SARATOGA LIVINGThe City. The Culture. The Life.

A few months ago, I went to get a haircut at Woody’s Barbershop in Saratoga Springs—yes, that Woody—around lunchtime, in advance of one of saratoga living‘s big soirées. So I fired up my app and called an Uber to pick me up at our headquarters on Broadway in the Washington. It said my driver’s name was “Al,” and that he was mere minutes away. Soon enough, a Honda CR-V pulled up, and I hopped in. What happened next is, without question, the single greatest Uber ride-sharing experience I’ve ever had. And it’s just a five-minute drive to Woody’s.

The driver immediately introduced himself to me as Al, but not just any old Al: It was 61-year-old Al Jurczynski, the former Mayor of Schenectady, who had been elected to office when I was 16, and had probably been voted for by my maternal grandparents (I spent quite a bit of time in the Electric City as a kid going to visit Martha and Van Ladd on Avon Road). Jurczynski, a Republican, had been first elected in 1996, and held the office through 2003. Prior to that, he’d been a city councilman for 12 years, first winning a seat in 1983. Following his stint as Mayor, he was appointed First Deputy Director in then Governor George Pataki’s Office for Small Cities, followed by a stint as Deputy Secretary for Business & Licensing in New York State’s Department of State. (He’s also dabbled in car and real estate sales, too.) All in all, he’d spent two decades in local and state politics, and was somebody I’d definitely read about in the local newspapers and seen multiple times on TV growing up in the Capital Region. It turned out that he was retired and driving for Uber to make some extra scratch. I could respect that. Plus, it felt like I’d been picked up by a local celebrity; it might as well have been an episode of Cash Cab.

Shortly before he dropped me off at Woody’s, I gave him my business card and said I’d be interested in interviewing him for a longer feature at some point. A few months passed, and I still had the card he’d exchanged for mine on my desk but assumed that he’d forgotten me or simply decided he wasn’t interested in letting the world know that he’d gone from running Schenectady to driving a Honda CR-V for a living. I was wrong. In came a call in early June, and it was Al. He wanted to talk. “My wife is a few years younger than I am, and she’s still going full tilt, working the job that she’s had for a long time,” he started off, in his explanation for why he’d chosen to drive for Uber. “She told me, ‘If I have to work, then you’ve got to work,'” said Jurczynski. “So I was keeping an eye out for what I could do, and my longtime friend Paul Harding, from Martin, Harding & Mazzotti, and I were having breakfast, and he said, ‘You oughta be an Uber driver.’ I looked at him and said, ‘What’s an Uber driver?'” Harding, himself a local celebrity—by now, you’ve likely memorized his law firm’s ad jingle—traveled quite a bit for work and was an Uber expert. So after explaining the ins and outs of ride-sharing to his friend, Harding told Jurczynski that his background in politics and love for talking and driving made him the perfect candidate for a driver.

That conversation happened last March, three months before Uber had a (legal) presence in Upstate New York (the ride-sharing revolution wouldn’t kick off up here until June 2017). He sat on the idea for nine months before downloading the Uber app and signing on as a driver, and now he’s been driving for the ride-sharing company since the end of December. “It’s been fun,” says Jurczynski, who says he keeps his own hours and only drives when he’s “feeling inspired.” He tells me that he’ll put in about 30-35 hours per week. “The best part about it is the fact that I only work when I feel like working,” he says. “This morning, I was wide awake at 4am, and my wife was still sleeping, and I thought, ‘Well, I’ll go out driving.'” He put in a few hours, returned home, ran some errands and did a few more hours. He said he’d probably go out driving again after he got off the phone with me. “I don’t even consider it work,” says Jurczynski.

One of the main reasons the work’s so fun for Jurczynski is all the people he gets to meet when driving around the Capital Region. (I can’t help but think that this all must remind him of meeting perfect strangers at public events when he was campaigning or after he’d taken office; being a politician really requires a specific type of person and personality.) When he picked me up that time I was going to Woody’s, he told me about a teenage girl he’d driven a short distance recently. At the time of the pickup, he’d been blasting some Elvis Presley, and asked his rider if she wouldn’t mind him listening to the remainder of the song. She said sure. “I finished listening to it, and I told her, ‘Boy, I love Elvis.’ And she didn’t say anything. I said, ‘You know who Elvis is, right?’ She said, ‘No.'” He  went on to ask the girl if she knew who Michael Jackson was, and she nodded her head yes. “Well, Elvis, in my opinion, is bigger than Michael Jackson,” said Jurczynski.

