Archive » January 2015 » Columns

Tuesday, Jan. 20, the Old Men of the Mountain charged off to the Country Café on Main Street in Schoharie, where the breakfasts are man-sized. One OF who generally orders a la carte enough for two or three OFs ordered just one item from the special board and needed a box to take some of it home; this OF does not have a dog.

As we get older, the OFs (as we get older — wasted words — the OFs are old) have a fear of falling. The OFs consider that fear is one of the best reasons for using Tim Conway steps in the wintertime in many places.

This was brought about by the icy driveways from the one day that the temperature climbed to above freezing and then went right back down. All the driveways and most of the walkways of the OFs were like that — ice under a coating of light snow.

The OFs definitely do not want their feet to skid out from underneath them as they crash to the frozen ground. Two problems are now in place: Either something is going to become broken, or the OGs will be down and won’t be able to get up.

Being down and not able to get up is a problem at any time, and any place. Some OFs carry a cane, not that they need it to walk with, but often times, when the OFs bend down to pick something up, they need something to push on to get back up.

Pondering pileups

The OFs also talked about all these multi-car pileups all over the country — and this is a big country. The OFs wondered why there have been so many in recent times. There have been icy roads before and nothing like the magnitude of cars that are involved in these pileups.

The OFs had some reasons why this is happening. The best reason is “too close, too fast” and that coupled with distracted driving makes the matter even worse. From the videos, it looks like most of these vehicles never even slowed down.

As one OF’s nephew’s wife said in exasperation (as she was being pressured into getting things ready for Thanksgiving): “What’s the freaking rush?”

That is exactly what the OFs were wondering — what is the freaking rush? Where is everybody going in such a hurry?

One OF blamed it on the new cars. The OFs have mentioned this before, and it seems like the OFs are prophets in a sense.

The older cars required concentration to drive. The OFs had to listen to the engine and know when it began to lug and the vehicle had to shift down. Conversely, as the engine began to rev up and run free, it was time to shift up.

The OFs also had to know how to take turns using speed, slowing down when entering a turn, and adding power halfway through the turn, because there were not many vehicles with power steering.

Today, cars practically drive themselves, the cabins are quiet, and most ride smooth, like old Chryslers or Buicks. Today, after driving five miles, the driver has a tendency to lose concentration, and, to substitute for all this, the drivers today go to their tunes, or phones, or whatever to keep from being so bored driving they might fall asleep.

Looking at those videos of the pileups, the OFs think that many drivers of cars and trucks that kept piling into the mess ahead of them were in that state of mind.

Discussing driving

The OFs continued discussing driving.

One of the OFs returned from visiting family in Atlanta, Georgia so many of the OFs who have been to the Atlanta area began to talk about traffic in and around that city.

At times, on the major roads around any big city, strangers who are not sure of where they are going may be in one of the center lanes and see the sign for their exit. Now it becomes a big whoop if the driver can get over to exit at his or her exit.

Traffic may carry the uninitiated driver down two exits before he or she can exit. (Canada has alleviated this problem by installing “collector lanes” that allow one to move over and select his or her exit from the comfort of this lane).

One OF said he thinks it is the time of day because this OF was on one of these roads in Atlanta and in one of the center lanes when he spotted his exit. The OF put on his blinker, and a tractor-trailer in the next lane over slowed up and let the OF in.

To get over into the next lane, a tow truck slowed up and let him in, and to get into the final lane (so the OF could get off at his exit, which was approaching rather quickly) a city bus slowed and let him in the far right-hand lane and the OF made his exit. Just like anything else, at times it is not all bad, but it is scary. Yet it is still too close, too fast.

Hearing about hiking

We have mentioned before that some of the OFs are hikers and we’ve told of some of the work they do to maintain trails and hiking destinations. Tuesday morning, the hikers were talking about their hiking.

It should be noted that this scribe is not a hiker — this scribe is more of a lover, a thinker, and a painter of where the hikers hike.

Apparently, like all enthusiasts of whatever hobbies they have, weather does not deter them and these OFs were talking about hiking, working on trails, and contending with whiteouts. More of the OFs should bundle up and get outside even for a little bit.

