Archive » November 2018 » Columns

by By John Williams

It was Nov. 20, 2018, when the Old Men of the Mountain met at the Chuck Wagon Diner in Princetown, and the weather did it to the OMOTM again! It was miserable.

Six to six-thirty in the morning, snowing, roads slushy and slick, a thin mist in the air and the OFs are out in this wretched chaos. Like one OMOTM said when he showed up, “You know we are Northeasterners and tough because we keep showing up for breakfast just to be with you guys after driving 23 miles in this stuff.”

(This reminds the scribe of something his 92-year-old mother told him, “You gotta be tough to get old!”) This is true.

Hair-raising talk

How this next banter started, this scribe does not know, but the OFs spent considerable time speaking about (this is true) hair. Their own hair (who had it and who didn’t), who cared about their hair, and who could care less if they had hair or not.

One OF (who still has hair to make some envious) said he was about due for a haircut, and he was. His hair was growing down around his ears, and this OF wears hearing aids, which doesn’t mean much because most of the OFs also wear hearing aids, but some of the OFs thought that hair over the ears, would seem to negate the hearing aids. (This outfit is beginning to sound like ladies at the local beauty parlor.)

Hear! Hear!

That prompted the discussion to jump to the wearing of hearing aids by so many of the OFs. Now this has been covered many times, but this time one OF said, “We all wear these darn things, and we are still hard of hearing.” (Basically, he was right.)

Instead of the “Amen”s that a few would utter after a profound statement, or sometimes the chorus would be huzzah, huzzah, the ending of this conversation was Hear! Hear!

Excess of exes

Then a new subject arose from nowhere again, or maybe this scribe missed what the intro was, but the new subject was on ex-wives.

The OFs started telling stories on how ex-wives (according to these OFs) took them to the cleaners. It seems that the OFs didn’t care; the OFs were glad to get rid of them.

These stories led to other stories of others that were in the same boat, and the OFs started naming names. Just listening to these reports this scribe said to himself, “Hey there has to be good book here someplace.”

This scribe also thinks these stories, though funny now, were not so funny at the time, and the stories will be placed into the file of stories for the OMOTM’s ears only and that file is quite thick, almost ready for another folder.

Pop’s Place shot up

On the news Monday night and Tuesday morning was the shooting up of one of the restaurants the OMOTM have in the wheel of restaurants they frequent. This is Pop’s Place in Preston Hollow.

The OFs only know what they hear on the news and read in the paper of what happened. The OFs can’t understand why anyone would do this. What for, what purpose does it serve?

“Now to shoot up a restaurant,” the OFs said, “what if it were a Tuesday morning and we were all in the place?”

The OFs don’t know if the police will catch these idiots or not but we hope they do. “Then take their guns and hunting licenses from them — if they even have licenses,” one OF added.

“Nah,” another OF said, “Whoever did this was just being stupid.” This OF thought that the ones that committed this offense should pay for the repairs, and be required to eat at the restaurant twice a week for a year, even if they live a hundred miles away. Then they would realize how much work the small entrepreneurs put into their businesses for darn little money.

Many ways to celebrate Thanksgiving

With Thanksgiving only a few days away, the OFs discussed this time of family and food but the discussion of thanks never entered into the conversation. We did, however, discuss the ways many of the OFs celebrate the holiday.

Some will go out and eat at a nice restaurant, especially those who have family spread all over the country. Some have all their family gather at their home, and that has now become a tradition.

Like most families that become large, the young ones run the family like a committee and each family is assigned what to bring to these events, just like a church supper. Mom and Dad, Grandpa, and Grandma have to make sure the house is clean, and the spare bedrooms are ready.

Then there are a few OFs whose tradition it is to go and volunteer at the big meals prepared for the less fortunate. There are also the OFs who at their ages now travel to whoever is having the family — these OFs are beyond all the work that is involved.