Another great thing about driving for Uber? He can basically travel anywhere in the Capital Region—with Schenectady obviously being his home base. He’ll go to Saratoga, Albany, Colonie, Troy. “Have car, will travel,” as he puts it. He tells me that Saratoga riders, in particular, are “very generous,” and that gets him reflecting on the Spa City. Because he has experience running a small municipality, it’s come in handy for noticing the nuances of the places that he drives through. “Saratoga never ceases to amaze me,” says Jurczynski. “Everything is so new, and it’s so prosperous compared to the other cities.” Bringing up Saratoga sparks a memory of his first job in nearby Clifton Park. In the late ’70s, well before he became a politico, Jurczynski worked at a Howard Johnson’s as an Assistant Manager, his first managerial role—the first time he ran anything. Like anyone who’s worked in the restaurant business knows—including me—he worked his tail off, he says. “You’re working when everybody else is playing,” he says. (Reminds me a lot of all the late nights and weekends I’ve devoted to the magazine publishing business.) He then pivots back to the thought he started about municipalities: “Having been the Mayor of Schenectady for eight years, I have a pretty good eye for what to look for when I’m in a community.” He says he looks at curbs, sidewalks, the condition of roadways and how well maintained the grassy areas are. There’s a big difference when you’re driving versus when you’re on foot, he explains. Because when you’re walking around, you pick up more of the minutia that you might not, zipping by in a car. “In Saratoga, to be honest with you, I’m quite jealous,” he says. “It’s so beautiful. It has a quaintness and a warmth that’s very unique. As a matter of fact, out of the 62 counties that make up New York state, if anybody’s ever asking—and there are Uber riders that have been new to the area and are looking to buy a house—I will tell them that you should probably look at Saratoga County. Because it has low taxes, compared to the rest of Upstate New York, and the properties hold their value.”

In regards to his old stomping grounds in Schenectady, Jurczynski is genuinely surprised at how his city has grown since leaving office in the early aughts. “What amazes me is when I pick people up, young people in particular—Millennials—they think Downtown Schenectady’s a happening place!” he says. “To me, having lived here my entire life, I haven’t gotten used to that, because Downtown Schenectady for the better part of my life was really not a hot-spot by any means.” He particularly likes picking up Union College students and doing a similar intro for them like he did when I jumped in his passenger seat: He tells them to tell whomever they’re meeting up with that the former Mayor of Schenectady just chauffeured them there. Once they’re done cracking up, he precedes to give them a little history lesson, depending on how long the trip is. “Have you heard of ALCO?” he’ll ask them. The acronym stands for “American Locomotive Company,” and they built trains in Schenectady for more than 100 years at the site of the city’s casino, he’ll say. They also produced tanks used during World War II. He’ll go on: In 1968, when he was just a kid, ALCO went out of business, and 12,000 people lost their jobs. “These are little vignettes that are true, and most people aren’t aware of them,” Jurczynski tells me. He’ll talk about the two local high schools of yore and their big rivalry (he went to Mount Pleasant; my mom graduated from Linton), General Electric’s waning presence in the city and a panoply of other historical footnotes. He’s a walking (Schenectady) history book. “I try to make the conversations interesting, because maybe they’re only going to be in my car for 10-15 minutes. Every person’s different. So people get in, and they may be on the phone, they may have their ear pieces in listening to music, and I leave them alone. But if they’re willing to listen, I’m always willing to tell them stories about Schenectady and the Capital Region,” he says.

Jurczynski’s time as a local politician clearly had a tremendous impact on his life—and has helped inform his post-retirement work as an Uber driver. As a Republican elected in a largely Democratic pocket of Upstate New York—a badge of honor he wears proudly, he says—serving at the behest of the people was never about party politics for him; it was all making the city and the state a better place to live. I can’t help but feel like my five-minute ride in Al’s Uber made Saratoga a little bit better that day. The Capital Region needs more guys like Al Jurczynski.

In 2016, I received a full academic scholarship from Skidmore College to finish my undergraduate degree. Having just completed my associates at a state community college in Alabama, this was practically a dream come true. So in September of that year, I packed my clothes, a couple of guitars and my two cats into my 2006 Ford Taurus and drove the 1,100 miles from Birmingham, AL, to Wilton, NY. I did all of this to start a new life in a town I had never visited (or heard of) in a room in a house I had only seen in a few photos. Looking back, it was quite a gamble, but sometimes what seems like your only option can turn out to be your best one. I had chosen a small house in Wilton because living on campus at Skidmore was outside my budget and living in downtown Saratoga Springs… well, need I say more?

I learned quickly, however, that Wilton is quite a unique place with much more going on under the surface than first meets the eye. For instance, only in this small rural town could I enjoy the endless trickle of a creek in my backyard or be warned about the occasional black bear meandering through the neighborhood for some garbage snacks, and yet be just a ten-minute drive from the mecca of goods and restaurants at the Wilton Mall and equally close to the mecca of culture that is Saratoga Springs. And did I mention that Wilton also has Grant’s Cottage, the peaceful state historic site on the slope of Mount McGregor where Civil War General and one-time President of the United States Ulysses S. Grant spent the last weeks of his life. For a formerly tiny, agrarian community, Wilton has a lot of fascinating historical connections. Of course, that comes as less of a surprise when you discover that the town is celebrating its bicentennial this year and has a whole list of family-friendly as well as historical events planned.