These OFs maintain that just 20 minutes or so of good clean air will help keep you fit. Plus the added exercise of donning 15 pounds of clothes just to get out would help in the fitness department too.

Those OFs who put on just enough clothes to make it to the Country Café in Schoharie, and use calories to keep warm, were: Roger Shafer, Chuck Aleseio, John Rossmann, Harold Guest, Mark Traver, Glenn Patterson, Roger Chapman, Frank Pauli, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Jack Norray, Mace Porter, Lou Schenck, Bob Benninger, Bob Fink, Elwood Vanderbilt, Gil Zabel, Harold Grippen, Warren Willsey, Mike Willsey, and me.

The Old Men of the Mountain met at Mrs. Ks Restaurant in Middleburgh on Tuesday, Jan. 13, and that is one 13th of the year out of the way with that is not on a Friday. Now we have February, March, and November to look forward to. Not that the OFs are superstitious or anything.                 

Many of the OFs are looking for January to be over. Some of the OFs think that, once February is here, winter is on the wane. Although some say it can be a nasty month, and March can be the month of snow and mud.

Some March days feel like spring has sprung, and these days are then followed by a wintery blast, so that has many of the OFs shivering more so than in January. So much for the weekly weather report. It is what it is — deal with it.

Troopers evolve

Many of the OFs have relatives who are or have been New York State Troopers.  At one time, the OMOTM had a retired trooper who joined in on the breakfast with the rest of us.

With the advent of all the recent notoriety about police and the dangers they are in, the OFs began talking about troopers then and now. As none of us at the table is or was a trooper, the OFs could only relate what occurred with their friends and relatives, and there are some big changes.

Early on, the troopers were treated like soldiers in the army; they actually had barracks. They stayed right there and were away from home. The uniforms, though basically the same color were quite different.

The OFs told humorous stories about the situations their friends and relatives got into as troopers. Some of the OFs told of how they have had to use the troopers, or how the troopers have had to come and see them.

The rural areas like the Hilltowns when the OFs were young rarely saw a trooper; there were not that many and those who were assigned to these areas had a lot of geography to cover. Also, the OFs don’t know when it changed, or even if it has, in fact, changed, but there seemed to be fewer tickets issued back then. It seemed the troopers were part of the community, and really were peacekeepers.

It seemed, as one OF neatly put it, the troopers knew who to cuff and who were just good old boys settling things the mountain way and not bad people or criminals.

The gray uniform still carries the respect it did then and probably will continue to garner the respect that has built up since 1917. One OF added: As long as they keep politics out of it, it will.

Only the good die young

Almost as a continuation of last week, the OFs brought up the health issue again, only this time it was why some people who apparently maintain a healthy lifestyle wind up with some horrendous diseases.

The OFs picked out people who have brain cancer, and pancreatic cancer. People who are active and thin keel over with a heart attack. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for much of it as far as the OFs can understand.

Then there are those, one OF said, who break all the rules and are still chewing on their cigars at 100 years old. One OF thought there should be a percentage chart in doctors’ offices that show what the percentage of not getting a nasty disease is (when the people who play by the rules) as compared to those who do not play by the rules chances of getting some serious malady that is going to do them in. The OFs used examples of smoking, drinking, being sedentary, and constantly at the food trough.

The OFs harkened to when they were younger and there were very few rules on what to eat, wear, drink, and go.

Then again one OF said, “We had little choice of what to eat, wear, and drink, and also a horse didn’t get you very far.”

“We aren’t that old, you old goat,” was the reply, “but most of us did eat from the garden, and butchered our own meat, plucked our own chickens.”

Spotlight on disease

Last week’s disease topic was basically polio.  This Tuesday, the issue was another nasty ailment — Parkinson’s disease.

There are medications for this problem but what was brought out by the OFs was, when someone in the spotlight contacts this or that disease and begins to champion it, what a difference that makes. The OFs brought up how much Michael J. Fox has done for Parkinson’s awareness, treatment, and research.

