Archive » June 2017 » Columns

I’m not totally sure when it all started. What? The camera/phone fetish. The constant documenting of every single, bloody, sweaty, boring, intimate, private, public, silly, and otherwise superfluous aspect of our lives.

Once upon a time, you took a picture of your new baby peacefully sleeping when you first got home from the hospital. Nowadays people shoot 4K video of the actual birth and then immediately upload it to the web so everyone can share the joy (or nausea).

Now don’t get me wrong here. I appreciate a good photo as much as the next guy. So, I truly understand the urge to document or capture important moments in our lives. But therein lies the key to the insanity: Important moments.

People now have the ability to record still images or video 24/7 and so they do. And that’s become a problem. I mean, handing someone a scalpel doesn’t make them a surgeon, so having a camera does not make you Ansel Adams or Steven Spielberg.

A great photo or video is great because it represents a singular moment or event. If you are always shooting everything you encounter, chances are many of those photos or videos will not qualify as great. Probably, many will qualify as trash. So, in essence, you’re cluttering up the world with trash. Think of it as digital littering.

The main reason for this, of course, is the ubiquity of the smart phone. In the old days, you had to carry a real camera, and then pay for film, developing, and printing. Unless you were very well off, or a professional photographer, most folks took photos only on special occasions. That’s one of the main reasons why looking at old printed photos is fun; they mostly represent truly special moments.

Another problem with the constant recording is that it’s an invasion of privacy for anyone who happens to be nearby or in the frame. If you’re having a quiet meal with your wife or friends and someone is six feet away taping a drunk friend who is stumbling towards your table, you likely want nothing to do with it.

If said video goes viral, do you want your face or those of your companions as the backdrop to some drunk person’s 15 microseconds of drooling fame? Probably not; especially if the video ends with the drunk falling on your table or vomiting in your lap.

A very creepy issue with the constant recording is that we’re creating generations of children who are way too comfortable in front of a camera. They calculate every move and word because they know there’s a good chance they’re being recorded by their crazed hover parents.

All kids start to look like those obnoxiously precocious kids you see on Disney TV shows. Why? Because once-normal kids see those TV kids and emulate them.

And what is done with these gigabytes of video and still images captured by said parental voyeurs? Not much. Most of this stuff gets uploaded to the cloud or downloaded to personal computers. That means your darling little ones are now out there on the wild and woolly interwebs along with lots of digital flotsam.

There’s also an actual cost, too. I have spent many hours cleaning up people’s overstuffed hard drives or installing extra hard drives. I’ve listened to sobs as I tell people their drives have died and they have no backup of the thousands of photos they’ve shot, including the touching birth video when mom was screaming bloody murder.

Then they really lose it when I tell them it’ll run $2,000-plus, to have a professional data recovery company attempt to salvage their precious photos — those same photos they’ve never really looked at. Guess how many people opt for that?

The final straw is that, for all this recording, people are less present than ever. Have you been to a concert; sporting event; or, goddess forbid, a school function, recently? Watch the people around you and see where their attention is riveted.

I once observed a teenage girl walk through a once-in-a-lifetime museum exhibit of Van Gogh and never look up once from her phone. People show up and spend the entire event glued to their phones, moving for a better shot, tweeting about the event, uploading to Facebook, Instagramming, or texting about the event. Do they ever actually just sit and watch or consciously attend?

If it’s your kid’s school play, do you recall their lines? Their big scene? Their actual part? Probably not. Although my guess is you have footage or stills buried somewhere that you’ll likely never look at again.

One other thing you might want to consider is how silly this is getting out here in the real world. On occasion, I’ve watched professional photographers try to shoot an event and one of the biggest challenges is to try and get the requested pictures while every shot is continuously blocked by people with cell phones. Seriously.

They’re standing there, holding several thousand dollars worth of cameras and lenses, trying to get a shot that will end up in the paper or online but they have to dodge a dozen crazed fans or hover parents deadset on getting the lead singer at the concert or little Ashley as she belts out some pop hit during the school talent show, or crosses the line at the track meet. And we won’t even mention the silliness that takes place at most weddings.

