Cooperstown Observed by Sam Goodyear

Port of Call

Yokohama it is not. Nor is it Cape Town. Or Marseille, or Odessa, or Sydney, or St. Louis. It may be none of the above, but Cooperstown is nevertheless a port.

In the 19th century, there was steamer traffic between the north end of Otsego Lake and Cooperstown. The Public Landing in Springfield was a destination for travelers from Albany who would leave their carriages and embark on the steamer, which would make several stops on the journey south, for example at Five Mile Point and Three Mile Point. Once arrived in port, passengers would alight and go about their business in town. Commuters were also known to travel to work by boat. Although such traffic no longer exists, one can get a feel for life in the old days by boarding the Glimmerglass Queen at the Lakefront Hotel for a scenic circuit on the water.

In the storied ports named above, particularly as depicted in film and in literature, a hallmark is a profusion of foreign tongues. A random sampling of the sounds echoing in the streets, avenues, lanes, and the one boulevard in Cooperstown includes Swahili, French, Hebrew, Arabic, Estonian, Italian, Russian, Tibetan, Greek, German, Swedish, Laotian, Turkish, Danish, Tagalog, Norwegian, Hindi, Spanish, Albanian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Finnish, Shona, Czech, Hungarian, Farsi, and Nepali, for starters. Quite a range for a port of fewer than 2,000 souls.

Another hallmark of a port is a network of bars, pubs, taverns, diners, cafes, restaurants, ice cream shops and pizza parlors. It is not unusual to lose count of such establishments up and down Main Street. There are at least 25 to 30 of them. Not too shabby.

Naples has Mount Vesuvius. Rio de Janeiro has Sugarloaf Mountain and Christ the Redeemer. San Francisco has the Golden Gate Bridge. New York has the Statue of Liberty. Not quite so grand, the port of Cooperstown has Kingfisher Tower. But we have an added distinction: Cooperstown presides over the source of the Susquehanna River. According to Riverkeeper, an environmental institution whose business it is to know about such things, the Susquehanna is the oldest major river system in the world. Yes. You read that correctly. IN THE WORLD.

The mind boggles.

Sam Goodyear was born in Cooperstown and, because of his father’s profession in the Foreign Service, grew up all over the world and continued that pattern throughout his adult life until two years ago, when he returned to where he was born. It took him only 80 years to do so.