The OFs thought the people in the trenches and doing the grunt work seem to make little headway, then someone in the limelight gets involved and bingo!  There is that positive spike.

A short comment that this scribe did not pick up at the time (some people think on their feet — right or wrong — this scribe is a mull-it-over type and thinks about it, sometimes for days) and this is the comment, “If we die, do we have things in order so our kids don’t have one giant puzzle to solve?”

That is a good thought but what’s with the “if?”  Shouldn’t that be “when?” The way it was said may be normal, but it sounds like we have a choice. This scribe thinks there is no choice; it is not “if” but “when.”

Those OFs attending the breakfast at Mrs. Ks in Middleburgh and all bringing their rabbit foots (feet?), which leaves a lot of three-legged rabbits running around, were: Chuck Aleseio, Otis Lawyer, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Roger Shaver, Roger Chapman, Harold Guest, John Rossmann, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Mace Porter, Jack Norray, Lou Schenck, Elwood Vanderbilt, Harold Grippen, Ted Willsey, Jim Rissacher, and me.

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who lived from 1793 to 1864, has long been heralded as Guilderland’s most prominent son, in these pages and elsewhere.

In his local history classic Old Hellebergh, published in 1936, the late Guilderland town historian, Arthur Gregg, said, “There has never been in the long category of soldiers, patriots, statesmen, manufacturers, educators, and jurists, born and reared in sight of the ‘Clear Mountain,’ [the Helderbergs] one with more fame than the pioneer . . . Henry Rowe Schoolcraft.”  

A Renaissant-like omnivore of human experience, Schoolcraft was a glass manufacturer early in life, then a mineralogist, then a geologist, explorer, ethnologist, poet, editor, and for 19 years, from 1822 to 1841, served as United States Indian Agent headquartered at the frontier posts of Sault Ste. Marie and Mackinac Island, assigned the tribes of northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

To many folklorists, Schoolcraft is considered the first “scholar” to amass and publish a body of Indian folklore and deserves to be called the father of American folklore.  When he arrived in Michigan, he lived with the family of John Johnston, an Irish fur trader who married the daughter of a prominent Ojibwa war chief and civil leader from northern Wisconsin.

Schoolcraft married Johnston’s daughter, Jane, who provided him with a host of Chippewa legends. His mother-in-law gained access for him to stories from “the greatest storyteller of the tribe” and to ceremonies open only to tribe members.

Schoolcraft’s ethnological findings were published in many volumes, the magnum opus of which is his six-volume folio-size Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, published between 1851 and 1857, and costing $150,000.

As editor and writer, Schoolcraft, in 1826 and 1827, produced a much-sought-after weekly journal called the Literary Voyager. The 15 issues constitute the first magazine produced in Michigan and one of the first to appear in the frontier west.

Schoolcraft’s accomplishments have not gone unnoticed. In the Midwest, particularly Michigan, the Schoolcraft name is ubiquitous. A Michigan County is named after him, a town, a village, river, lake, island, highway, ship, park, and even the culinary arts Schoolcraft College in Garden City, Michigan has a food court called Henry’s.

As a person with an abiding interest in local history, I paid due attention to Schoolcraft over the years, particularly his relationship with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow whose epic poem, “The Song of Hiawatha,” was based on information Schoolcraft published.

But what enthralled me most about Schoolcraft was a touching one-page story I came upon two years ago when I was looking at Oneóta or Characteristics of the Red Race of America, published in 1847. It is called “Chant to the Fire-Fly.” 

Schoolcraft relates that on hot summer evenings before bedtime Chippewa children would gather in front of their parents’ lodges and amuse themselves by singing chants and dancing about. 

One spring evening, he says, while walking along St. Mary’s River, the evening air “sparkling with the phosphorescent light of the fire-fly,” he heard the Indian children singing a song to the firefly. He was so taken with the chant he jotted it down in the original “Odjibwa Algonquin [sic].” 

Below the text, Schoolcraft offered two translations of the chant — one “literal,” the other “literary” — of a song he says that was accompanied by “the wild improvisations of [the] children in a merry mood.”