They will bring their assigned dish or dishes but, as one OF put it, “We even have someone come and chauffeur us which is great.”

However it is done, the microcosm which is the Old Men of the Mountain covers how most people spend the holidays. There may be some Humbugs out there but the OMOTM say let them Humbug all they want — the OFs don’t care.

This scribe, as he finished this little report, said to himself that, though thanks was never mentioned, it sure was expressed by actions and unspoken thoughts, of these Old Men of the Mountain who were at the Chuck Wagon in Princetown, and who did a lot of thinking were: Roger Chapman, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Bill Lichliter, Roger Chapman, Wally Guest, Harold Guest, Joe Rack, Otis Lawyer, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Gerry Irwin, Jack Norray, Herb Bahrmann, Mace Porter, Mike Willsey, Warren Willsey, Rev. Jay Francis, Elwood Vanderbilt, Harold Grippen, and me.

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by Grace Barber

— Photo by Grace Barber

Branching feathers around the eye of a tufted titmouse are loose and airy.

Fall migration bird banding at the Albany Pine Bush Preserve wrapped up at the end of October. On one of the final mornings of the survey, I went out with the Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission science staff and volunteers to take some photographs.

It is always interesting to see birds up-close and observe experienced banders extract information like species identity, age, sex, and health through careful examination of the birds. Later, while sorting through my photographs, I paused on a close-up of branching feathers around the eye of a tufted titmouse.

These lacy, dendritic feathers were loose and airy, but not in a way that looked particularly warm or aerodynamic, so I puzzled for a moment over their specific forms. I started to wonder about the structure and function of feathers in general, and a little online research quickly provided me with an abundance of fascinating features hidden in the drabbest of plumage.

I want to share some of the things that surprised me most, and what better place to start than at the root? While the roots of most feathers on the bodies of birds go only as deep as the skin, some feathers are attached to the bird’s skeleton. Yes, those long wing feathers that are critical to a bird’s flight anchor directly to birds’ wing bones with ligaments.

I have generally thought of feathers as being akin to hair. They grow out of specific follicles in the skin, they fall out and are replaced, and they are even made of keratin. But imagine having thick, rigid hairs attached to your bones!

Of course, it makes a lot of sense for these particular feathers to be attached to bone rather than just to skin or muscle, because birds use them to push themselves through air. If these feathers were not held rigidly in place, flying would require much more energy.

Imagine, for instance, trying to row a boat with an oar attached to your shirt rather than one you could hold firmly in your hand. This is roughly analogous to the difference between flying with feathers attached to skin and those attached to bone.

Now, on to color. Look around you. In most environments, the colors we see are the result of pigments absorbing certain wavelengths of light. The light that doesn’t get absorbed by a pigment reflects off of it — this reflected light is what we see as color.

The particular color of the reflected light depends on which wavelengths are present and which are missing. Your blue shirt only looks blue because the dye used to color the shirt is absorbing all the wavelengths of visible light except those that appear blue to us.

A different kind of coloration is at work in many bird feathers. When we see blue, green, or iridescent coloration on a bird, it is usually a result of structural color, sometimes working in conjunction with pigments.

Structural color happens when a material’s microscopic structure sorts white light into light of different wavelengths (colors) and only reflects some of those wavelengths back, allowing the other wavelengths to pass through, scatter, or cancel out due to destructive interference (it’s physics!).

If you’ve ever seen small rainbows of light cast around a room by a glass prism in a window, you’ve observed light being sorted into its different wavelengths by a colorless material (the prism). For another example of structural color, think of the colorful swirls on the surface of soap bubbles. The colors do not come from a pigment in the soap, but from the way the material reflects light.

Structural color can be destroyed by crushing the material, scratching it, or sometimes merely by making it wet. Blue, green, and iridescent bird feathers are fascinating examples of materials that exhibit structural color. Although we cannot see the microscopic structures that create these colors, we can certainly enjoy their effects.