So, folks, feel free to grab a shot now and then, when it really matters. More power to you. But instead of trying to be the next Spielberg, try just being present. If you paid to go to the concert, dance, sing along, listen, applaud, cheer, and maybe take a quick picture but, most of all, just be there. If you’re at a school event, put the stupid phone away and just bask in your little one’s performance, no matter what. Take a picture before or after if you must, but mostly just watch.

Social media and over-sharing have turned many people into the most connected but isolated people in the history of mankind. Try being present more and I’ll bet the mental pictures you get will far exceed any digital picture you could possibly snap.

Editor’s note: Michael Seinberg says he has appreciated pictures all his life. But he really doesn’t like being in them.

There are places in the world and within the United States in which layers of rock — called strata — record hundreds of millions of years of Earth’s history and are stacked atop one another like textbooks in geology, waiting to be read by the geologically literate.  Undoubtedly the most famous is the Grand Canyon into which trails descend, traversing around 2 billion years of our planet’s past along paths less than 10 miles in length.

In Albany County, Route 85 departs Interstate 90 and heads southwest, terminating in the historic village of Rensselaerville and as it skirts Albany and rises into the fastness of the Helderbergs it yields evidence of the last great Ice Age, the collision of continents that formed the Appalachian Mountains, and of the proliferation of ancient life-forms during the Devonian Period, straddling 450 million years of geologic time in 30 scenic miles.

This essay presents a guide to some of the most notable features in a drive that, even allowing for stops, can easily be undertaken in an afternoon — preferably on a clear one so that the occasional stunning long-distance views will not be obscured by our area’s notoriously unpredictable weather, which seems to have been especially fickle in recent weeks.

Setting the odometer at “0” as one’s vehicle leaves Interstate 90 onto Route 85 — for the next few miles a divided highway — one will almost immediately be passing by the extensive complex of New York State office buildings that rise between Washington and Western avenues and farther to the west the towers of the University at Albany will be visible.

The buildings are constructed on a thick layer of sand that is conducive to the growth of pitch pines and earned the area the name “Pine Hills.”  What most of the area’s residents are undoubtedly not aware of is the fact that some 10,000 years ago this stretch was lake-front property.

The last great advance of the Pleistocene glaciers ended about 20,000 years ago and after a brief stasis the great melting began as Earth underwent an extended period of warming.  Just as no one is sure why the Ice Ages occurred (aside from the general fact that Earth got colder), scientists are unsure what caused the steep and steady rise in temperatures. But rise they did and, due to the warming, the Mohawk and Hudson rivers carried vastly greater amounts of water than they do now.

For reasons also unknown, a blockage occurred in the Hudson Valley somewhere south of Kingston forming a great body of water known as Glacial Lake Albany that filled the valley from the natural dam clear up to Lake George.

Many of the hundreds of streams that fed into the lake formed sandy deltas that combined to form one great shoreline upon which the Adirondack Northway and Route 9 roll north — and upon which this stretch of Route 85 heads southwest. Subsequently, the wind blew the sand into vast dunes and the crescent-moon shape of some of them can still be seen in the parts of the Pine Bush Preserve.

Over time, great forests of pitch pine and patches of scrub oak and blueberry grew among them. Parts of the preserve that are undergoing restoration give an idea of the appearance of the sandy stretches thousands of years ago. But given Mother Nature’s prolific ability to reclaim empty growing spaces it will be interesting to see how long the areas currently being “restored” through the cutting of thousands of invasive species such as black locust trees will retain their resemblance to the ancient wind-swept dunes.

Areas “restored” only a few years ago already are green with great quantities of invasive plants, hiding the dune fields under newly-grown foliage.  Ecologists call areas such as these “pine barrens,” and the sandy expanses stretching north from Albany County in many ways resemble the great barrens of New Jersey.