I will not give the Ojibwa — you can find it on page 61 of Schoolcraft’s Oneóta — but I will provide Schoolcraft’s literal translation. After I read the poem several times, I could not escape its charms. I envied Schoolcraft that evening when he first heard the children sing. This is his translation:

 

Flitting-white-fire-insect!

Waving white-fire-bug!

Give me light before I go to bed!

Give me light before I go to sleep!

Come little dancing white-fire-bug!

Come little flitting-white-fire-beast!

Light me with your bright white-flame-instrument—

Your little candle.

 

I was so taken with this text that I wrote two poems about the firefly and started looking deeper into the story but the more I did the more I smelled something rotting in Denmark.

That is, I found a chorus of folklorists, linguistic anthropologists, ethnopoeticists [mine], and those of that ilk, taking Schoolcraft to task for being a “textmaker” rather than a scientist dedicated to taking down the Indian world as it presented itself to him.

Schoolcraft wanted to produce something “literary” (marketable), and to achieve that, he engaged in mediating between what the Indians said and what a projected readership might accept from the “savage.”

Schoolcraft says he began to weed out “vulgarisms,” he “restored” the simplicity of style, he broke legends “in two,” “cut [stories] short,” and lop[ped] off excrescences.”

In the introduction to The Myth of Hiawatha and Other Oral Legends, published in 1856, he said the legends had been “carefully translated, written, and rewritten, to obtain their true spirit and meaning, expunging passages, where it was necessary to avoid tediousness of narration, triviality of circumstance, tautologies, gross incongruities, and vulgarities.” In other words, what did not fit his aesthetic and religious views of reality, went.

While giving credit to Schoolcraft for his pioneering work, the early 20th-Century folklorist Stith Thompson noted, “Ultimately, the scientific value of his work is marred by the manner in which he reshaped the stories to suit his own literary taste. Several of his tales are distorted almost beyond recognition.”

This is not an imposition of postcolonial standards on Schoolcraft’s doings. As Richard Bremer points out in his full-length biography of Schoolcraft, Indian Agent and Wilderness Scholar, even Francis Parkman told Schoolcraft to stick to the facts.

Though he often exhibited paternalist sympathies with the Indians, Schoolcraft signed treaties as the Indian Commissioner for the United States that displaced the Michigan Indian. The Treaty of Washington in 1836, concluded and signed by Henry Schoolcraft and several representatives of the Native American nations, saw approximately 13,837,207 acres (roughly 37 percent of the current State of Michigan) ceded to the People of the United States.

I went over to Willow Street the other day to visit Henry’s house, waiting in the cold outside, thinking he might come out. I have many questions for Henry Rowe Schoolcraft.

— Photo by Frank L. Palmeri

Drawbridge down: Frank Palmeri has built a storage space all his own, proving a man’s home is his castle.

— Photo by Frank L. Palmeri

Sort of like a Murphy bed: Frank Palmeri imagines he could sleep on this door if it were pulled down, creating a Man Cave above his stairway.

A Murphy bed is a bed that conveniently folds up into a wall when not in use. These space-saving beds were put to great comedic effect in plenty of old-time movies and TV shows like the Three Stooges and such; there's just something inherently funny about being in bed one minute and disappearing up into a wall the next, with arms and legs flailing and sheets flying.

You don't see too many Murphy beds these days (though kits are available if you want to build your own) but, strangely, I just had something very much like a Murphy bed appear out of nowhere in my house. Yes, I really did.

My four-bedroom house is plenty big, but I have no place in it that I can truly call my own — a place where, if I put something down, I can be absolutely 100-percent positive it won't be disturbed. That place for me just does not exist.

One time, I had a motorcycle gas tank painted beautifully. I received it from the painter in October and needed to store it until the spring. I put it in the furthest corner of the attic, figuring it would be safe from harm.

When I retrieved it in the spring, there was a dent in it. No kidding. Of course, no one knows how it got there. I really, really need a place in my house to call my own.