Feather coloration gets even more mysterious, because some of the wavelengths of light that birds see are invisible to us. Most daytime-flying birds can see ultraviolet light, which our eyes cannot detect.

In extreme cases, this means some of those drab birds that seem to all look the same, “little brown jobs” as I’ve heard them described, actually have display coloration visible to each other but not to us. Some of the dyes and detergents used in manufactured objects are also UV reflective, which means we have very little idea of how the manmade environment looks to a bird.

Finally, one last hidden feature of feathers is that the color of a feather often corresponds to the feather’s strength. Melanins are pigments that result in black, red, brown, and pale yellow colors. However, melanins also tend to make feathers stronger.

This is why flight feathers, those same feathers that attach to bones, are often full of melanins and therefore dark in color. White feathers, or white details on dark feathers, do not have much melanin in them and tend to degrade and disintegrate faster.

There is much more to learn and share about feathers, from their growth and evolution to their structure and function. I encourage you to do a little investigating of your own. I found most of the information presented in this article on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website and through conversations with my knowledgeable colleagues.

Feathers can be extremely interesting objects to encounter on a hike, but please be aware that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 makes collecting them illegal in most cases, so best to pack a camera, gloves, and a magnifying lens, and leave feathers where you find them to be enjoyed by others or used by wildlife.

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by Mike Nardacci

— Photo by Art Palmer

Knox Cave in winter has massive ice deposits cloaking its entrance. The photo was taken around 1960 when the staircase was still intact, but the scene looks much the same in any Helderberg winter.

— Photo by Mike Nardacci

The picturesque entrance to Spider Cave gives no hint of its uninviting interior though its name alludes to the creatures that populate its walls in great numbers.

The precise locations of the caves referred to in this column have been left deliberately vague to protect both the caves and inexperienced persons who might wish to enter them. Those interested in local cave exploration are urged to check out the website of the Northeast Cave Conservancy — www.necaveconservancy.org — and to consider a cave trip tailored to their abilities during the period between May 1 and Sept. 30 when the caves are open for visitors.

One might — in a whimsical moment — regard it as “The Spelean Archipelago.”

Though sport- and scientific-cavers have long frowned upon the term “spelunker,” the noun “speleology” — the scientific name for the study of caves, derived from “spelaion,” the Greek word for a cave — and the adjective “speleological” have long become standard usage.

Across the northeastern United States, preserves in karst areas dot the map, ranging in size from a single acre to hundreds — “karst” being the term for a region of limestone or marble bedrock containing caves.  They are owned and/or managed by two organizations known as the Northeast Cave Conservancy, which recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, and the National Speleological Society — commonly referred to respectively as “the NCC” and “the NSS.”

The preserves protect numerous caves, the watersheds they involve, the unique life within them, and the classic karst surface features such as sinkholes, disappearing streams, and springs. Many local cavers are members of both organizations, the websites of which detail the history and geology of the various preserves.

From May through September, the NCC also offers instructions on access to the caves for the qualified public. From Oct. 1 to the end of April, many Northeastern caves — and all of those under the ownership or management of the NCC and NSS — are closed to protect the caves’ bat populations, which in recent years have been ravaged by the insidious disease known as “White Nose Syndrome,” or “WNS.”

Commercial caves such as Howe Caverns and a number of privately-owned caves that do not harbor bats remain open; however, winter has never been a very popular time for sport caving except for the most dedicated cavers, given the fact that Northeast caves are almost by definition very wet, and slogging through snow in sub-freezing temperatures to and from the caves can be extraordinarily miserable.

The National Speleological Society was founded in 1941 by a small but dedicated group of cave explorers and since has grown to become an international organization with thousands of members. In the Northeast, the NSS owns three Schoharie County cave preserves: Schoharie Caverns, the Gage Preserve, and McFails Cave, the most extensive in the Northeast. All three properties were donated to the NSS by generous patrons and have been maintained over the years by dedicated volunteers.