The celebration kicked off back in April, the month when Wilton’s township was formed, though the actual community is much older. The Historic Weekend Celebration included the premier of a documentary about the town’s history and recent change called Wilton 200, a historic sites tour of the town, as well as an Earth Day Run and a ribbon cutting for the brand new Bicentennial Trail at Camp Saratoga. It’s fitting that Wilton’s opening bicentennial celebration was on this year’s Earth Day. The town has always maintained a strong love and respect for the land, even as it’s transformed from a tiny farming community to a small city divided between ample park space and large residential and commercial sections

But not that long ago it was a very different place. “When I moved up here, it was probably about as rural as you can get,” says Arthur J. Johnson, Supervisor of Wilton and a resident since 1973. “I think the population was somewheres around 2,000 at the time. Now it’s almost 17,000.” By the late 1980s its population began to boom, and city planners had to adapt to Wilton’s rapid new growth. They came up with a comprehensive plan that included developing a large commercial and retail area around Exit 15 and expanding an area at Exit 16 that had been, and remains, largely industrial, with shipping facilities and warehouses. In between these two exits, to prevent commercial or industrial encroachment, the town planned plenty of park space and neighborhoods. So making that convenience happen that I mentioned earlier—being able to live in a quiet, rural place surrounded by nature and still be just a short drive to civilization—was not done by accident.

It hasn’t always been an easy dance for the Spa City neighbor, which for most of its history has been a tight-knit community of farmers. And yet, Wilton has done a magnificent job of managing the economic boon without sacrificing its country charm or its proximity to the wildlife and classic Upstate natural beauty that we all love. In fact, the town has expanded its commitments to its parks, including a new Bicentennial Trail at the Wilton Wildlife Preserve and Park, and it plans to open a brand-new pavilion at Gavin Splash Park later this summer. Kurt Haas, the maintenance foreman at Gavin Park, tells me it’s all in preparation for the town’s Bicentennial Parkfest, which kicks off on July 7. Haas, who lived in Wilton for 15 years and now resides in Gansevoort, has been doing a lot of cleaning and repair work at the park to get it in tiptop shape. “One of the things I like about living in the Wilton-Gansevoort area is that we’re kind of in between Saratoga and Lake George, and there’s always something going on and things to do,” says Haas. Indeed, Parkfest alone will include live music from Beatlemania Now (a Beatles cover band), amusement park rides, a petting zoo/exotic animal display, stand-up comedy, a classic car show, magic show and even pig racing. Let’s face it, we wouldn’t be in the country without some good old fashioned pig racing (imagine the surprise of out-of-towners when they discover what going to the races means in Wilton).

The town has also teamed up with McGregor Links (Wilton’s own country club built in 1921 by local Senator Edgar T. Brackett) to offer a one day special golfing event on June 23. Later in the summer, Grant’s Cottage will also present a Civil War Weekend. This inaugural event will include guided tours, period musical performances and, coolest of all, more than 100 Civil War re-enactors portraying multiple battles and scenarios from our nation’s most destructive and divisive war. And I thought this sort of stuff only went on in the Deep South. But that brings me to the final thing (at least in this article) that I love about Wilton—its history.

On June 16, 1885, Ulysses S. Grant arrived at the Adirondack mountain cottage that would later bear his name. In New York City at the time, the former President and savior of the Union was dying of throat cancer and completely broke after a number of financially disastrous decisions. Not wanting to leave his family destitute, Grant was in a race against time to finish his memoir before it finished him, thus ensuring that his family would get the unprecedented 70 percent royalty offered to Grant by his good friend, the great humorist and author Mark Twain. Grant was having difficulty breathing while working in the suffocating heat of a New York summer, so, at the request of another friend, Grant traveled up to Mount McGregor, hoping that the fresh Adirondack air would improve his health long enough to complete the memoir that had grown to nearly 500 pages. Whatever was in the cool mountain air back then did the trick, because Grant finished the final proofreading just days before he passed away. Even on his deathbed, the great general was determined to win his last battle.

This story about Grant’s Cottage is what most people think about when they think of Wilton’s history, but this only scratches the surface. This tiny town is, in fact, also the namesake of the Battle of Wilton (there’s a blue historical marker near the present-day intersection of Parkhurst and Gailor roads), a series of skirmishes fought between England and France for control of the Albany region during King Philip’s War. Though not as historically significant as the nearby Battle of Saratoga, the Battle of Wilton occurred in 1689, making it one of the oldest recorded battles in New York state (nearly a century before the original 13 colonies would declare their independence). Wilton is also home to 16 designated cemeteries, the oldest of which has headstones from the early 1800s. It’s also the final resting place of several Revolutionary War veterans, including Edward Bevins, a drummer boy who fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775.

But I would like to return to Grant, spending his last weeks feebly yet furiously scribbling away in that cottage on the slopes of Mount McGregor. It’s easy to see why the story has remained so popular: It’s a tale about last-minute redemption and inspiration. Grant, like me, must’ve found a peace in Wilton that, even after all this time and development, still hasn’t changed.