We have a stairway that goes from the garage to the basement — it cost extra when we had the house built but I use it all the time so it was well worth it. The stairway had a lot of height to it but the space was unreachable because it was, after all, just a stairway.

Over the years, I'd always wished there were a way to access this wasted space. It got to a point where I would sit at the top of the stairs and just stare, pardon the pun, at all the unreachable space, hoping for inspiration. (Getting a freshly painted gas tank bashed in will do this to you.)

Then one day it hit me: I could build a folding ramp to access the dead space over the stairs.

Now I was a man with a plan. I had to think how to build the ramp in such a way that it would be strong, safe, and easy to use. Of course, there's dreaming about it and then there's paying for it.

I don't know if you've been to a lumberyard lately, but wood is not cheap. The plywood, studs, lag bolts, and heavy-duty hinges I bought really added up. Then I purchased adjustable shelf hardware and some other hooks and things to help organize the space.

Finally, I bought a heavy-duty pulley. The idea was to take an old barbell plate and attach it with rope to a pulley to act as a counterweight. Setting it up this way would make it much easier to raise and lower the heavy ramp.

I'm not trained in carpentry or anything like that — I never even had any kind of a shop class in the parochial/college prep schools I attended — but I read a lot and try to learn from my mistakes. Working slowly and carefully, I soon had a working ramp installed.

The shelves I built in front of it are so strong I can store really heavy things like motorcycle engines (I have a few waiting to be rebuilt). To prove how strong the ramp was, I called my wife out and had her watch me jump up and down on it.

Since I've put on an extra 10 or 15 pounds over the holidays (at least), this may not have been the smartest thing to do (though I know I've done much stupider things in front of my wife). Still, the ramp held and it's working just fine.

Of course, now that I had a real functioning stairway storage area, I had to freshen up the dusty and cobwebby unpainted stairwell itself. So this meant more money for primer, paint, wood filler, and all the labor to paint everything in the stairwell — ceiling, walls, stairs, and handrail.

I know a lot of us get quotes from contractors from time to time for various remodeling and home-improvement jobs. Invariably these quotes are rather high, but the thing is, this kind of work just takes so much time and, as we all know, time is money.

I mean, even if you get on a roll and really hack away at it, there are waiting times for glue to harden and for paint to dry that you just can't avoid. Plus there's a limit to how long you can work while still working safely. One should never play around with tools if one is too tired to work safely; it's as simple as that.

So now the job is done and I'm showing it off to my brilliant RPI mechanical engineer future son-in-law. I demonstrate how the pulley works by moving the ramp up and down, etc.

He looks at me and says with a straight face: "You know what you just did? You built yourself a Murphy bed!"

Well, go figure, in a way I really did. All I'd have to do is put a pillow on one end of the ramp and I could just sack right out.

Of course, if I do that, I'll have to add those safety rails you put on kids’ beds so the little ones don't roll off; taking a header off the ramp and down into the basement would be quite the story on the local TV news but not much fun at all.

Actually, all I need to do is add a flat-screen TV over the door and I'd have a mini Man Cave, or, in my case, a Man Stairwell. Hot-diggety-dog!

All kidding aside, with a full basement, a walk-up attic, and a shed, there is no reason I should have needed any more storage space, but, like many, we have a serious clutter problem that sorely needs to be dealt with. It's not time to get a big green Dumpster and just toss everything out (at least I don't think it is), but we're way overdue in sorting and getting rid of our clutter.

I'm hoping my new super-organized and efficient Man Stairway/Murphy Bed with kick start us on the road to de-cluttering, once and for all (and I hope I finally have one place in the house where I can safely put something and not have it be disturbed).

Note: If you see me sleeping on the folded-down ramp, please don't close it up like the Three Stooges did all the time. That's only funny when it happens to someone else.

Tuesday, Jan. 6, the first breakfast of the Old Men of the Mountain of the New Year, was at the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh. It is now year-wise 2015 (and temperature-wise five to seven degrees) and what does the year hold in store for the OMOTM other than be cold?

By the tone of the chatter Tuesday morning, not much — even the temperature is pretty normal for January.