Farther to the east was the lake bottom upon which the smaller sediments carried by the streams were deposited, and this is why much of the city and in particular downtown Albany are built on massive layers of clay. In the 1800s and early 1900s, foundries used the clay to make bricks — hence the explanation for why so many older buildings in downtown Albany and Troy are constructed from them.

The extensive areas of both clay and sand in most places obscure the bedrock that lies buried deeply beneath them. It is a dark, thin-bedded shale that dates from the Ordovician Period, making it about 450 million years old. It is visible in a few outcrops bordering the Hudson River. One such outcrop is exposed on both sides of Interstate 90 as it descends toward the Hudson and passes under Henry Johnson Boulevard.

At mile 4.0, Route 85 crosses the Normanskill where the stream slices through the dunes as it flows toward the Hudson. Some years ago, it undercut its sandy banks setting off a massive landslide in this area, causing the stream to permanently re-route itself.

After another couple of miles and several roundabouts, Route 85 joins New Scotland Road and between miles 5 and 6 passes through the historic stretch of Slingerlands reminiscent of New England. The terrain beyond here is mostly flat, rising gently to the west and represents what must have been relatively shallow waters of Glacial Lake Albany.

Geologists estimate that the shoreline extended roughly to what is now the intersection of routes 85 and 85A at the Stonewell Shopping plaza in the town of New Scotland.

Helderberg Country

It is at this point that Route 85 enters what I have always thought of as “Helderberg Country”:  a landscape of agricultural fields, deciduous forests, scattered tiny villages, craggy outcrops of bedrock, and sweeping views of the massive escarpments.

Beyond the intersection of routes 85 and 85A, the surface material is a mixture of soils such as clay and sand and larger particles: semi-rounded pebbles, cobbles, and boulders, many of them eroded from bedrock tens or hundreds of miles to the north. Geologists call sediments such as these “glacial drift.” They were deposited directly by the great mass of glacial ice that buried this area thousands of feet deep at the height of the last advance, some 20,000 years ago.

At 8.2 miles, Route 85 passes the historic New Scotland Presbyterian Church, the cemetery of which entombs Winifred Goldring who in the first half of the 20th Century was the New York State Paleontologist; her meticulously-researched publication, “The Geology of the Berne Quadrangle,” with its accompanying beautifully-drawn stratigraphic map has long been a valuable resource for students of Helderberg geology.

At mile 10.7, Route 85 passes the site of the old Indian Ladder Drive-In Theater with its miniature golf course — gone these many years — and offers, in clear weather, an enticing view of the Helderberg escarpment stretching to the north. Shortly beyond the site, there is an exposure of bedrock in a road-cut on the left side of the road; in much of this area north and south of Route 85, these alternating layers of Ordovician-age shale and sandstone known as the “Indian Ladder Beds” are obscured beneath glacial drift or heaps of stone called “talus” eroded from the cliffs of the escarpment.

At mile 11.5, after passing through the hamlet of New Salem, the highway begins the steep ascent that takes it from one Landscape Region — the Hudson-Mohawk Lowlands — to another, the Allegheny Plateau.

Considering the shortness and steepness of the ascent, this is one of the most dramatic changes in landscape regions in the continental United States.

Though the region is locally called the Helderberg Mountains, geologists see it as well as the Catskills to the south as a vast eroded plateau, given that the rock layers that compose it are relatively horizontal and undeformed (except for some minor faulting visible in many areas in Albany County).

The great Allegheny Plateau — also known as the Appalachian — stretches from just west of Altamont south to Alabama and it was formed during the Alleghanian Orogeny; this was an episode of mountain-building that occurred around 290 million years ago, when the ancient landmass that would someday be known as Africa collided with ancient North America.

For a simplified visualization of this event, think of what happens when two cars in a parking lot crash into each other nose-to-nose: The hoods and engine blocks of the cars may be crushed and compacted and pushed upwards, but the rear parts of the cars may be only slightly warped and lifted up above the chassis.

