 14s because, obviously, Flix is superstitious. My seat 14A was right behind 12A, very near the bathroom.

I get to Syracuse, buy a Subway sub, but don’t eat it because I have to get on the bus to Binghamton, and the space is not conducive to eating. There have been a number of people on both buses who I assume were Amish; some of the men were wearing those Weird Al hats.

Parlor City

When I got to town, I gathered the cane, the sandwich, and a couple of other things. I’m trying to get off the bus, but one of the Amish guys who got on in Syracuse is trying to get back on because he just wanted to stretch his legs, or whatever. So he moves to my right, and I pass him on my left as I go to the station.

NOT IN THE PLAN: My friend in Binghamton, Cee, meets me and asks where my suitcase is. Oh crap.  It’s still on the bus! And the bus has already left for New York City with my clothes, laptop, knee brace, electric toothbrush, etc.

(Note: I’m blaming the Amish guy; I’m blaming bus fatigue. But it’s possible that if I had turned RIGHT off the bus, I would have seen the opened luggage compartment.)

After a not-too-brief period of self-loathing, I go to the Flix/Greyhound window. The guy was sympathetic, but said I should call the company, and they would tell me to contact them online, which is what happened. I did, reported the incident, but I had no confidence that anything would happen. 

I pulled out my phone, checked my contacts, and found someone with a 212 area code. I’ve met Andrea – we saw Rebecca Jade on Long Island together in 2021. Could she go to the corner of 31st Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan at 7:20 p.m. and get my suitcase? (It’s not at a station.) She said yes, but extorted me for a bottle of wine.

Did I mention that I hate shopping?

NOT IN THE PLAN: Now what? Cee took me to Boscov’s, a department store, where I bought $150 of clothes. During this, my sister Leslie had spoken to her friend and Binghamton cousins, one of whom called while trying to find apparel in a store I’ve almost never shopped in, under stressful circumstances. So when my cousin says, “How’s the family?” I replied, “I’m sorry, but I have no bandwidth for that, ” which she seemed to understand.

GOTTA EAT: Cee, her husband, and I went out to a casual Thai restaurant. Pretty decent.

I stayed at their house. While I went to sleep, I woke up at least four times. Someone turn this man’s brain off, please.

Is Binghamton the ‘weirdest’ town in Upstate NY?

Rumble Ponies

Visiting the Forgotten Stars page recently, I see HEY ROGER!!! The post, based on a YouTube video, asks, Is Binghamton the ‘weirdest’ town in Upstate NY? Kelly knows that I originally hail from Binghamton, so he’s going to let me weigh in.

Okay then.

Gab Small posted the piece on July 8, 2026, and had already gotten over 50,000 views in two days.

Let me get some minor stuff out of the way. While she refers to Binghamton proper, she really means the city metro. This doesn’t bother me much. She noted that the Whittman Dam is “normal.”

She’s right to appreciate the MLK Park promenade that runs along the Chenango, as well as the bridge near the confluence of it with the Susquehanna, a place I used to hang out as a teen. However, Chenango, one of two rivers that converge in Binghamton proper, is pronounced as though it started with Sh.  NOT WEIRD.

The area having the largest Dick’s Sporting Goods in the world is NOT WEIRD, since, as she notes, the store opened  in the area, and I had been there several times growing up, long before the expansion. A full-turf running track.is unusual, to be sure.

The Lost Dog Cafe, where I have I have eaten, is a nice place but NOT WEIRD.

A great sandwich

Gab says, “They are weirdly obsessed with a local sandwich called the spiedie.” It’s delicious when made correctly. I’ve had sandwiches that purported to be spiedies, but they didn’t do the marinade right (2019 NYS Fair in Syracuse; dreadful!). NOT WEIRD, though her have a vegetarian one, instead of chicken or lamb, is a little weird; I did not know that was a thing.  

There are six carousels in Broome County, completely free to ride. NOT WEIRD. As a result of these, the minor league baseball team (Double A, Mets affiliate) is called the Rumble Ponies, which is SLIGHTLY WEIRD. 

I’ll admit that I had never heard of Binghamton Jellystone Park, which is in Endicott. It is a themed campground based on Yogi Bear. But there are Jellystone Parks in about 30 states and four Canadian provinces. So can’t be that weird.

The stinky corpse flowers at Binghamton University. Okay, SOMEWHAT WEIRD.

TZ

Of course, Binghamton is weird because Rod Serling, the creator of The Twilight Zone, lived there. There is no doubt of that in my mind. The first time I saw the episode Mirror Image (Season 1, Episode 21), I KNEW that the bus station where a young woman was waiting had to be the Greyhound station downtown. And I was only six. The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street (Season 1, episode 22) featured streets similar to those near Rod’s home on the West Side of the city.

Serling’s inspiration for The After Hours (Season 1, episode 34), when a store mannequin came to life, was inspired by the old Fowler’s department store. I frequented the place as a child; it had the first escalator I can remember! I wish that Gab Small, when mentioning the current store, Boscov’s, had given a touch more history.

And of course,  Walking Distance (Season 1, Episode 5) has an overworked New York executive inexplicably transported back to his idyllic 1934 hometown, coming face-to-face with his younger self. I didn’t know that at the time, as I was more prone to go to the carousel at Ross Park than Recreation Park, which was very close to Serling’s home when he grew up  in the city. The statue of him is is in Rec Park.

(I suppose I should mention, yet again, that I sort of introduced Rod Serling in 1970.)

Down Memory Lane – the Zionites

Trinity A.M.E. Zion church, 1956

A good friend of mine from my hometown of Binghamton, NY, Cee, wrote that on Friday, May 22, they “attended a wonderful presentation by Brenda Cave James on local Black churches, Susquehanna Street prior to urban renewal, and more.

“One of her display boards caught my eye…” A display showed two different musical revues by the folks at Trinity A.M.E. Zion church in 1948 and 1956. The latter event, with the performers dubbed the Zionites, is of particular interest to me.
Before that, a little history from WBMG-TV (2024). According to  Broome County Historian Roger Luther, “AME Bethel closed its doors around 1930, and the congregation merged with AME Zion Church, formerly located where Columbus Park now stands.” I was baptized in the AME Zion church at that previous location. “In 1957, AME Zion was moved to its present-day location at the corner of Oak and Lydia streets.”
Musical triptych
There were three segments of the 1956 program, Down Memory Lane, which was directed by two women I knew from church: Beccye Fawcett, who was my boss when I worked at the Binghamton Public Library for several months in the late 1960s, and Dorothy Owens, a stalwart in the choir.
Part 1 represented the Gay Nineties. For one song, the Floradora Girls danced. Among the women: Geneivive Taylor, another librarian, and Gertrude Green, my mother! A couple of songs were performed by Luvenia McElroy, my sister Leslie’s godmother. Mack Green, presumably my grandfather McKinley Green, performed a Buck and Wing Dance.
The Roaring Twenties included Leslie Green (misspelled as Lesli) performing “Sonny Boy” with his son. Wait, what?  I would have been three at the time. For the Rocking Fifties segment, my dad performed folk songs.
The December 3, 1948, performance at Binghamton Central High School also featured my mother, who was then Gertrude Williams, and my father. It was directed by Beccye Fawcett. The repertoire was limited to the Gay Nineties. 
I believe Brenda Cave James is the daughter of the late Allen Cave, who was the vice-principal of Binghamton Central High School.