The OFs have seen so many old years go, and new years come, that, when compared, one to another, nothing much happens. But, when the years are strung together, a lot does change — a whole lot.

This scribe does not want to start listing a multitude of changes here in transportation, communication, medicine, or morality; the readers can do that themselves just by comparing any topic from 1930 to 2015 and noting the changes. From diapers with pins to Pampers, one of the best subjects for changing the scribe can think of.

One sign of progress during that period of time is the small matter of immunization in the medical field. Now the OFs get a shot to ward off this or that.

The OFs were talking about having gotten their flu shot. The media is advising us that the shot we had is not going to handle the type of flu that is out there, but it will lessen the severity of it. Again, every little bit helps.

Polio in our country and throughout much of the world is about obliterated because of a vaccine. The OFs are familiar with this disease because of knowing people who have contracted it.

Tuberculosis is another disease that can be conquered, pneumonia another.  Get a shot and the chances the OFs will come down with these problems are slim. The OFs could go on and on in just this one segment of progress in the 80-plus years they have crawled (then got up and walked) on this sphere.

Decorating minimalists

As the OFs become older, they find they do less and less decorating for the holidays. Holidays here meaning not only Christmas, but Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter, or any other holiday the OFs celebrated in the past.

This year, most of the OFs have their decorations down, because not many were put up. When is the appropriate time to put the decorations away until next year?

As far as the OFs go, there isn’t any. Put them up whenever, and take them down whenever, or never take the outside decorations down.

“Why?” the OFs ask. “It just has to be done next year anyway.” 

Over the years, the OFs have accumulated boxes and boxes of ornaments and these boxes are stashed in the attic, barn, or cellars of their homes. Many of the OFs add to their collections just because of good marketing, or because the decorations just look pretty.

Now, instead of one box, many have quite a few boxes and some these boxes now are never opened and never used. One OF said Box Number One, which hasn’t been opened in 20 to 25 years, must have some super collectible ornaments in it by now.

Decorating to one OF is a lot of fun, and the whole family gets into it. This OF has a manger scene he built and painted himself and he still drags it out each Christmas.

OFs’ ingenuity shines

The OFs were wondering why it is that the smaller the tractor, the more the parts cost to fix it when it either breaks or wears out. Some OFs have a small tractor, not a lawn mower-type tractor but a do-it-all small tractor.

It is not only one OF that thinks his tractor is a Cat D7, but most of the OFs fall into this category and they try to pull a two-ton log with a half-ton tractor. That is why things break and the manufacturer is smart enough to realize this is going to happen, so, to make a good profit, it puts a hefty price tag on parts. Or the service shop tacks a good price on the parts that are prone to breakage to increase its margin to pay for parts it has to carry that are probably never going to move off the shelf.

This is where the OFs shine. Over the years, they have developed a little trait called ingenuity.

This becomes obvious when an OF says such-and-such broke and another OF says he had the same problem and fixed it with duct tape and baling wire, and tells how he did it.

If you think this is just a joke, just watch the NASCAR races sometime and see how much duct tape is used after a car has had an altercation with the wall at 190 miles per hour. Sometimes cars finish with two to three rolls of duct tape holding them together. Duct tape is the OFs’ friend. This scribe thinks some of the OFs are held together with duct tape.

Wrong turn

Referring to last week, the OFs who took the wrong turn more than once leaving the Hilltown Café in Rensselaerville were followed (unbeknownst to them) by other OFs who left the restaurant but knew where they were going.

This past Tuesday morning, The OFs who knew questioned the other OFs and asked if they got home by noon.

The OFs who knew where they were and saw the other OFs turn right when they should have turned left or gone straight said, “I wonder where those OFs are going; they are going to get lost.”

Yup, they were right.  The right-turning carload of OFs did take quite a circuitous route and wound up about 300 yards from the Hilltown Café after driving for nearly half an hour.