Knox Cave tragedy leads to stewardship

Yet the NCC was born as the final result of a tragic winter caving accident in 1975.

In March of that year, several students from the State University of New York Outing Club were attempting to enter Knox Cave through its ice-encrusted sinkhole.

The cave near the hamlet of Knox had sporadically been run as a commercial operation like Howe and Secret Caverns in Cobleskill, most famously under the ownership of Delevan C. Robinson and his wife, Ada. In the mid-20th Century, the couple were responsible for the building of an elaborate staircase offering access to the cave, which lies over 100 feet underground, and for constructing walkways and installing lighting for tourists.

D.C. seems to have had what the Irish call “the gift of blarney,” and some of his descriptions of the cave and its extent were — to put it gently — fanciful. But the cave features both large, easily-accessed passageways and more challenging sections that require stamina and sometimes ropework of explorers, and it has attracted serious cavers for many generations as well as tourists during the relatively brief periods when it was commercialized.

The Robinsons also built a large roller rink adjacent to the cave’s entrance sinkhole, which for a while in the 1940s and 1950s was the scene of skating parties and country dances. It seems to have formed a center of social life for the Hilltowns in the days when not many hardworking Helderberg folks could afford the time or the money to travel to nearby cities for entertainment.

But following D.C.’s death in 1961, commercial operation of the cave ended for the last time though sport cavers and scientists continued to gain access to Knox Cave with the kind permission of D.C.’s widow until she died in 1964.

Some time in the mid-1960s, the largely abandoned property was purchased by a Long Island corporation called “Organa Industries,” which announced its intention to restore the cave and dig out a boulder-choked sinkhole adjacent to its classic entrance to allow a through trip.  But Organa Industries went belly-up and the restorations never took place.

Old-timers in the Knox area may remember the huge steam shovel that stood for years in the field next to the commercial entrance but it seems never to have been employed in digging the clogged sinkhole and it eventually collapsed into a rusty pile of warped metal and cables.

The result was that access to Knox Cave was without any sort of control; in the years that followed, the staircase and the walkways deteriorated and the lighting system and many of the cave’s natural decorations were vandalized and the skating rink and the Robinsons’ 200-year-old farmhouse were torched.

Even the massive frozen waterfalls that formed in winter from drainage in the fields around the Knox sinkhole did not deter visitors from entering the cave. Sometimes the warmer (48-degree) air within the cave would melt a tight hole allowing access to the adventurous — or risk-takers — while at other times the even more foolhardy were rumored to be using sledge hammers to smash their way through the ice to gain entrance.

In any case, one day in March, 1975, although snow still covered the ground, the temperature rose to 50 degrees as a group of students from SUNY Albany tried to enter the cave. Runoff from the melting snow poured in a cascade behind the ice deposits and the result was that a massive block of ice broke away and came crashing down, killing one student and leaving another paralyzed from the neck down.

By that time, the cave and surrounding land had been sold for non-payment of taxes to a doctor from Schenectady. Fearing additional injuries and lawsuits, the doctor attempted to donate the cave to the National Speleological Society.

But the same fears caused the NSS to reject the offer and a group of cavers became concerned that the cave might be acquired by someone who would ban all exploration or even bulldoze its entrance sinkhole, effectively closing it permanently.

Thus, in 1978, three area men — Dr. Art Palmer, Robert Addis, and Jim Harbison — formed the Northeast Cave Conservancy as a not-for-profit corporation and Knox Cave has continued to be made available to qualified cavers. Over the years, subsequent exploration has added close to 1,000 feet of previously unknown passage to the map of Knox Cave and revealed another segment of passage yet to be connected to Knox known as Crossbones Cave.

And over the years, through purchase or donation, the Northeast Cave Conservancy has acquired a number of other parcels of land containing caves that are also well-known to explorers.

