The Saratoga Shuffle

I’ve been through Saratoga Springs maybe a half-dozen times, but I’ve heard it’s quite beautiful.
     They say Cornelius Vanderbilt would vacation here often, to take the waters and perhaps even dine at Cary Moon’s exclusive Lake House where, legend tells, the potato chip was invented just for him.
    But none of that for my mother, my sister, and me, back when Saratoga was the halfway point from New York to Montreal, and Greyhound would shunt us all off to the rest stop nearest the interchange, through the lone restaurant there, like so many cattle down the chute.
     “Thirty minutes, people!”

Photo by Bob Coolidge. December 1970.