Fairview: Farms, Suburban Sidewalks, and Family History

Bernie Daus – Middletown BOE Candidate

My 26.2-mile run through the Fairview section of Middletown gave me another look at how much variety can exist within one community. In a relatively short distance, I found quiet suburban streets with sidewalks, older homes, newer neighborhoods, open land, farms, and some impressive estates. Fairview has a little bit of everything.

I made my way through Bodman Park, Fairview Elementary School, Corporal William A. Schulz Park, and Shorecrest Mini Park. As always, I spent plenty of time running the side streets, where you get a better feel for how people actually experience their neighborhood every day.

Bodman Park brought back some memories for me. When I was a kid, my father’s company held picnics there, and I can still remember playing on the old-school metal merry-go-round. The kind where a few kids would grab the bars, run as fast as they could, jump on, and then everybody would hang on while it whipped us around until we were dizzy. I am pretty sure those things would never pass a modern playground safety inspection, but we loved it. Running through Bodman all these years later was one of those moments where the past and present overlap.

One of the things that stood out most during this run was Fairview’s mix of rural and suburban Middletown. You can be running along a sidewalk-lined residential street, surrounded by traditional suburban homes, and then suddenly find yourself passing open land, a farm, or a large estate. Quaint homes and grand properties exist surprisingly close to one another. That variety gives this part of town a character that is difficult to appreciate when you are simply driving through.

My route eventually took me along Chapel Hill Road toward Mount Olivet Cemetery. That part of the run became much more personal. Mount Olivet is known as the final resting place of Vince Lombardi, one of the most recognizable names in American sports. But for me, the cemetery means something very different. My great-grandmother, grandmother, and grandfather are also buried there. My family has been connected to Middletown for generations, so running through Fairview and stopping at Mount Olivet gave this community marathon a deeper meaning. I was not just exploring another section of town. I was running through a place connected to my own family history.

That is something I have been experiencing more often as this Community Marathon project continues. I grew up here. I have memories scattered throughout Middletown, sometimes in places I expect and sometimes in places that surprise me. Running these neighborhoods slowly brings many of them back.

Fairview reminded me that Middletown cannot really be understood from its main roads alone. There are farms hidden behind suburban neighborhoods, quiet parks tucked between streets, family histories stretching back generations, and little pockets of town with their own personality.

By the time I finished my 26.2 miles, I had a renewed appreciation for Fairview. It is rural and suburban, quaint and grand, historic and new, sometimes all within the same mile. Importantly for me, it is also a place where a big piece of my family history rests.

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