Caves galore

A western portion of the Helderberg Plateau known as Barton Hill in Schoharie County rises steeply above the Fox and Schoharie creeks. A standing joke among cavers is that the hill is hollow because of the numerous caves that underlie it.

One large parcel of land owned by the NSS was donated by long-time caver and local attorney Jim Gage and contains Schoharie Caverns, which resembles a slot canyon; its entrance lies at the base of a limestone cliff on the edge of the plateau.

Schoharie Caverns consists of nearly half-a-mile of streamway featuring beautiful stalactites and stalagmites, which decades of visits by college outing clubs and other groups have left marvelously intact.  A spartan cabin on the parcel is maintained by local cavers and is available for groups visiting Schoharie Caverns and other nearby cave preserves.

And there are many. The NSS also owns another large parcel of land on Barton Hill donated by Jim Gage and named in his honor; it contains Ball’s Cave, named after its 19th-Century landowner. Its vertical entrance lies in a heavily-wooded section of the hill and has drawn visitors for over 150 years.

The cave features immense rooms as well as low crawl ways, and a diminutive flooded segment of the cave known as the “Lost Passage” requires cavers to experience an “ear dip” to pass through it. (Do you really want to ask?)

Although there are a number of other known or suspected caves on Barton Hill not under the control of the NSS or NCC, Spider Cave was recently donated to the NCC by a local landowner.  ts alluring entrance has been described as “Storybook,” but explorers have found that it is a very short story except for those intrepid enough to challenge its agonizingly tight, wet main passage that extends for over 1,000 miserable feet into the plateau. And those who enter its easily accessible first hundred-or-so feet will encounter hundreds of its eponymous creepy occupants scampering across the cave’s water-smoothed walls.

McFails is the jewel

Generally considered the “jewel in the crown” of northeast caves is McFails Cave on the Cobleskill Plateau. Its entrance is in a beautiful hemlock and hardwood forest pockmarked with gaping vertical sinkholes, some of which take voluminous quantities of water from time to time.

Only a short and very unpleasant segment of McFails was known until 1961 when some students from Cornell University plunged through a pool with just a few inches of airspace and discovered that the cave did not end at the uninviting pool.

Today the cave is known to be over seven miles in length, much of which consists of high canyons and large chambers beautifully decorated with calcite formations. But the cave can be treacherous: Entrance requires rappelling down seventy feet — in wet weather through a waterfall — and much of a cave trip involves constant immersion in a cold stream, making the wearing of a wetsuit a necessity.

The cave has been hydrologically connected to other caves on the plateau, meaning that water in them them has been traced to McFails. Thus the potential exists for a cave system some 26 miles in length — a fact likely to draw intrepid explorers for years to come.

Clarksville Cave is the best known

Undoubtedly the NCC-owned cave that is best known to the general public is Clarksville Cave, which has drawn visitors for well over 150 years. Groups from camps, schools, churches, and colleges regularly visit the cave between May 1 and Sept. 30.

Clarksville has three known entrances and lies beneath a hardwood forest laced with nature trails. While much of the cave consists of subway-tunnel size passages, more adventurous visitors are drawn to its tight — and wet — challenging sections that lead to pools and a picturesque waterfall.

Despite its easy accessibility and heavy traffic in summer months, much of the cave is relatively pristine and its numerous classic features both above and below ground make it a veritable textbook example of cave and karst geology.

Ominous Onesquethaw

Not far from the village of Clarksville is the lesser-known Onesquethaw Cave also owned by the NCC.  Named for the stream that flows through the valley in which its entrance lies, its low, twisting passages are studded with fossils and its sometimes maze-like layout gives the cave a certain allure.

But Onesquethaw is not for the novice cave explorer and has long had a somewhat ominous reputation.   It lies in a low area that is prone to flooding and in times of sudden heavy precipitation a roaring stream enters the cave and can fill its passages to the ceiling.

