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The Old Men of the Mountain met at Mrs. K’s Restaurant in Middleburgh on Valentine’s Day; they did not bring their wives or girlfriends. Some of the OMOTMs were going to take their wives out to eat in celebration of the day.

The OFs planning this get to eat out twice on the same day. This ingenious plan saves on dishes and electricity, and cleaning up after the meal. No one mentioned flowers; however, some mentioned cards and candy, while others said, “What’s Valentine’s Day?”

Some OFs say they clean up the kitchen in the evening after the last meal of the day and that is a lot of work. One OF said he thinks his wife takes advantage of his doing this and uses every pot and pan in the cupboard to prepare the meal.

The OF continued his complaining by saying that, when he grills in the summertime, he does the whole ball of wax: the preparation, the cooking, and the cleaning up afterward.

One OF said, “Your wife has trained you well. It’s too late now,” the OF continued, “You are stuck.”

“Naw, he ain’t,” a second OF added and then the second OF told the first OF just to let everything pile up, and don’t do the cleanup, and then, when she goes to get a pot to cook with and can’t find any clean ones, she will get the idea.

“Not my wife,” the OF said. “H---, she will just go out and buy some more pots, and get paper plates with plastic flatware and serve the beer in a red plastic cup.”

Topic One

The OFs talked about how when the OFs were YFs on the farm — we all had animals.  Other than cows, horses, pigs, and chickens, we had our pets like cats and dogs.

None of the OFs could remember running them to the vet, or even getting the cat or dog special food. The cats had better earn their keep by catching rats, mice, and voles.

One OF said there was always an old milk-can lid filled with fresh milk daily and the cats would gather around that lid in the morning to lap it up. The dogs ate leftovers from what we ate.

These animals seemed to be healthy, live long, and  great companions — and we didn’t have mean dogs either. Some of the OFs remember going out to get the cows on an early summer morning and the dog or dogs running along with them. It was a great time.

One OF mentioned that he remembers the vet coming to the farm. Another OF said their vet came at a specific time, which the OF now knows was arranged by his dad but at the time when he was a kid the vet just showed up like magic.

Topic Two

The new Rivers casino in Schenectady was discussed with many of the OFs saying they are staying as far away from that as they can. A couple of the OFs mentioned they will visit it just to see what it is like because there has been so much hoopla about it

Another OF said he doesn’t think he can afford this particular casino, while others said now they don’t have to travel to Turning Stone in Verona, which is in central New York. One mentioned he still likes the atmosphere of Saratoga.

One or maybe more OFs suggested that their better halves like the slot machines. One OF said he can’t drive by a casino without his wife nudging him to turn in.

An OF pointed out that some of the casinos have nothing around them so there is nothing to do except be at the casino. The plus for the one in Schenectady is there is plenty to do outside of the casino.

If you like boats, the OFs said, there is supposed to be a marina at the site, or, if you like sports, Goldstock’s Sporting Goods is across the bridge and right up the road. There are lots of other shopping places, gyms, Mohawk Honda, and M&S Cycle (for motorcycles and scooters) just a little further from Goldstocks.

Guy stuff — drop the wife off — and the OF might come back with some new skis, or maybe even a new car. That’ll teach her; then again, the wife might just win enough to pay for some of these unexpected purchases.

If the OF is interested in history, there is the Stockade area of Schenectady with a little park where the OF can sit in peace and watch the river, while feeding the squirrels.

Topic Three

The problems with the dam in Northern California were discussed, which brought up dialogue about our own Gilboa dam in Schoharie County; however, the dam in California seems to be much worse in scope.

This brought up the discussion of what the OFs would take if they had to evacuate in a hurry. Many answers were alike, such as important papers, medicines, photos, and some cash. A few OFs had some interesting add-ons like water, and one said to be sure to take the wife.

Another OF had a keen idea. This OF’s suggestion was, if you live in an area prone to flooding or natural disasters, to have a small lightweight and tight trailer. Keep your records in there, your photos, water, blankets, and whatever else you deem necessary — sleeping bags, camp stove with fuel, etc. — so, when the evacuation notice comes, all that is required is to hook it to the vehicle and take off. The medicines should be all that would be necessary to grab. That sounded like a cool idea.