The OFs who made it to the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh, and who did not even worry about the vehicle not starting (that seems to be a thing of the past) were: George Washburn, Glenn Patterson, Harold Guest, Roger Shafer, Otis Lawyer, Chuck Aleseio, Mark Traver, Robie Osterman, Roger Chapman, Lou Schenck, Mace Porter, Don Wood, Bill Rice, Henry Whipple, Bill Krause, Elwood Vanderbilt, Harold Grippen, and me. 

Put a nick in the post.  Tuesday, Dec. 30, the sky was actually blue and sun was in the eyes of most of the Old Men of the Mountain on their way to the Hilltown Café in Rensselaerville.  Nearly all of them were catching the sun as it came up, and for “A” people that is the best part of the day.

This scribe found out later that some of the OFs again got lost, not actually lost, but just twisted around on the way home from the Hilltown Café. Really, the restaurant is easy to find, and it’s just as easy to leave, when people stick to the main roads.

However, when many strangers and even some so-called locals try a road less traveled in the Hilltowns of the Helderbergs, it sometimes becomes time to send out the St. Bernards with the jugs around their necks.

The OFs started talking about some of the OFs who are having tough physical problems and the upbeat attitude they have to whatever their problem is.

The OFs are OFs because it seems that those in the group do not have a “woe is me” attitude. The report on the OFs who are in these situations is that they are positive.

One particular OF who is having a tough time became paralyzed and is in therapy — really intensive therapy. This OF cannot walk “yet.” He is making progress but it is slow; however, he has told the OFs who visit him he is going to “walk” out of this place. By golly, the OFs are sure he will.

This type of attitude applies to the others. The OGs have said this before and will say it again: You have to be tough to get old, and it is the personal approach the OFs have to this getting-old bit that helps them get old with attitude.

Smart birds

Many of the OFs have outdoor-type personalities; they are hikers, kayakers, hunters, fishermen — the type that pull on the boots, pull down the earflaps, and head out.

Tuesday morning, they were talking about fishing spots along the Schoharie Creek and elsewhere. These places range from Burtonsville to beyond Middleburgh. There are others but this group of OFs was talking specifically about the areas on the Schoharie Creek because of the eagles that nest there.

This scribe, who spends a lot of time outdoors (but isn’t one of these outdoorsy type of OFs) surmises that the eagles are as smart as the OFs; these birds know where the fish are.

Rest Seekers legend

Traveling back in time again was brought about by current events and how things have changed. The geography covered was basically Warners Lake.

The OFs discussed the absence of some of the eating establishments on the Hill and how those that are left have taken over. The OFs did take in the old Rest Seekers Inn and what a place that was.

They spoke about the Lake and how Zwick’s was on one end and O’Hanlon’s on the other. Both places had boat launches and places to swim in the lake. It was different then, and the OFs were younger, of course, and might be remembering the times and fun from a different angle.

One OF remembers bringing friends from Long Island to Rest Seekers.  At first, they were hesitant to enter, because, instead of eating in the bar like the OF usually did, they went in through the diner door.

To those not familiar with the Rest Seekers design, this entrance was like going into someone’s basement. It was lit with one 60-watt bare bulb screwed into a pigtail, and wired to a cord hanging from the ceiling.

Inside, the place would be full, and the collection of people would be everyone from farmers still with their boots on, to people in fur coats, suits, and ties. The Long Island people were still uncomfortable because, when they sat down at the tables, the tables were at such an angle it took two cups of coffee to get one.

Usually friends from the Hill would stop by and genuinely ask who they were and say things like, “I hope you are hungry,” or, “Order this or that.” The discomfiture finally left and the Long Island people loosened up and were amazed at the quantity, and quality, of the food.

The real kick in the pants came when one of the Long Island people thought he would have a slice of watermelon with ice cream for dessert, so that was ordered. What was served was half of a large watermelon, and at least a quart of ice cream. The Long Island person just stared and then broke out laughing when he found out it was just for him because that is what he ordered. Ah!

The Rest Seekers is gone but not forgotten.

Foxenkill?  Well, that is another story, and it wasn’t on the Hill anyway.

No doomsday

The OFs at this breakfast wished all a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year as they left, as the next breakfast will be in 2015.

