About 30 years ago, I was at a Cornell recognition function (I believe it was a Presidents Club gathering) in New York City, and a pleasant young woman came up to me wearing a badge that identified her as part of the development office at the University. Nothing about that was unusual because this sort of function always had lots of development officers schmoozing alumni like me. What was different was that she told me that she was married to my cousin Pete. My mother had three brothers and one sister. One of those brothers was named Peter, and while he had died many years before, I knew that he had two daughters, and one of them, Patty, lived in Ithaca. Patty had married a local fellow by the name of Pete and the two of them ran a Tavern in downtown Ithaca called, not surprisingly, Pete’s Cayuga Bar. Patty, my cousin, had four kids, Lisa. Karen, Pete, and Mike. I had other relatives in Ithaca, some of whom, like my aunt Aggie and uncle Art, I saw quite regularly while at college. Patty and her kids I would only run into rarely, so we didn’t really know each other well. The young development officer, whose name was Nancy, told me that if I never needed help with my new house in Ithaca (everyone seemed to know about it), her husband, Pete (the current manager of Pete’s Cayuga Bar) would be happy to help me out.
It just so happened that the caretaker I had arranged for my Ithaca house was moving away and I did indeed need some help. So the next time I went to Ithaca, I called Pete and met him at the house. Nancy came with him and I’m not sure whether that was in her capacity as Pete‘s wife or as an accommodating Cornell development officer. In any case, we all hit it off and thus began my relationship with Pete and Nancy, my first cousins once removed. I have only minimal contact with all my other cousins (6 in total, of which 4 live in Ithaca), but Pete and Nancy have become a very big part of my life of the lives of all of my close family members. I could say that I owe that to Nancy’s forwardness in approaching me at that reception, but I would rather say that it’s because Pete and Nancy are such wonderful people.
Over the years, my three kids and grandkids have played with Pete & Nancy’s two boys Pete (or, as we like to call him, Re-Pete) and we have all traveled together everywhere you could imagine. We’ve gone on western road trips to places like Yellowstone and Utah. We’ve gone to resorts like Cabo and more exotic trips like to Morocco, Italy, France, and Ireland. We’ve gone to Pete’s family’s hill town of Carpineto Romano, Italy and to Nancy’s old country of Killarney, Ireland. Pete and Nancy have attended the weddings of all of my children and they are known and loved even by all of Kim‘s family. They come out regularly to stay with us on our hilltop and whenever we are in Ithaca, now we stay at their house on their hilltop.
This weekend for my reunion, I drove into Ithaca to stay with Pete & Nancy, as did my daughter and her family. We used up all of their three spare rooms and guest bathroom with all of us spending most of Friday and Saturday on campus reunioning. Nancy gets it since she has spent her whole career as a development officer (one short stint as a trust officer). Pete has served countless generations of Cornell students at his bar, so he pretty much understands the impact that Cornell has on the local community. In fact, Pete & Nancy have created a lovely Air B’n’B apartment in their downstairs home and they book that up mostly with visiting Cornell alumni who come back for all manner of collegiate campus gatherings over the year…its a good business for them. Meanwhile, we take over the main part of the house and Pete & Nancy are always casual and gracious about it all. When I arrived, Pete had made his signature Chicken Parmigiana dish for us all to enjoy and invited my favorite Cornellians, Joe & Marney Thomas to join us for a nice dinner on the deck overlooking Cayuga Lake and East Hill.
Since I had only arrived on Friday afternoon and I knew daughter Carolyn and crew were departing Sunday morning, I booked to stay through Sunday and depart for home today, Monday morning. With all the reunion crowds skidattling that day, I figured I could get some quality time with Pete & Nancy, which is exactly what we did. After a leisurely breakfast with Carolyn and the girls, we took the roof off of my rented Jeep Wrangler (don’t ask…but Hertz may not be getting my rental business any more) and drove up the lake to tick the boxes on a number of things everyone wanted to do. Pete wanted to see the old Boy Scout Camp in Trumansburg on the lake. It has been taken over by the State and made into a park (early days yet, but it was open to drive through). It’s a lovely lakefront property that will be a wonderful addition to the Finger Lakes public access outdoor recreation ensemble. Then we drove up to the Taughannock Falls overlook to check out the water flow on the 215 foot falls. Taughannock Falls is actually taller than Niagara Falls, making it one of the tallest single-drop waterfalls in the eastern U.S. It sits in Taughannock Falls State Park along the western shore of Cayuga Lake. The main gorge trail is an easy, flat 1.5-mile round trip walk along the creek bed that leads to a viewing area at the base — the canyon walls rising around you are dramatic. There’s also a rim trail with overlook views from above, which is whee we perched to get our views and take our pictures. Some years are this time (not gushing early spring, but not the dryness of summer) the water is sparse, but this year it was looking very robust, which always makes the vista that much more interesting. From there we drove up at Nancy’s suggestion to Muranda Cheese Company. Muranda Holsteins produce the highest quality milk out of high caliber cows. In 1997, they bred a cow that broke the world record for milk production. Muranda Oscar Lucinda produced 67,914 pounds of milk in just one year – that’s about 8500 gallons of milk. They have a tasting barn and cheese plant that has become a very fun venue with live bands playing and outdoor games. After we tested an array of a dozen cheeses, we had a drink, listened to music and had a couple rousing games of lawn bocce before jumping int he Jeep and heading back down the lake.
What a great way to spend a low-key Sunday. Fun destinations, beautiful countryside, great memories and stories and wonderful people. Years ago, I joked with Pete & Nancy that when the came down to visit us in New York City it was the country mice coming down to see the city mice. Since then, I have always enjoyed referring to them as our country mice relatives. What Sunday reminded me is that there is a lot of country mice in all of us if we just relax and enjoy the simple pleasures.