The Old Men of the Mountain who hit the highway for Mrs. K’s Restaurant in Middleburgh, expecting to have snow-covered highways, and who were pleasantly surprised by how well the highway crews had cleaned them, were: John Rossmann, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Ray Frank, Harold Guest, Bill Lichliter, Jim Heiser, Chuck Aelesio, Roger Chapman, Otis Lawyer, Mark Traver, Glenn Patterson, Marty Herzog, Sonny Mercer, Ray Kennedy, Mace Porter, Pastor Jay Francis, Don Wood, Ted Willsey, Warren Willsey, Russ Pokorny, Mike Willsey, Bob Fink, Bob Benninger, Elwood Vanderbilt, Harold Grippen, and me.

On Tuesday, Feb. 7, the Old Men of the Mountain met at the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh.

This was a morning when the weather guys and gals were predicting some nasty winter weather but the OFs headed out anyway. Those who arrived had nice weather but, when it came time to leave the diner, the freezing rain and sleet had begun.

The OFs who lived below 1,400 feet had only the rain and sleet — those over 1,400 feet had large wet snowflakes thrown in for good measure, at least in the Helderbergs. The OFs are in the hills west of the Hudson so that is the geography the OF use as reference.

The OFs were wondering how National Grid comes up with the report it sends out on how your use of electricity compares to your neighbors. The OFs said they look around at their neighbors and they see the neighbors have as many lights on as they do, only according to National Grid these neighbors are using less electricity.

One OF said his neighbor across the street is a graveyard. He said those guys really don’t use much electricity. His other neighbor lives there only part of the year so he does not use much. The other neighbor is a vacant building so, of course, he is using more than that neighbor.

Another OF said three of his neighbors are on solar power and this OF wonders if his usage is based on a comparison with them. The point is the OFs don’t know what neighbors they are being compared to.

One OF suggested there should be a little map with an arrow pointing to his place and little dots or something denoting what neighbors he is being compared to. The report says it compares your home to approximately 100 homes of the same square footage as the OF’s home and uses the same type of heat.

Many OFs say that is a lot of real estate to find 100 homes close to his home. The OFs look at this notice, find it interesting in a way, but still look at it and then say “so.”

The report says this OF’s house is 1,500 square feet and has electric heat. He has never used the electric heat. In the beginning, he used a wood stove, but converted to oil quite a few years ago. The OF said the wood had become just too much work.

One OF mentioned this notice from National Grid is a good idea. The OF can use it as ammunition to show his wife that they are using too much power and she should turn off the lights when she leaves a room. The OF maintained his house is so lit up that planes use it as a beacon; it is even listed on aircraft routing maps.

I-88: Lonely street

The OFs discussed traveling to Binghamton or to Oneonta prior to the construction of Route I-88 and after. Using Route 7 before the interstate was completed was interesting but took some time to get to places. I-88 did not do as much damage to the small towns along Route 7 as the Thruway did to the towns along Route 20.

Many OFs say it is still faster to come from Syracuse to Albany on Route 20 than it is to use the Thruway. The OFs claim I-88 is only a late spring, summer, and early fall road. It is a dangerous highway in the winter.

A couple of the OFs said it is a dangerous highway any time of the year in bad weather. Some OFs said it is the wind, while another said it is the wind, but it is also the deer, and he continued with comments concerning the sun. The sun never shines on the highway through some of the cuts in the hills that were made when the highway was built.

One OF thought it was not maintained as well as the Northway or the Thruway because there is nobody on it. Another OF said that he sometimes thinks he is still in his driveway because there are stretches where he can drive for miles and be the only car on the road.

“My kind of road,” one OF added.

This scribe mentioned the optical illusion for about three or four miles where the road appears to be going downhill when actually it is necessary to apply pressure to the accelerator to maintain speed because the road is in fact going uphill. The scribe also added the driver wouldn’t notice this if the car is on cruise control.

Who are we?

At one end of the table, there was some discussion on where we come from, and are we really are who we think we are.

Included in this was some discussion on Warners Lake and Thompsons Lake. The OFs said the fishing on Warners Lake was not as good as it had been in previous years. It could be the open winters one OF thought.

Then followed a dialogue in which one OF was informing the other OFs how, after precise instructions were dictated by the manufacturer of his home, the foundation and yard grading had to be exact before they would deliver the home.

The OF related that, when the home came, the trailer was moved into position and beams were laid; then one man came and pushed the house onto the foundation with one hand.

This should have been a Kodak moment, or even a video moment. One OF said a bare house with nothing in it really doesn’t weigh that much.

