(courtesy of the New York Times, October 2, 2016)
The Sleepy Hollow, New York neighborhood of Webber Park lies between a bend in Route 9 and the historical Sleepy Hollow Cemetary and Old Dutch Church. It’s across the State road from the equally historical Phillipsburg Manor. Multi-family homes on small lots flank the warren of streets that twist and turn within the neighborhood. My old street Holland Avenue rises sharpy from Gordon Avenue, the snake of a street that connects Webber Park to Route 9.
We ran up and down those streets during warm weather and summer days. Kevin Karrigan and I raced up Gordon from his house to the cross-streets that rise up to New Broadway–the posh street connecting the neighborhood to the high end of Route 9 near the car dealership. He usually won. Sometimes, the triplets up the street joined us for the usual shenanigans that elementary-age children get into without Adult supervision–usually endless games of tag or hide-and-go-seek. Other times, I hung out with my next-door neighbor, Tina Marmo, or the Sterino kids–when they still lived in Webber Park.
Then there were the days we all played on the playground up at Douglas Park, on the far end of New Broadway. Some adult would give the merry-go-round a good shove, so that we all laughed as the dizziness set in. Then we’d run to the slide, swings and jungle gyms. If we were really daring, we’d follow the wooded path to the Cemetary, and we’d walk past the graves toward the graveled road that led past a waterfall to the main gates.
Good times. Right up to the day that Dad informed my brother and I that we were moving.
summer breeze
last echo of the screams
of Webber Park kids
Mish, over at dVerse, hosts Haibun Monday, and calls on us to write about our hometown.
Frank J. Tassone 
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