During the Alleghanian Orogeny, the area to the east of us was crushed and elevated into the great chain of mountains that stretches south from New England. The rock within was folded, faulted, raised to great heights, and in many places turned into metamorphic rock; the land farther west was elevated but remained largely undeformed and became the Allegheny (or Appalachian) Plateau.

At the top of the hill, Route 157 cuts right and heads toward Thacher Park. Route 85 continues along a flat lower section of the plateau, offering on clear days broad views across and up the Hudson Valley to three mountain ranges: in the far north, the Adirondacks near Lake George; to the northeast, the Green Mountains in Vermont; and to the east, the Berkshires in Massachusetts — these latter two are actually the same range with different names. Farther to the south in New York State, they are known as the Taconics.

Following the westward curve of the landscape contours, the road passes outcrops of dark shale before descending slightly to the wide valley of the Onesquethaw Creek at 13.7 miles.  In the creek bed is exposed the Onondaga limestone, the uppermost layer of limestone in the Helderberg area.

The Onesquethaw drains nearby Helderberg Lake, but in dry times of the year it may flow invisibly under the heavily-fissured rocky creek bed as the Onondaga limestone is a major former of caves. The nearby Clarksville Cave and Onesquethaw Cave among many others are dissolved from the Onondaga.

Devonian-period fossils

In times of rapid snowmelt or unusually heavy precipitation, the creek flows above ground, forming swirling rapids in this stretch. A clean light-gray limestone formed in a long-vanished warm, tropical sea, the Onondaga is studded with beautifully-preserved Devonian-period fossils including numerous corals and shellfish.

Beyond the creek bed, Route 85 briefly joins Route 443 and heads on a shoulder of the valley steeply uphill. Here the bedrock consists of alternating beds of thinly-bedded shale and thick layers of dark sandstone, and these strata extend south through the Catskills.

While the lower-elevation layers exhibit marine fossils — trilobites and clam-like brachiopods, among others — the higher-elevation layers near Gilboa and elsewhere south of the Helderbergs show fossils of primitive land plants and giant fern trees that obviously grew above water.

These layers are the eroded remains of what geologists term the “Catskill Delta.”  The name is somewhat misleading for there were numerous deltas that formed and co-joined during the Acadian Orogeny, a period of mountain formation that occurred during the late Devonian Period as North America collided with that section of the primitive European continent known to geologists as Avalon.

Towering, snow-capped mountains rose that were as grand in their day as the Rockies. Rushing streams poured from their flanks, carrying heavy loads of dark sand, clay, and mud, filling in the shallow sea in which the Onondaga limestone formed and producing deposits thousands of feet thick that would eventually be elevated by tectonic action into the Allegheny Plateau.

There are numerous outcrops visible in the Helderbergs in which the dark shale layers sit directly atop the light-gray limestone — compelling evidence of the rise of the great mountains to the northeast.

At 15.8 miles, there is a pull-off on the right side of the highway allowing a glimpse into the deep gorge that the Onesquethaw Creek has formed at the south end of Helderberg Lake. A mini-version of Ausable Chasm, the gorge features rapids, waterfalls, plunge pools, and numerous traces of the movement of small faults and the folding of the rock layers that probably occurred during the Alleghanian Orogeny.

In the gorge, the Onesquethaw Creek provides an example of what geologists call an “under-fit” stream.  The deep gorge shows signs of having been eroded by a stream with far more power than the Onesquethaw shows today, but at the time of the melting of the glaciers the ancient Onesquethaw must have been a veritable torrent and its surging, sediment-laden waters would have had sufficient energy to cut deeply into the bedrock, forming the steep-walled canyon visible today. It should be noted however that the gorge is on private property and permission from its landowners must be secured for entry.

At 16.4 miles, there is a view of privately-owned Helderberg Lake to the right of the highway; to the left are road-cuts through the shale/sandstone strata showing their thin layering and fragmentation.