Those OFs who made it to the Middleburgh Diner ahead of the freezing rain and sleet, and whatever else was coming, were: Harold Guest, Bill Lichliter, John Rossmann, George Washburn, Roger Chapman, Roger Shafer, Robie Osterman, Don Wood, Mace Porter, Gerry Irwin, Mike Willsey, Russ Pokorny, Marty Herzog, Elwood Vanderbilt, Warren Willsey, Ted Willsey (with Denise Eardley, Ted’s private chauffeur; if you have a Hilltown Willsey gene, be prepared to have a long, productive life, so behave yourself when you are young because, if you do anything stupid and go to jail for life, it is going to be a very long time), Harold Grippen, and me.  

Scattered across the Southwestern states of the United States are the remnants of an ancient civilization as mysterious in its own way as that of the Etruscans or the Minoans. Evidence of the rising culture of the people long known as the Anasazi appears over 2000 years ago and reaches its highest stages of development in the 1200s A.D.

They are the ancestors of today’s Pueblo-dwelling people, and visitors to the modern-day villages at Taos or Acoma in New Mexico will see the resemblance of the ruins of the ancient people’s cliff-dwellings and free-standing buildings to modern Pueblo dwellings. Developed archeological sites easily accessible to visitors include Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon, but other known ancient sites number in the tens of thousands, and no one can be sure how many more have yet to be discovered.

The beauty and ingenuity of construction of the dwellings and religious structures of the Anasazi are legendary, existing as they do in some of the driest, hottest, least inhospitable parts of the country — places that frequently resemble the arid, rocky landscapes being explored by robots on Mars. Inevitably, questions arise about why these people chose such places to live and how they were able to find sufficient food and water to survive.

More frustrating is the fact that the Anasazi did not have a written language and the many petroglyphs (carvings on rock faces) they left behind are both beautiful and tantalizingly abstract. They seem to depict a culture in which a spirit world and the material world existed side by side and frequently interacted.   Perhaps none of the mysteries the ruins evoke is as profound as what appears to have been the sudden and possibly violent end to the Anasazi culture.

The first archaeologists to explore at Anasazi sites such as Mesa Verde found dwellings from which the inhabitants appeared literally to have grabbed what they could carry and fled — often leaving behind clothing, beautifully-crafted pottery, and partially-eaten meals on tables. If these discoveries seem comparable to similar findings at Pompeii, the cases are not in any other way parallel.

In the Southwest, there is no evidence of a sudden natural disaster such as a series of volcanic eruptions.  Although an extended drought occurred in the 1200s, such events had occurred before and the ancient people had managed ingenious methods to survive them. In addition, objects too heavy to carry — such as stones for grinding corn — were often smashed to prevent anyone else from using them, strong indications that the sites were abandoned suddenly and under duress.

Archeological wonder

Located a few dozen miles northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Bandelier National Monument is one of the archeological wonders of the American Southwest. The site was first explored (and subsequently named for) Adolph Bandelier, an anthropologist of Swiss-American extraction.

It is situated where a clear stream known as Frijoles Creek that flows year around — a rarity in this arid region of New Mexico — has cut deeply through the surrounding plateau forming a craggy hidden valley.  From time to time, the stream overflows its banks and, when it returns to its bed, it leaves behind — like the Nile River — a layer of rich soil.

Both on the creek’s floodplain and in the cliffs that tower above it are some amazing remnants of dwelling places of the ancient people. The floor of the valley is green and fertile and the remains of free-standing pueblos and walled gardens can be seen there today. But it is in the vertiginous cliffs that the handiwork of the ancients is most spectacular.

Here are artificial caves carved into the bedrock accessed by ladders or precipitous stairways that meander through crevices eroded into the bedrock forming natural windows and grottos. There are also homes and storage places built ingeniously into the bedrock, sometimes in harrowingly precipitous locations.

It is of course tempting to see these structures as having been built in such spots for protection — but it is also possible they were situated there for the same reason that modern people buy condos in high rises:  The views are great!

The bedrock at Bandelier, hundreds of feet thick, is an igneous rock called “tuff” — not to be confused (as even some geologists have been known to do) with “tufa,” which is a chemical sedimentary rock often found at springs and seeps in areas of limestone bedrock. Composed of very light-colored dust and sand-sized particles and tiny sparkling quartz crystals as well as larger, angular pebble or cobble-sized rock fragments, the Bandelier tuff formed from the compaction of materials blown out of a gigantic volcanic eruption that occurred near Jemez Springs, New Mexico, over a million years ago leaving the giant collapse feature known as the Valles Caldera.