In 1991, a group of students from Syracuse University became briefly trapped in Onesquethaw when a torrential surge of water flooded the cave, setting off a massive rescue effort that drew news organizations and cave-rescue teams from all over the Northeast. The students had fortunately found a room with a high ceiling and were able to cling to the walls until the water levels finally dropped and allowed them to leave the cave.

As the students’ experience in Onesquethaw Cave demonstrates, the subterranean world demands respect of those who enter it. The Northeast Cave Conservancy and the National Speleological Society have not only managed to acquire and keep open many classic Northeastern caves for qualified visitors, they have educational and scientific components as well.

Through work with the general public as well as scientists and qualified students, ranging from grade school right up through university-level students, the organizations have helped to maintain and protect the resources of the world beneath our feet.

And the NCC and NSS are not alone. All across the 48 contiguous states and in Hawaii many hundreds of acres of karst lands and areas underlain by lava caves have been acquired and protected by organizations of dedicated cavers: a “spelean archipelago” indeed.

Could statehood be far behind?

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Hedgie the Hedgehog is coming to our house for a long Thanksgiving visit

by Jo E. Prout

My kids have been anticipating the holidays since September, and they are counting the days — not because of food, presents, or snow, but because we will be hosting Hedgie the Hedgehog.

by John R. Williams

When the Old Men of the Mountain arrived at the Duanesburg Diner in Duanesburg, it was wet snow and fog on Tuesday, Nov. 13. This caused some of the OFs to ask if this scribe has kept track of the weather on Tuesdays, and how many have been miserable.

In fact, this scribe does keep a sloppy journal and the first note in the journal is the morning weather. When the scribe arrives in the kitchen and looks out the kitchen window, the scribe makes a note, then the scribe looks at the weather on the atomic clock and notes both in the journal. Upon hearing the OFs comment of the weather on Tuesday mornings, it prompted this scribe to go back and check.

What this scribe found out going back just seven weeks in his journal there was only one Tuesday out of the seven that the weather was a limited OK; for all the others, “completely miserable” is the best term for early in the morning.

This Tuesday morning, one OF mentioned how he drove Route 88 behind a tractor trailer because the road was slushy snow and the truck’s wide tires were clearing it down to the pavement so there the OMOTM stayed, driving on just wet pavement.

The OF said the truck was also cruising right along at about 65 to 68 miles per hour, and still in the fog and slush vehicles were passing them like they were standing still but at least on Route 88 the driver does not have to worry about oncoming traffic.

Food lures help?

One OF said he had some work to do and was looking for some help. It was not difficult work; it was just stacking wood. (Here we go with the wood thing again.)

The OF he couldn’t get anyone to come help. One OF said the way to do that is to offer free food. That way, the OF said, he would have tons of help.

The OF said he tried that and quite a few guys did show up and he had coffee and doughnuts ready for them. He said they hung around, shot the bull, ate all his doughnuts, drank all the coffee, and went home.

Not a stick of wood was chucked. So that idea doesn’t work. Then one OF said the only thing left is to add beer to list and don’t bring that out until all the wood is stacked. All you did was take a good idea and poorly implement it; try again.

Go-to guys

The OMOTM have a lot of go-to guys if you have a problem with this or that. One of these guys has acquired a rather large piece of equipment to go with his other pieces of equipment.

One OF said he had use for something like what the OF had just obtained. The OF said he would show him how to run it but he wasn’t about to do the work.

Then the OF at that end of the table thought this OF should have an excavating school. This way, the OFs could rent, or borrow the equipment (borrow here is a term for barter) and know how to run it to get the job done.

The OFs with all these special talents and tools could make a rate schedule of their talents to pass around. Then one OF said the first price should be zero; the OF would just pay for fuel when it is a piece of equipment and take the owner out to dinner, and not Burger King.