Shortly beyond this point, Route 443 veers west toward Schoharie and Route 85 continues in a southwest direction, moving into a region of fields and forests. Meandering across the landscape are numerous stone walls made both of flat, angular chunks of the local stone and occasional smoothed or rounded boulders; these are “glacial erratics” — transported sometimes hundreds of miles from the Adirondacks or even Canada by the ancient glaciers and shaped by grinding against other rocks in the ice or in the streams that poured from the glaciers in summer.

Robert Frost found these rocks annoying in his famous poem “Mending Wall” as their rounded shapes make them resistant to stacking and easily susceptible to the pull of gravity.  The fields here as in the town of New Scotland are buried deeply in glacial drift; clearing these fields first of trees and then of the larger rocks in the soil for farming in the days of the pioneers must have been an appalling challenge.

At mile 24.4, a high glacially-sculpted hill appears prominently on the left side of the road. Like Bennett and Countryman hills near Clarksville, it exhibits a fairly steep north face, a flattened top, and a long, gentle slope to its south face — features of what geologists call a “rock drumlin.”

Fantastical village

At mile 26.9, Route 85 terminates at a T-intersection in the hamlet of Rensselaerville, a diminutive hamlet that very few residents of the city of Albany seem to be aware of — and those who have heard the name almost inevitably confuse it with the city of Rensselaer.

With its steeply sloping streets, its historic buildings, churches, and cemetery, its tiny art gallery and elegant eatery, and the town-wide echo of flowing water from Ten-Mile Creek, the hamlet’s ambience evokes that of Harper’s Ferry in West Virginia — or to the more romantic-minded, the fantastical village of Brigadoon.

Taking a right at the T-intersection and ascending steeply to the west end of the village past the restored mill, one soon enters the Huyck Preserve.

The Preserve consists of over 2,000 acres of forest and includes Lake Myosotis, a wilderness lake that can be accessed both by foot or by car. A trail begins at the west end of the small parking lot and heads upstream along Tenmile Creek.

Almost at once, hikers will hear the sound of falling water. The trail crosses a bridge near the mossy ruins of a 19th-Century mill and offers the first tantalizing view of the Rensselaerville Falls. Just beyond the bridge, a trail cuts sharply to the right and upward and follows a somewhat exposed ledge.

The trail is comfortably wide here though to the right there is a drop ranging between 20 and 30 feet down to the water and hikers should proceed with care. After a couple of hundred feet, one arrives at a ledge approximately one-third of the way above the base of the falls, offering a stunning view of the waterfall.

Here the thin-bedded shale and massive sandstone layers have been incised by Tenmile Creek following a fault that has sliced through the rock layers creating a box canyon into which the overflow from Myosotis Lake plunges 125 feet down a series of step-like projections. The erosive effects of water and ice have caused large, angular boulders to break from the bedrock, creating lacy meanderings and cascades for the rushing waters.

At the bottom of the falls is a plunge pool bordered by flat shelves of the dark shale, and a sharp-eyed observer may see in some of the exposures wide ripple marks: evidence of the shallowing of the ancient waters in which the sediments were deposited by streams rushing from the high mountains rising to the northeast during the Acadian Orogeny.

Soon those deposits would form the so-called Catskill Delta on which primitive ancient plants including fern trees would grow. Millions of years later, the violent events associated with the Alleghanian Orogeny would elevate the layers far above sea level and perhaps cause the fault through which Tenmile Creek would begin its spectacular plunge toward the sea.

I have always taught my students that, to appreciate geologic history, one must have a good imagination.  Driving on Route 85, one begins on the sands of the immense delta that bordered Glacial Lake Albany some 10,000 years ago — a time which, to a geologist, is not much further back than yesterday morning.

But along the highway lies evidence of ancient seas, the rise and fall of great mountain chains, the effects of millions of years of weathering and erosion, and the more recent, Earth-altering events of the last great Ice Age.  There are few places in the continental United States where so much geologic history is revealed — and so easily accessible. For those with the inclination and imagination, the chronicles of worlds forever lost and gone lie almost literally in our backyard.