Though the caldera is quiet today, hot springs around its perimeter and occasional earthquakes indicate that — just as at Yellowstone National Park — a great pool of magma lies beneath the surface and could erupt again.

The great advantage of the tuff into which Frijoles Creek has carved its deep canyon is that the stone is relatively soft, and with the primitive tools available to the Anasazi people it was possible both to hollow out the shallow caves that were carved into the canyon walls and to shape blocks from which the free-standing buildings in the valley were constructed.

The blocks were also used to build walls and terraces surrounding gardens on the green, well-watered valley floor in which the ancients grew their staple crops of corn, beans, and squash. The plateaus above the valley were rich in game — there were herds of elk providing meat and hides, flocks of turkeys, rabbits, and other wildlife that could be used for food or clothing.

An ideal place to live

In sum, Bandelier was an ideal place to live, especially when compared to many of the other ancient settlements such as Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, and hundreds of other sites that show the ingenuity of the ancient people in adapting to appalling geographic and climate conditions but were hardly ideal places to live.

In addition to having a moderate climate, Bandelier was largely hidden from the view of passers-by, it was sheltered from storms, it could be easily defended if necessary, and it had a well-watered, fertile space for growing crops.  So the question naturally arises: What made the ancient people abandon such an ideal location, supposedly to vanish into history?

Well, to start with: The romantic notion that the Anasazi simply vanished, like Attila the Hun and his hordes after Attila’s legendary meeting with Pope Leo I, is simply incorrect.  The Pueblo people today whose villages are scattered widely across the Southwest are the direct descendants of the Anasazi, and their oral traditions frequently pinpoint specific locations even down to individual ancient pueblo sites as their places of origin.

The appearance of a dwelling in a modern-day village such as the Santa Clara Pueblo near Santa Fe, New Mexico shows the direct influence of the heritage of the ancient Anasazi: their astoundingly beautiful pottery; the multi-levelled dwellings with upper homes accessed by ladders; the starkly beautiful simplicity of design; and the ubiquitous “horno” — outdoor oven — around which meals are prepared and family and friends will gather.

But the fact remains that something of staggering impact occurred during the mid- to late-1200s A.D. causing the ancient people to evacuate their dwellings on exceedingly short notice and to take whatever they could carry, destroy much of what they could not, and flee to the south, resettling in the areas in which their descendants live today.

Disturbing factors

Once the lack of persuasive evidence that the migration was caused by drought or other natural disasters is taken into account, other sometimes disturbing factors must be considered. Recent archaeological digs in sites such as Chaco Canyon have found strong evidence of ritual cannibalism and violent warfare, adding an unsettling note to the romanticized depiction of the ancients living in blissful harmony with other tribes and their natural surroundings.

Moreover, even the term “Anasazi” has come to be considered politically charged in many quarters.  Derived from a Navajo word, “Anasazi” may be translated as the benign expression “ancient ancestors” — but it may also be read as “ancient enemy.”  This ambiguity has come to be regarded as explosive and in scholarly literature today is frequently replaced by the neutral expression “ancestral pueblo people.”

However — it has been duly noted by serious historians that the people of ancient cultures did not live their lives for the approval of those of us living in the 21st Century and we cannot impose our values in interpreting ancient clues, even if those clues lead us to unpalatable conclusions.

Whatever our admiration for the accomplishments of the Anasazi, whatever our trepidation over evidence of violent behavior that may emerge, one simple fact remains: These people did not write history books or carve inscriptions on their monumental works.

The reasons that they fled from such ideal sites as Bandelier and sometimes left behind evidence hinting at dire events will likely never be known, and explanations in oral traditions are ambiguous and sometimes contradictory.

But in thousands of sites such as Bandelier, Mesa Verde, and Chaco Canyon we may see their artful, ingeniously constructed stone works, their exquisitely painted pottery, and their haunting petroglyphs, all of them evoking a world about which we know far little than we would like but within which we can see both glimmers of the creativity of the human spirit and shadows of the dark events of our own sometimes violent past.

On the last day of January 2017, the Old Men of the Mountain met at Kim’s West Winds Diner in Preston Hollow.

Why is Kim’s Diner here, why is Preston Hollow here, why is Livingstonville where it is? It would be interesting to know why all these small towns dot the countryside.

