By Biff Folberth, Longtime Resident of Bronxville

Apr. 20, 2016:  We've lived in the village zip code for 42 years, and I realize that my weekly Sunday morning walk to and from church is one of the most rewarding times of the week. We live on Sturgis Road, by the Field Club, so my route is out Locust Lane and left on Pondfield Road through our town to Christ Church. And back.

A little more than two miles roundtrip, I figure the exercise may postpone the time I reach the Pearly Gates, and the religious service may help me get through any long "security line equivalents" more quickly.

As I walked on Easter morning this year, I remembered that it's a pretty well-documented fact that Irving Berlin's song "Easter Parade" ("I could write a sonnet about your Easter bonnet …") was written about New Yorkers leaving churches such as St. Thomas Church and going up Fifth Avenue to places such as The Plaza for lunch on Easter Day.

I thought to myself that Pondfield Road is the Fifth Avenue of Bronxville; how lucky I am to be able to walk it in its Sunday morning splendor twice a day.

On the way down to town, taking in the architectural splendor of our village hall on the left, our library on the right. Crossing Midland Avenue, our school on the right and The Reformed Church on the left. I often find my walk is in time to see David and Cheryne McBride stopped at the traffic light in their car on the way to The Reformed Church.

I complete my two errands:  I mail letters at our historic mail station (now with green grass in front) and turn left to deposit our week's plastic bags in the recycle bin at the supermarket. A wonderful view of St. Joseph's Church, usually with church bells ringing a familiar hymn on the way either to or fro. I see Nancy Petty from time to time entering or leaving. 

Continuing on, I deposit checks or withdraw cash from Citibank on Pondfield and then on to the service at Christ Church, these days monitoring the extension of our village's residential footprint in the new Kensington Road complex rising over the railroad tracks.

The service seems better after walking a mile in a time when our autos dominate so much of our lives. There are 6,000 residents in our village; I wonder why more don't take an extra 15 minutes each way to enjoy the architectural and visual flora and fauna splendor of our village.

After a religious experience, with a cup of coffee in one hand and half a bagel in the other, I head back east home. I often see Rooney and Jack Kennedy driving west to their residence from The Reformed Church service.  

I stop at Topps Bakery for a weekly doughnut and take a few minutes to visit the bricks of our two grown children, Liza '94 and Will '97, at our school's alumni walk. Each week confirms that purchasing their bricks when they were graduates was money well spent.  

In a few more reflective minutes, I look at the names on the bricks in their two rows, assigned randomly, to the best of my knowledge. Matt Harriss '97 (just traded by the New York Giants to the Detroit Lions) and brother Chris Harriss, Esq., and somewhere father L. Gordon Harriss '64; former school board member Harry Tether '63 and daughter Elizabeth '97 and Jeb Tether; Leah and Becky Gogel '97; and on the latest Forbes 400 list, Rupert Johnson '58, his brick right next to our daughter's--I tell her she's in good company!

I've found the walk to be just as rewarding in the face of a winter gale, all bundled up with gloves and hats (and sometime a ski face mask), as in the dead of summer, chapeau on my head to fend off the sun.

A few ecumenical/lifestyle thoughts on the splendor of Sunday mornings in our village.

Pictured here:  Biff Folberth walking on Pondfield Road.

Photo by N. Bower