Caregivers’ corner

Summertime in upstate New York is a great time to walk for good health.

We are fortunate in our area to have many options to choose from when we lace up our walking shoes.  One of my favorites is the Albany County Helderberg-Hudson Rail Trail that stretches from the city of Albany to Voorheesville. The wide trail, which is paved from Albany to Slingerlands, makes for excellent walking for all ages and abilities.

Outside our front doors, many of us have sidewalks, which make for pedestrian-friendly places to exercise. The campus of the University at Albany is a great place to walk if you live nearby. If you have a bit more travel time, our region is fortunate to have numerous wooded trails and nature centers, like Five Rivers Environmental Education Center in Delmar.

Why walk?

The National Institute on Aging notes that brisk walking is great exercise, and like other endurance exercises, can improve heart and lung functioning. Endurance exercises help keep you healthy, improve your fitness, and make it easier to do everyday life’s routine tasks. And, don’t overlook that good health enables you to enjoy a fun and active lifestyle as well.

Are you new to walking for fitness? Of course, check with your doctor before beginning any new exercise program.

The NIA recommends walking for the 30 minutes a day. If that’s too much, you could try walking for 10 minutes at a time and build up to three times a day. In time, you may advance to a single 30-minute walk. As your walk becomes easier, add new challenges, such as climbing a hill, extending the time you walk, increasing your walking pace, or adding an additional day a week of walking.

Step counters can help you keep track of your walking, set goals, and measure your progress. Once you know how many steps you average, you can set a goal to walk more.

To get a sense, the NIA reports that inactive people generally get fewer than 5,000 steps a day, while those who are very inactive get only 2,000 daily steps. A goal of 8,000 steps daily meets a recommended activity target, while a daily total of 10,000 is even better.

If you hit 15,000 steps a day, you’re in a high activity group! The NIA has more Go4Life fitness tips for older adults at www.nia.nih.cov/Go4Life.

Where are your favorite local places to walk for good health? I would love to know and will share your responses here and on the Community Caregivers’ Facebook page.  

Community Caregivers Inc. is a not-for-profit organization that provides non-medical services including transportation and caregiver support at no charge to residents of Guilderland, Bethlehem, Altamont, New  Scotland, Berne, Knox and the city of Albany through a strong volunteer pool of dedicated individuals with a desire to assist their neighbors.

Our funding is derived in part from the Albany County Department for Aging, the New York State Office for the Aging, and the United States Administration on Aging. To find out more about our services, as well as volunteer opportunities, please visit www.communitycaregivers.org or call us at (518) 456-2898.

Editor’s note: Linda Miller is the Outreach and Education coordinator for Community Caregivers Inc.

It is June and on the 6th of the month in 2017, one wouldn’t know it, because it has been cold. So cold that the Old Men of the Mountain appreciated the comfort of Kim’s West Wind Diner in Preston Hollow.

With all the rain and miserable weather so far, the OMOTM expected to see the creek directly in back of the diner really high, but it wasn’t. It was not as high as the last time the OFs (Old Friends) were at Kim’s when a couple of ducks were riding the current down the creek at a pretty good clip.

The OFs (Old Fuddy-duddies) had a conversation that was part history lesson and part directions on local geography. Some of the OFs (Old Fogies) have lived in the Hilltowns for many, many years and, as farmers, seemed to not stray very far from their Hilltowns.

As the conversation proceeded with the history of Preston Hollow, especially the stone store which is no longer there, the OFs (Old Farmers) began to mention landmarks which are still here. Some of the OFs (Old Folks) had no idea where these landmarks were, however, as mentioned above, these OFs have been in the area most of their lives and lived no more than 20 to 25 miles away. This is a recurring theme of the OMOTM and at the ages of most of the OFs is understandable. The OFs did not stray far from the farm.

New fun and old fun

The OFs talked about visiting shut-ins and other OFs who are in nursing homes. This is one advantage of participating in a social group of some sort. The OFs thought it does not have to be a big group — a small group from a church would suffice.

