THE VINTAGE COW
On our way into Attica our car spotted an ice cream and farm stand maybe a minute or two away from Main Street that we hadn't seen before. We decided to turn the car around and go stop for a sweet treat and perhaps talk to the owner. We had taken a different route into town then we had previously taken, this time we entered through the village of Alexander, in contrast to the rural farmland.
We pulled into The Vintage Cow and saw a student who looked around our age waiting in line for ice cream. He was a white male, perhaps 22 - 23 years old and wearing a Syracuse University sweatshirt.
The conversation went as follows (paraphrased below) :
Skylar: “Oh do you go to Syracuse, we go to the University of Rochester!”
Tom: “Yeah, I do actually! I’m actually just home for the day, and really was craving this ice cream.”
Us: “Us too!”
Skylar: “So are you from Attica, or are you just passing through?
Tom: “Yeah I’m from Attica, I actually live really close to here, just a couple minutes away.”
Skylar: “Did you go to school here in Attica”
Tom: “Yeah I went to Attica High School. I really like the U of R, if they had a law school I would have gone there?
Skylar: “Oh you're in law school?
Tom: “Yes, at Syracuse”
Emerson: We’re actually studying the town of Attica for a class, looking at the history and culture of the town.
TomL “Oh no way!”
Skylar: We’ve driven around a lot and I can’t believe how your school is literally right next to the prison. What is that like?”
Tom: “Yeah it’s crazy...my senior year of high school my sociology class actually got to go inside of the prison.”
Skylar: “Oh man...what was that like? We’ve never been inside, just driven past.”
Tom: “It was really spooky. Especially for the girls though”
Skylar: “Why is that?”
Tom: “They were told they had to wear certain clothing...like they couldn't wear anything tight.. Because the male prisoners hadn’t seen women in like years”
Skylar: “Did you have to sign any waivers or anything?”
Tom: “Yeah we had to sign a bunch of waivers from our school. We got to walk through certain parts of the prison, and the recreation yard...We weren't allowed to go see any of the isolation units or anything”
Skylar: “Did you get to talk to any of the prisoners”
Tom: “Yeah actually, we got to talk to three guys. It was crazy, they all told us what they had done.”
Skylar/Emerson: “Do you know how these three guys go to be chosen to talk to you?
Tom: “Not really, I mean I guess they were like ‘less messed up then the rest of them’ (in air quotes)... One guy told us that he had strangled his wife with shoe laces.”
Allie: “Do you know where they were from?”
Tom: “I’m pretty sure they were from New York (NYC)”
Us: “Whoa, that is crazy...Thanks so much for talking to us, we’ll be back, maybe we will see you around:
Tom (smiling, very pleasant and nice to talk to) “Yeah! It’s a small town. Good luck with everything.”
This was a really nice and insightful conversation that happened completely by chance. It felt very much like a chat between “equals”-- meaning all four of us were white college students going to school in the western New York region. It didn't feel like there were any power dynamics (race, educational levels, age) just a casual conversation between students--even friends. This was interesting to observe and to take note of afterwards. We also approached the conversation differently, explaining we doing a project on the town and culture of Attica, which seemed like a much better and less abrasive way to start a conversation-- really not mentioning the prison at all. Tom (we asked his name right before we left) was friendly and easy to talk to.
This conversation sparked many questions for myself (and for Emerson and Paige), including how the Attica high school is allowed to conduct these “field trips” with their senior sociology class into Attica Correctional Facility, if these trips occur every year, who organizes them, and if this trips are a “privilege” only allowed to Attica High School.
This conversation was followed by another with the owner of The Vintage Cow. She was a white women who appeared in her late 30s- early 40s. Emerson approached, and opened the conversation by saying how much we enjoyed the ice cream (it was pumpkin cheesecake flavored!). There was no one else in line, so we got to talking asking about how long the ice cream stand had been there and found out it had just opened this summer. This led naturally into a conversation in which she told us some of her background, including how she was born and raised in Attica, attended school here, left for college and then returned to the town after getting her degree.
Something the women emphasized again and again in this conversation was how great of a small town Attica is-- how much she loves the people, the culture and the overall feeling of the town. She had attended a local college, and then went to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University. Emerson and I remarked afterwords how quickly we had judged this women, and how surprised in the moment we were that she had attended an Ivy League University coming from such a small town. We asked what brought her back to Attica after getting her degree. She spoke mainly of her love for the town and how she and her husband desired to bring something to the town (a business) that was missing-- to fulfill a need. She told us how there had been an ice cream stand while she was growing up on the same street as the Attica school, but it had since closed. She said she specifically wanted to “fill a need” for the young families with kids in Attica, and how there wasn’t enough to offer for citizens who fall in that demographic. This is something we had previously observed and noted after spending time in the town-- how few options there are for entertainment, eating, and social gatherings. For example there is no movie theater, no bowling alley, no airport, no hospital, few (if any) major department stores. There are maybe 4 restaurants or places to go out to eat.
One of the striking parts of the conversation was how she virtually omitted the prison’s presence in the town-- it was almost as if it didn't exist. When we asked her about Attica the prison, and if there were any stories or myths about it, she replied stating that the people who work there “don't really talk about it” and that they “don't bring those stories home.” That was virtually all she said.