Sometimes a pretty place is more than a place. Irish poet Seamus Heaney wrote, “I was there. Me in place and the place in me.” Place stays with us. It’s a part of us. It illuminates memory half a century past. Bemus Point is that kind of place for me. The tourists of summer have gone now. It’s mid-October. Mainly, it’s just locals strolling Lakeside Drive on a Sunday afternoon. We park at the Casino. We sit on a bench. We remember.

The formidable Hotel Lenhart has closed its doors for another season. It sits golden and shadowed amidst trees full of color. The resilient red geraniums surprise us in their full bloom out front circled by the yellow marigolds. The day is lit with startling fall light. And the lake, well, it’s still paradise. On last Sunday’s walk Bemus Bay stretched out blue and calm. A few speedboats whirred past. Several docks remained in the water, but they had been overtaken by a horde of happy seagulls who perched in neat punctuated lines.

Founded by William Bemus in 1806, the Village of Bemus Point was incorporated into the Town of Ellery by 1811. According to several reliable documents, Bemus bought land for $1.50 on both sides of the lake at the narrowest spot on the lake between Bemus and Stow. He operated the first ferry there too, a raft he had built himself. He used a pole to move it from one side to the other. Bemus moved his family into a generous log cabin near the corner of Lakeside Drive and Bemus Street. Other families who settled in Bemus or invested there included the Skillmans, the Goodells, the Pickards, the Rappoles, among others who made this place home. Four hotels were built on its lakeside streets in the late 19th century though only the great lady Lenhart remains.

My friend and former colleague Jane Anderson Jones listed her childhood memories of summers in Bemus: “The huge penny candy case in Skillman’s General Store. Going fishing in the old wooden row boat with my grandmother and later my father. The “little dock” my grandfather built for the kids off the big dock in the shallow part of the lake. Collecting mussell shells. The 10 cent ice cream cones, comic books, LIFE magazines and 35 cent paperbacks at the store that is now the Italian Fisherman. The “green lake” on Oriental Avenue – covered in algae – one of my brothers fell in once. The library at the end of Center Street above the cemetery.” Bemus Point, she said, “It’s a part of my soul.” That’s how I feel too.

Kathy Kelley Raynor, who grew up in a great house right on the shore of Chautauqua Lake, shared a love of Skillman and Wight’s too. “I would always want to go there with Mom. If you were good, you had the chance to get some candy. Oh, and iconic steps in front of the store! It was a great place to hang out in the evening hours and watch people go by.” Like so many of us who spent our summers boating, Kathy recalled filling up the boat at Lawson’s and crossing the ferry,” which was the only way to get across the lake back then (until 1982 when the I-86 bridge was finished). Kathy recalled the sensory experience of growing up on the lake as “a watery smell of seaweed and fish. And wood docks set to soaking in the sun, releasing their scent to the warm summer air” all mixed with boat exhaust and the smell of fuel.

My cousin Barb Sherwin Schmit said she can still taste the cherry cokes at Ward’s (where the Italian Fisherman sits today). She has lived in Washington State right on the ocean for 40 years, but she says “Chautauqua Lake still has my heart.” Skillman and Wight’s seems to be a central memory for all of us. Dina Holmberg shared that she remembers “sitting on Skillman’s steps watching all the tourists and renting bikes for two at Nortons. Riding our bikes to Midway! Hanging out at Traynor’ Restaurant after sporting events. Swimming at the beach and staying there all day.”

I too have the fondest memories of Traynor’s in Bemus, including fall evenings after football games when the gang gathered there to celebrate and eat. I can see Chris Anderson smiling as we walk through the door. I hear John Pickard telling a story that makes us all laugh. Skip Carpenter grins and chats with everyone. Judy Rodgers is there, and Caren and Sue Caskey, Rose Howard, Deb Casler, Kenny Davis and Bonnie Bull. The place is lit with laughter.

And it’s not just summers my Bemus friends recall. Rose Howard says she went sledding at the golf course “at night in the light of the full moon” and recalls “walking out on the ice alone, the air still and bitter cold.” Rose says her dad used to scrape the snow and ice from the car windows and say, “it takes a mile to warm the car up enough to turn the heater on!” Rose walked to school “all bundled up” and arrived with “eyelashes frozen.” She recalls too “the starkness of trees, barren but for a stray leaf hanging on in the chill wind.” We who love the place recall it in all seasons.

On this day in October, 2016, the Canada geese are beginning to gather up by Warner Bay. Their deep throated discussions float in the air. The sky is radiantly blue. The geese will gather there all autumn. Then one day one day in November they will rise in a crescendo of noise and take flight, covering the gray sky. I saw it once in late November with my father and his wife. I’ll never forget the sight of those great honking birds rising as one from the bay, headed south, headed away. We heard their calls long after the last one had disappeared into the sky.

So as I’m strolling the Bemus streets today, recalling friends from Maple Grove. Their names are a serenade. I came here as a 15-year-old refugee from a family in crisis in April 1965, staying with my cousin and her family in Fluvanna, going to school in Bemus. Those kind friends of youth rescued me with their friendships. I’ll bet they never knew that. I thank them all now.

For me, Bemus is sanctuary. Fall may be my favorite time there after the appreciative crowds of summer have gone and the locals remain, loving this beautiful village on the shore of an ancient lake in upstate New York. I make no excuse for my nostalgia. I like walking the Bemus streets by the lake and remembering my youth there. I like sitting on green bench, staring out over the water, listening to the geese in the great peace of memory.