PASTORAL BLIGHT

  In his essay The Oxymoron of American Pastoralism, academic Gordon M. Sayre refers to the widely accepted “Four Stage Theory” of human development. This linear chronology of 1) Hunter 2) Shepherd 3) Farmer 4) Consumer brings us to today’s Catskills. These mountains have experienced and had a hand in how all these tropes developed. I mentioned how Henry Hudson and his crew on the Half Moon were the first tourists to the area. This is actually incorrect. They were the first “white” tourists. The first humans to reside in the Catskills were the mastodon hunters of the Munsee speaking Leni-Lenape tribe. Archeological evidence in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania puts the Lenape in the area as early as 8000 BC. These were the first outsider hunters of the Catskills and as they were strangers who had traveled west to east—pastoral interlopers— they moved into a land heretofore unspoiled by human habitation. There goes the neighborhood.

     Theories as to what happened to the mastodon vary but many blame the Lenape for over-hunting the great wooly beasts into extinction. It makes sense. An animal that large needs a lot of room and food to survive. A peaceful, lumbering vegetarian, the mastodon was easy prey to well organized, hungry humans, with brains way too big to be justified by their circumstances. By the time their bellies were full the meat was already beginning to rot. The Lenape never thought too far ahead of the dinner table. Guess we’ll have to kill another one. And so it went.

   Back in the nineties, when my father was still alive, I would bend his ear complaining of too many fence lines, loss of hunting property, too much traffic, ornery neighbors and clueless “citiots” invading my corner of the Catskills. Ever the wise pragmatist, he would remind me that there were plenty of inhabitants of Sullivan County before I decided to plop my ass down here and I was being myopic and “mean-spirited” not to realize that I had no claim to any more than my 3/4 acre. “That sunset over the Parker farm is everyone’s.” he would gently lecture. “You have to find a way to share.”  

   Of course the old man was right. This is our dilemma as the great Hasidim diaspora flows north looking for greener pastures to park their minivans and more subdivisions to house exploding families. Dollar General stores and AirB&Bs are spreading at a frenetic pace; while a print industry is developing around second home sales and tourism, geared towards snaring the hipster with glowing (albeit cherry-picked) pastoral narratives. Magazines like Upstate Diary and DVEight, run by enterprising female friends, are filled with well-heeled, good looking people, thrilled to be escaping the city for the “simple life.” Naive as they sound, I can’t deny or dismiss their heartfelt declarations of unfulfilled “satisfaction” as they till garden plots, patch sheds or raise chickens…..looking sexy in the process. I want to share the landscape. But, how can we maintain a lifestyle that welcomes these newcomers without losing forever what is disappearing at an accelerated rate? Take a good look at those ancient apple trees in that White Sulphur Springs lot across from the fire house. Soon they will be bulldozed over and the view will be of another Dollar General. You plein air artists better paint fast. “Save time. Save money. Everyday.” The age of consumerism has been upon us white people here in the Catskills for over four hundred years. The age of desolation approaches.