Upstate New York
The wholesomeness that personifies Upstate New York is a reflection of its small-town hominess, sense of community, and time-tested sustainability. Here remembrances were born that are now as comfortable as an old pair of slippers. It seems you can’t, after all, take the country out of the boy.
Defining this affinity is akin to defining an emotion;
difficult to describe but you know it when you feel it. I was raised in a village hugging the upper reaches of the Susquehanna River, surrounded by forested hills, farmlands, streams, and lakes.
The upstate way
It was a natural and not uncommon progression for boys and girls to acquire wood lore, water sense, mechanical aptitude, how to build, and how to adapt - skills that have served me faithfully. Nearly every day was an outdoor adventure; In how many areas near you can a boy check his creek-staked muskrat traps while on a morning walk to school?
I wish I could fully share the exhilaration I felt, describe how I couldn't sleep the night before, knowing that dad was taking us smelting at Cayuga or Seneca, or to the Canadian fish camp on the Rideau Chain, or hunting with Ray and Dickie Fuller, walleye pike fishing with my brother, or...
I exuded a 12-year-old's pride when my parents (although worrying as parents do) trusted my skills and sense enough to permit my friends and me to camp for the weekend in the woods, unsupervised, bringing only a fishing pole, tackle, and a rucksack containing odd bits of gear to provide sustenance and improvise shelter.
How wonderful it felt on a hot, sweltering day to plunge into the chill waters of Nanticoke Creek from the rope swing tied to a branch of the towering sycamore tree alongside Baxter's Hole. Imagine the surprise experienced by my young friends when they learned that my mom was the most accomplished (and most avid) of my family at catching and cleaning fish. She had the gift, my mom, and it was the '50s - she was a jewel.
The textures of youth
There is more, so much more. There it was where I met my first true love, 
discovered the thrill and roar of auto racing, rode horses, worked the farms, competed in sport, explored the glens, roamed the hills, achieved success, and experienced failure and how to deal with it. Locally-owned hunting and fishing shops were everywhere, a few of which were established in garages or barns.
There were no malls nor convenience stores, school was for learning, going "Downtown" was an event, television was insignificant, and baseball was king. How vividly I recall neighbor Blondie's old Philco radio sitting on a rickety chair next to his tool barn, spitting out Mel Allen's play-by-play as that sturdy old man weeded his considerable garden. Or the taste of a freshly-picked, sun-warmed tomato as Uncle Jerry and I trimmed sucker shoots from our own tomato plants, armed with salt shakers in our back pockets.
Warmth of remembrance
How clearly I see so many of those moments, smell the spruce trees, feel the warmth of the sun. All are now separated from me by the years and yet indelibly etched within, and by God's good grace they will never be erased until my passing. Everything existing and everyone living there were bound in a common frame, for Upstate itself was a proceeding; a full-time experience rather than simply a place in which to experience.
Although I now reside further from there than nearer, I frequently return and always will. Things change, places grow or diminish. Time's passage tends to dull the acuteness of unpleasant memories while enhancing the pleasant. There are malls now where once stood corn and alfalfa fields, convenience stores have replaced the green grocer and butcher, and downtown no longer wields the magic it once cast over a young boy. And yet the woods, lakes, and wildlife endure, conservation remains the Golden Rule, people are still hearty and neighborly, and communities live on despite today's drive-through mindset and hedonistic need for immediacy.
Think I'll head over to the crick, take and do some chub fishin', and I'm pret'near there already.