First though, the OFs said, you have to be associated with a group, like the OFs, a church, or the American Legion, Kiwanis, Elks, or their auxiliaries. The OFs mentioned weekly visits and playing cards or some type of board game with these shut-ins. This seems to be a recurring theme with the OMOTM; with the ages of most, it is understandable. Redundant, as the OFs are.

The OFs talked about the old time swimming holes in Fox, Schoharie, and Catskill creeks. The OFs could not remember if all of them were still there. Some of the OFs knew for sure some of these old swimming holes were gone. Three of the swimming holes on Fox creek have all been graded; now they are so shallow they are nothing but wading pools.

The OFs remembered jumping off the bridge that crosses Fox Creek at Drebitko Road, which goes to the Gas-Up. The OFs who took advantage of these swimming holes were mostly farmers and would find their way to the hole on a hot summer’s day covered with hay chaff and sweat. Those were good times, when farm kids worked hard and had simple fun. Most were poor and didn’t know it because everyone was in the same boat.

Wheeling and dealing

At the table this morning was the age-old system of bartering in full swing. Some was not bartering, but out-and-out selling this and that, to other OFs (and, of course, Old Farts) who wanted this and that.

This is downright dickering and it appears that friendships have nothing to do with these deals. This was strictly: “you have what I want and I will pay so much.”

On the other end was: “I have what you want and I will get all I can.”

Then there was the bartering going on and that was fun to watch also. This is the typical: “I have something you want and you have something I want.”

Then the, “let’s see if we can work the swap out fairly” begins. Sometimes the swap may be two for one, or at times this swapping will get down to haircuts. When this takes place these haircuts do not look bad.

B29 surprise

In the report of last week, this scribe reported on OFs in the military and some of their remembrances. This conversation, though not on-going, does come up quite frequently. We have also covered the OFs who have gone to Washington on the honor flights with a sponsor, and how impressed the OFs are with this trip.

This week we again report on one OF (Old Fellow) who was in the military and in the Air Force, and this is so current it happened a few days before this morning’s breakfast. This OF’s daughter and granddaughter spirited the OF away to Reading, Pennsylvania without telling anyone else in the family. This scribe conjectures it was because, if others knew, it would somehow be leaked and the surprise would not be a surprise.

The daughter and granddaughter had procured tickets for the OF to ride on FiFi, a famous restored B29 bomber. In the Air Force, this OF maintained the B29 bombers. The surprise worked and the OF had the opportunity to occupy the navigator’s seat and fly in this famous airplane. The OF who was the beneficiary of all this attention happens to be 90 and he is the oldest member of the Old Men of the Mountain. It is hard to surprise someone who has been around 90 years, but this OF was really surprised and excited.

The Old Men of the Mountain who arrived at Kim’s West Wind Diner in Preston Hollow and were happy to find it still there after driving through the fog and the rain, were; Bob Snyder, Karl Remmers, Roger Chapman, John Rossmann, George Washburn, Bill Lichliter, Robie Osterman, Harold Guest, Pete Whitbeck, Wayne Gaul, Ron Brown, Don Wood, Sonny Mercer, Ray Kennedy, Lou Schenck, Art Frament, Mace Porter, Gerry Irwin, Herb Bahrmann, Warren Willsey, Russ Pokorny, Ted Willsey and Bob Lassome with their good and dutiful chauffeur Denise Eardley, Gerry Chartier, Mike Willsey, Jess Vadney, Elwood Vanderbilt, Harold Grippen, and me.

Cats, by their very design, have many fascinating qualities and talents. We all know about their keen sense of smell, fast (catlike) reflexes, and that uncanny ability to land on their feet if dropped. But did you also know they tell time better than a Swiss watch? It’s true. I see it every day. Every $%#@! day.

