Dr. Terrance J. Fish

So many memories of Dr. Fish. He was my mom’s first employer in his dental office. I remember many many visits to see him with my siblings. We would sit in the waiting room and wait for him to poke his head and call us one by one. I remember all those Halloween toothbrushes and how special a stop his house was. I will always remember Doug working in his garden and then Terry and Alice. Did you know that there are blue potatoes? Brian and I will cherish those sweet conversations with Terry while looking at the trees behind our property that needed to be cut down, or when Brian and him would talk “ Town” business. We will continue to use rhubarb from the patch he let us borrow! The town and our little spot on State Street will not be the same without him!  Much love to Alice and his family.

Peggy, we worked together at EWMRC many (many) years ago. I always remembered how you spoke of your father with such admiration and pride. Hope your family is well.

There are people and places which serve as bookends in your life. Sturdy fixtures that hold the various chapters you end up writing. Reminders of what came before and what came after. Some pages so precious you want them laminated forever, and inevitably others you wish you could use white-out on.
Two of my bookends so to speak are Indian Lake, New York, and my Grandpa Terry. He died yesterday. It’s hard to imagine being there and not seeing him. He holds up so many of my most treasured childhood memories. My absolute favorite holidays spent with my cousins. A bear break-in. A holiday deer shooting surprise. Making fresh apple cider with your dad, Doug. Teaching me how to fish. Teaching me how to chop wood. Blueberries from your garden, and Raspberries from your Dad’s garden. Bourbon. Eating Lobsters I’d bring you from Boston, even the green parts. Catching minnows with my butterfly net. Packing a cooler to go to Saratoga. Pages, and pages, and pages of memories. All held together by you. Funny, writing this now if you asked my Wife what some of my favorite things are, she would reply Bourbon, berries, and telling stories about Indian Lake.
If someone told me to picture a peaceful place, or on nights where sleep will not come, I picture swimming in Indian Lake. It is nearing dinner time and I’m the last one in the water. Floating, looking at the mountains, and not hearing a sound. It’s serene. The water looks like glass. I enjoy a few peaceful moments until I hear your truck on the large gravel outside our home. The noise it makes echos on the water. I see you get out. You have one of your large green visor hats on, a very faded Saratoga shirt, and probably shoes held together with a bit of duct tape. As there’s nothing duct tape can’t fix. Alice is with you and she’s holding a big silver pot, filled with beans and potatoes from your garden. James Taylor is playing over the speakers. I look up from the water and see you out on the porch with your pipe, giving me a smile and a wave. I was the luckiest kid on earth to fill so many pages of my childhood and early adulthood with memories just like that one. 
Someday when the world opens again, I will visit you once more. As I start filling new pages on new shelves, with inevitably new bookends, you will not be forgotten. I’ll see you anytime I visit that perfect spot, those perfect Summer evenings in my mind. Leading me to countless memories of you. I love you Grandpa Terry.
If it was safe to have a large gathering right now this is what I would have liked to have read about you.
Smell and taste. They can illicit such strong memories, as if you’re back in the room reliving moments. Maybe it’s why I’m so passionate about food. But out of all the distinct smells in the world, smoke will at times stop me dead in my tracks. Whether it’s someone smoking a pipe or a distant wood burning fire I close my eyes and I’m there in your house. It’s not the dank lingering smell from a stale cigarette. It’s sweet, warm, and inviting. Reminding me I’m home before my eyes even open. I come down the stairs maybe seven-years-old and there you are. You meet me coming up from the basement stairs. You’ve just fed the wood burning furnace in your black and red flannel robe. You pull me in for a hug and your robe smells so good. Like burnt embers and chimney smoke, all in the best way possible. We go to the kitchen where there’s a box of donuts we brought up from Buffalo. We each have one. You have the powdered sugar or the Cinnamon sugar one. The type that will inevitably get stuck in your giant mustache. I watch you play solitaire from the deck of cards that you’ve used for so many years that their pictures have faded. Sometimes you’ll see a bird outside and tell me what it is. Other times we just sit there. It’s quiet and peaceful. The house still permeated with the wonderful smell of chimney smoke. They say that youth is wasted on the young. How I wish I knew how much to treasure those moments when I was younger. Yet in a way as I write this I suppose I did. The lake with you is always where a very large piece of my heart will be.