Postcards from Ithaca, New York

It’s become a favorite practice of mine to follow up a blog post with a “bonus” selection of photos too numerous to fit into the original. And so here’s another one, coming on the heels of my proud papa recap of our youngest son receiving his doctorate from Cornell University.

Jordan Rede: Once a soldier, now a scientist with a Ph.D

We’d visited Ithaca, New York, and the surrounding area a handful of times since Jordan began his doctoral studies in the fall of 2019.

The Cornell campus is huge and beautiful, not to mention hilly. From certain spots, you can view Cayuga Lake, the largest of the Finger Lakes in a region teeming with hiking trails, waterfalls and wildlife. On campus, there’s a fabulous Botanical Gardens, bursting with amazing flowers, trees and shrubs, part of more than 500 acres of gardens and natural areas.

Below: View from the Cornell Botancial Gardens.

The natural beauty extends to the rural landscape, with gently rolling hills, leafy green trees as far as the eyes can see, puffy clouds, and a network of two-lane highways connecting villages and small towns dating back as far as 1797.

On this visit, we stayed in an Airbnb several miles south of Ithaca, a tiny house situated on 200 acres. It was quiet as can be, with deer crossing the road at night and rabbits munching on grass in the early morning. A nice place to wind down after long country drives.

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This past weekend was Graduation Weekend for several colleges and universities in the area, so hotel and airline prices spiked, as you might expect. That factored into our decision to fly in and out of Binghamton, a small city about 50 miles south of Ithaca.

We arrived around 11 pm Friday, too late to get a rental car at the tiny airport, and there was no shuttle service to the hotel where we had booked a room in nearby Vestal.

No problem. We called a taxi and wound up having a fascinating conversation with the driver, Luke. He was a gregarious, friendly guy who told of coming to the United States in the early ’90s from Kurdistan, in western Asia, arriving with ten dollars in his pocket and the hope of making a new life as a refugee.

He applied for placement all over the world and received a single offer of sponsorship from a church in frigid Vermont. Unable to find work and limited by his inability to speak English, he made his way to Binghamton to visit relatives. He was out one day with family at the local mall and wearing traditional Kurdish clothes when a stranger tapped him on the shoulder, addressed him in Arabic, and invited him to a family meal that evening.

Long story short: Luke found work, learned English, got a job as a translator, started his taxi business and this year will send the last of his six children to the local college. All five of the others already have their degrees from Binghamton University. Luke, now 53, is happy to live in an area with a substantial Kurdish community served by three mosques and a dozen Muslim physicians.

Luke, our favorite taxi driver outside the Greater Binghamton Airport.

I’m always struck by the grit and grace displayed by so many immigrants who come to this country wanting nothing more than the opportunity to live in peace, get a job and contribute to their community. Luke is the embodiment of that timeless desire.

I don’t imagine we’ll be back in Ithaca anytime soon, or maybe ever. But we will have nothing but positive memories of our time here.

If your idea of the Empire State is skyscrapers and stressed-out city living, you’ll find the exact opposite in upstate New York. Ithaca is a 4 1/2-hour drive from New York City, but also easily accessible through the municipal airport or the one in Syracuse. Check it out sometime.

Below: Typical scenes on a country drive; Dryden United Methodist Church.