Just so you know, Meg and I get up most weekday mornings before 5. Yeah, I know. But we do that so we can get in our morning workout, which is usually a three-mile walk or trip to the gym in inclement weather. I have a very trusty clock radio next to our bed set to wake us up precisely on time to the dulcet tones of whatever classic rock is playing at that ungodly hour. This morning I believe it was the soft warbling of Axl Rose with that lovely classic, “Welcome to the Jungle.”

But before I could even get to Axl’s stirring melodic range, I had been roused by the not so soft meow of Lemon, our 17-pound alarm cat. Lemon was letting us know, in no uncertain terms, that it was time for the humans to get up, get dressed and feed him! If, for some unfathomable reason we’d chosen not to stir, he’d have moved on to phase two, or Defcon Two, as he likes to call it. This consists of hauling his bulk (albeit rather gracefully) up onto the bed, strolling up along my left side, walking across my pillow, stepping on my hair, doing the same to Meg and then sitting down between us and meowing.

Still no response? He hops off the bed and begins to sharpen his claws on the side of the bed or on the floor. This creates sounds reminiscent of some horror film where a madman is tearing up some poor innocent item of clothing or furniture with a badly tuned chainsaw or dull butter knife. Somewhere in here, the alarm (the real one) goes off and we get up, so he just sits and watches till we get downstairs and feed him.

Weekends are the biggest challenge as we don’t set the alarm. Starting at about 4:30 a.m. he’ll wake up and come in to check on us. By 5 he’s getting pushy, so one of us will get up and make like we’re going downstairs towards the fridge. He’ll come dashing out, blow by us on the stairs fast enough to cause rug burn, and we’ll double back and close the bedroom door. After a couple minutes he’ll realize he was faked out, so he comes silently up the stairs, begins to sharpen his claws just outside the door and then reach up and start to try and turn the doorknob. Seriously. We have those antique glass doorknobs that go nicely with our 130-year-old house and he turns, struggles and rattles, but hasn’t managed yet. Darn his lack of opposable thumbs!

Finally, after this has gone on for awhile and the floor outside the door has a three-foot hole from his claws, one of us will get up and feed the beasts. Of course, it’s highly unlikely we can get back to sleep after this, but just in case one would want to try, you get about an hour before he’s back asking for the dry food. We give them wet first then an hour later, dry. So giving them wet is like hitting the snooze button. And if you think mornings can be an issue, just try taking a nap in the afternoon. As we feed them around 4 p.m., if you’re zonked out any time after 3 p.m., Lemon will let you know that the day is waning and you might want to think about getting up and moving. Goddess forbid that he goes hungry for an extra five seconds.

Whether morning or afternoon, his timing is just spot on. And he’s good year-round. Oh, setting the clocks ahead or back does throw him for a bit, but he’s soon back on schedule, just like clockwork (pun intended). But none of this behavior answers the basic question: How in the heck does a large orange and white cat tell time with such pinpoint accuracy? Is there a Rolex hidden under all that fur? Does his brain contain some sort of chronometer the way homing pigeon brains are said to have magnetic particles like little compasses? Is he in contact with some vast, unseen cat atomic clock service? I haven’t seen a bill as yet.

Perhaps we should try to get a grant to study this phenomenon. Imagine if we could harness the time keeping ability of cats. At the Olympics, you’d no longer need precision stopwatches. You’d just bring in a flock of cats. The starting gun goes off, the cats scatter and hide under the bleachers. By the time the race ends, they’ve crawled back out and congregated unerringly around the winner. Maybe in the future if you needed a new clock, you’d just go to the animal shelter and adopt a cat instead of going to the store and buying some mass-produced piece of plastic. The dashboard clock in the car? Nowhere near as interesting as having a small cat riding along with you. And wristwatches? Nope, a cat follows you around all day, letting you know when to do things like feed it, change the litter, get it fresh water, or brush it.

There you have our future. A world where cats let us know what to do and when to do it. Oh, wait. That’s my life every day.

Editor’s note: Michael Seinberg says he would have finished this column sooner, but one of the alarm cats kept going off.