The Home Place, Red Rock, East Chatham NY

Clark Road looking west, May 8, 2008

This is my old home place, the farm I grew up on, the place I left to begin these winter journeys to the southwest.

Orchard Lot camp, June 4, 2009

Red Rock is a rural hamlet near Chatham in Columbia County, New York.

I used to camp in a few locations on what little I had left of the family farm
- In the driveway by the house
- Across the road where the barn once stood
- On the 20 acre piece off Less Traveled Road
Now, with the kind support of the friends who now own the place, I camp across the road where the barn once stood.
Verizon cell phone service - Terrible, barely usable with an amplifier
Verizon EVDO service - Terrible, barely usable with an amplifier
Find other references to Home Place
List the nights I've camped here
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Nights I've camped here

Over Fifty

Some of this has been painful for me, but it's all been wildly instructive. And it convinced me that nearly every person over fifty should try to find a time to sit down and engage in the same exercise, even if you never intend to publish anything. You need to think about what really meant something to you. Who did you really love. Who really made you what you are. What the seminal events did. And also it's an incredible discipline. Because I found it shocking to me what I remember and what I don't. It's shocking to me what I can remember factually and how hard it is for me to be absolutely sure about how I felt at the time. You know, how did I feel when I was 16? I don't really know.

Bill Clinton, on writing his memoir, in an interview with James Fallows, the Atlantic Monthly

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