The OFs come out of the mountain like flies attracted to decaying meat to go to breakfast on Tuesday mornings. A better analogy would be like bees to goldenrod in the fall.

The OFs maintain that the restaurants should have fans a little way from the restaurants (and on either side) that would waft the aroma of eggs and bacon towards the highway. The OFs feel this would induce passersby to whip in and order up breakfast even if they were not that hungry. Kim’s is such a place right on Route 145 at the edge of a small town.

Exodus of small businesses

The OFs discussed how many small businesses have left the area over the years. This time we discussed specifically Johnstown and Gloversville.

Both of these towns were full of small businesses. The knitting mills, glove- and leather-producing factories are now gone.

This area in Fulton County in its heyday had 300 leather factories; today there are only about a dozen and some of those just do the leather. The OFs used to take trips to that area to shop.

Johnstown Knitting mills was one where the OF said you could hear the mills running in the back. The OFs purchased gloves, wallets, and leather jackets, all right at the factory that made them. They are gone.

Now when the OFs look to purchase a pair of gloves, they all say “Made in China.” One OF added there is a reason (he thinks) for this. He opined that, if the gloves were made here, a $20 pair of gloves would cost $100.

If it ain’t broke, why fix it?

One OF whipped out his wallet to leave a tip and pay for his breakfast. The wallet appeared to be one he received as a graduation present when he graduated from high school.

An OF queried, “About time for a new wallet, isn’t it?”

The OF replied, “Nothing is falling out of it yet so it is still functional, and, if it functions, why get another one?”

Tough statement to argue with. A few of the OFs agreed with the OF with the old wallet.

One OF said he received a new wallet from his wife who was embarrassed by his other old one, and this OF said he could not get all the stuff from his old wallet into his new one.

Some of the OFs had to agree that change is not always good. These OFs were of the opinion that, if is not worn out, why change? And, if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”

Bygone factories

This conversation went back to Gloversville and Grandoe leather where the St. Thomas wallet and bags among other name-brand, high-quality leather goods were made. (One of those leather places that is no longer there.)

This OF and his wife, like other OFs, did some of their Christmas shopping in Gloversville as mentioned above. Grandoe Corp. would have a factory sale that was so popular they would have people on the outside guarding the doors and, when some people came out, they would let the same number in. The room under the factory would be packed.

“One of the factories,” another OF said, “that made gloves, 30 years ago made the gloves for the Air Force, and they also had a small section of the factory where at Christmastime they had factory sales. The OF said people showed up at this glove plant in tour busses.

To get to this factory outlet, it was necessary to walk through part of plant where people were sizing gloves over hundreds of metal hands protruding from a table. The employee would stretch a glove over a protruding hand, push a lever with his foot, and steam would come out of holes in the hand to shape the glove. This factory is also gone.

Ten-digit phone numbers

Some of the OFs with Time Warner received a notice in their bills that said, starting in late winter or early spring ,it will now be necessary to dial 518 for every number in the 518 area code, and 838 if you are assigned a new number in the 518 area code. Now all counties in the 518 and 838 area codes will have 10-digit phone numbers.

One OF said to call his neighbor he will have to dial 518-123-4567, but if he gets a new neighbor who gets a phone this neighbor might also get a similar number like 838-123-4567. There’s a chance that business cards, letterheads, signs, truck lettering, and the like might have to be changed.

Another OF complained that life is not easy anymore. Who keeps messing  things up, he wanted to know. Why can’t I just get up, have breakfast, pack a lunch, take my old boat out to the lake and go fishing, come home, have supper, watch a little TV, or read a book then go to bed. No! Now I have to think all the time; they keep changing all kinds of rules. I can’t keep up.

The Old Men of the Mountain, some of whom had to push the covers off a little earlier to get to Kim’s West Winds Diner in Preston Hollow, were: Bill Lichliter, John Rossmann, Harold Guest, Karl Remmers, Roger Chapman, Bob Snyder, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Dave Williams, Mark Traver, Otis Lawyer, Glenn Patterson, Marty Herzog, Ted Feurer, Don Woods, Chuck Aelesio, Frank Ray, Lou Schenck, Jack Norray, Mace Porter, Gerry Irwin, Warren Willsey, Mike Willsey, Elwood Vanderbilt, Ted Willsey, Jim Rissacher, Harold Grippen, and me.