It seems to most of the OFs that we just left the millennium breakfast wondering what we were going to do when all the banks failed, and the computers went down, and the stock market crashed because we were going into the 21st Century.

Where did all that time go?  The OFs are still waiting for the electronic disaster. There may be tough times somewhere down the line, but doomsday, the OFs maintain, is just a scare tactic to sell products.

Those OFs who made it to the Hilltown Café in Rensselaerville and who are ready for 2015 were: Karl Remmers, Bob Snyder, Robie Osterman, Harold Guest, George Washburn, Roger Chapman, Lou Schenck, Jack Norray, Mace Porter, Miner Stevens, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Chuck Aleseio, Elwood Vanderbilt, Harold Grippen, Gerry Chartier, Mike Willsey, Warren Willsey, Ted Willsey, Jim Rissacher, and me.

— Guilderland Historical Society

To meet the great demand at the turn of the century by hotels and homes for blocks of ice to cool iceboxes for food, hired men cut ice from Black Creek near Tygert's sawmill. After being cut, the blocks were hoisted out by a drag. This scene shows blocks being loaded on a cutter to be transported to a nearby icehouse and packed in sawdust.

The following incidents were recorded in the village of Altamont's Enterprise after the New Year 100 years ago.  A column "From Our Files," captured by newsman Shorty Vroman in the late 1970s tells the tales.  It is quite a change from what will be the Altamont 2015 year community events.

Saturday, Jan. 2nd, 1886

“Where are the new building sites for the next season to come from in our village? This is a question of some importance to those who are expecting to locate themselves in the near future. Without considerable grading, no further improvement can be made on Prospect Avenue.

“Church Street, with the exception of Lockwood Square, is now on Maple Avenue across from the present Enterprise building; where the Masonic Temple now stands is already taken. School Street [now Lincoln Avenue] could be made a popular thoroughfare if Jacob Crounse were to open the same.

“There are some desirable building sites on Grand Street. There are also projected openings in the VanAuken Square on Main Street. Let us be permitted to give a suggestion to those parties who have large tracts of land to dispose of, to have your streets graded and trees planted, will give added value to the adjoining property."

Saturday, Jan. 9, 1886

Knowersville Station:  "The great importance of our station on the line of the D & H road is far from being appreciated.  Our reporter called Mr. Smith Philley, the agent who furnished us with the number of passenger tickets sold during 1885 — 10,115 tickets sold.

“This does not include school tickets or commutation books. A large percentage of summer travel is by Albanians who purchase return tickets.  The actual amount of cash received for the year, exclusive of express and telegraph receipts is $11,532.69.  This indicates somewhat the sources of our prosperity."

Saturday, January 16, 1886

“The day car made the employees of the railroad happy Thursday.

Parties were drawing ice from Tygert's Pond Thursday for Mel VanAuken, which measured 14 inches.

"The thermometer here ranged from 12 to 18 degrees below zero Tuesday morning and from 18 to 22 degrees below on Wednesday morning."

Saturday, January 23, 1886

"We learn that John H. Pangburn intends putting in a full line of hardware in his projected new store and that there will also be accommodations for a meat market in the same building.  He has already commenced the erection of an ice house."

 Saturday, January 30, 1886

"A carload of apples was shipped from here Tuesday.”

"Sand's Mill commenced sawing for the first Wednesday afternoon."

South Bethlehem:  "An old colored gentlemen by the  name of  Lot Van Deusen died Jan. 21. His funeral was held at the church on the Sunday following.  According to the best authority, his age was 112 years."

Voorheesville:  "The sleighing is good and many farmers are taking advantage of it by drawing hay and straw to our merchants and logs to the mill."

Saturday, January 22, 1887

"If you want to keep warm during the cold weather, go to the depot where you will always find a rousing fire and plenty of good company."

"The thermometer ranged from 10 to 20 below zero in this locality Wednesday morning which is the coldest weather of the season."

Saturday, January 29, 1887

"Frank Mynderse is filling his ice house with ice 22 inches thick from Tygert's Pond."

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