Fraternity Weekend

Here's the crew I spent this past Saturday morning with:

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The guys who are younger than I am are a bunch of students from the local chapter of Sigma Phi. The one guy older than I am is from a volunteer group who help maintain the local bike path. The stone wall behind us is part of a lock from the Erie Canal, built around 1839. We were there clearing away the bushes and weeds that overgrow the site every summer, as part of a restoration project organized by a colleague from the History department.

That's right, I spent my Saturday clearing brush. I feel all Presidential. I may just bomb something.

How hard a task was this? Well, here's the lock before we started:

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And here's the lock after we were done:

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The scale isn't the same, but pretty much the whole field of view was full of those sumac trees before we started. The damn things grow like weeds.

The Erie Canal, of course, is a huge part of New York history-- there's a whole chain of cities between Buffalo and Albany that are where they are because of the canal. The first version was built around 1820, and then expanded in 1840, when this lock was built. It stayed in service until 1918 or thereabouts, when it was abandoned.

Given that it was pretty much ignored for 80-odd years, the lock is in pretty good shape. The yellow hut on top of the main pier is a reconstruction from a few years ago, built by a former Civil Engineering professor who started the restoration project. The hope is to get it declared a historic site, and get the town of Rotterdam to come in with some serious equipment and clear the trees and bushes out a little more permanently, so some further reconstruction can be done, and the whole thing can be a small park.

Until then, the site gets cleared a couple of times a year by frat boys doing volunteer service, and any gullible faculty who happen to bike by when the cleanup is happening. Which was a fair bit of work, but not all that bad a way to spend a morning.

(Photo credits: Andy Morris)

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Ah, I biked along the towpath around Rochester weekly when I was in grad school. That brings back good memories. Heading east along the towpath allowed me to make Abbott's Frozen Custard the turn around. And since I'm already pausing to turn around, I might as well stop and have a large chocolate custard and look at the ducks in the canal. Heading west showed more historic locks, but no good ice cream.

I used to go walking/hiking on the towpath of the C&O canal near DC. It was great. (We even drove up to the Paw Paw Tunnel once.) I'm glad the Erie canal is kept up. Along with abandoned railroads, towpaths make great bike/walking trails.

I'm glad to see frat boys doing hard work for their volunteer time, too. Around here (Tuscaloosa) I'm not sure they always do. Not that physical labor is required to make volunteer work worthwhile, it's just I think some of the local Greeks get away with doing very little. (I could be wrong. If I am, I apologize to any fraternity or sorority at UA who is doing real volunteer work.)

By marciepooh (not verified) on 24 Oct 2007 #permalink

If you get involved with this project again, I have a 13 HP DR walk-behind Field and Brush mower: http://www.drpower.com/TwoStepModelDetail.aspx?Name=FABOHV13HP that I can make available. It goes through saplings up to 1 1/2" thick without a hiccup. That might help free up some of the fraternity guys' time for other aspects of the restoration.