Lawn art to teach a lesson

An OF took the suggestion of lawn art one step further and is planning such a piece of sculptor with a car and a pickup truck, but he is going to take old clothes and stuff them with hay, and put a cap on a soccer ball for one of them and hang the hay figures out some of the windows on the vehicles.

He is going to title it “Don’t Drink and Drive.” Cool idea, some of the other OFs thought.

Drone discourse

The OFs talked about the recent passing of the Google plane to record the topography of at least the Capital District. They mentioned how the graphics are so much better.

The plane must have been covering the area around August 2018 by what the OFs noticed. This led to a discussion on drones and how sophisticated they have become with cameras attached and how cheap the drones are now.

One OF said he was sitting at his kitchen table and this thing went flying by his window and he had no idea what it was. Then it came back and went by again.

He said he was ready to get the shotgun and blast it out of the sky. He did go outside to see what was going on and it was his grandson playing with a new toy.

They are quite the thing, but one OF said, once it is flown 10 times, won’t the novelty wear off and it is just another thing to take up space in the closet.

A few of the OFs said they thought drones were great for businesses like surveyors, real-estate people, contractors, people like that, and law enforcement.

Again, we heard stories that raise the eyebrows. One OF said that a group was flying a drone over at Warners Lake, and one of the eagles over there came down and grabbed that thing out of the air and took it someplace — maybe to its nest; the OF didn’t know.

Maybe the eagle thought it was something invading its territory. Could be but it is a, hmmmm.

Those OFs who made it through the slush, fog, drizzle, and darkness to the Duanesburg Diner in Duanesburg just to have bacon and eggs were: Roger Chapman, Bill Lichliter, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Roger Shafer, Richard Frank, Chuck Aelesio, Glenn Patterson, Otis Lawyer, Joe Rack, Wally Guest, Harold Guest, John Rossmann, Gerry Irwin, Lou Schenck, Mace Porter, Rev. Jay Francis, Mike Willsey, Warren Willsey, Elwood Vanderbilt, Harold Guest, and me.

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November 21, 2018

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by Linda Miller

November is Family Caregivers’ Month. As we celebrate Thanksgiving and usher in a season of holidays from now to the new year, it’s important to recognize that this can be a tough time of year for family caregivers. We encourage families to draw upon community resources, like Community Caregivers, and to adjust family traditions to keep the holidays joyful and meaningful.  

Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, who has been a lifelong champion for family caregivers, stated: “There are only four kinds of people in the world — those who have been caregivers, those who are caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers.”

Even though caregiving is a universal experience, we feel so alone. Families often try to cope without a lot of support.

And, primary caregivers often deny the need for help, thinking, “If I were just a better spouse (or daughter, or son), I could do this without ‘outside’ help.” However, caregiving is a marathon, not a sprint, so family caregivers need to pace themselves and guard their own mental and physical health.

And, believe it or not, for the person receiving care, socializing with someone outside the family can be refreshing and renew their interest in life.

In our local area, Community Caregivers has been supporting individuals, families, and caregivers for over two decades. Our caring volunteers offer respectful assistance.

Volunteers offer rides for those who do not drive; it’s a one-on-one service in a volunteer’s own car.  Many of our volunteers seek to connect with the older residents of the community, so they offer friendly visits and regular phone calls. And our volunteers do those practical things like grocery-store runs that make living at home possible.

Community Caregivers staff do the “matching” of older adults to volunteer services. Please call us; there is no obligation simply to check out what Community Caregivers offers. In fact, thanks to our volunteers, our services are offered without a charge.

Our holidays are also bolstered by family traditions and high expectations for the perfect time as epitomized in the Hallmark commercials. Yet as families change, traditions demand that we adapt.

I see this in my own family. Each Thanksgiving, I look forward to my mother’s apple pie at our holiday table. For the past several years, however, the pies would not be baked without my sister’s assistance. It’s still Mom’s apple pie and we honor whatever contribution she makes to their creation, even though she can no longer stand at a kitchen counter or take hot food from an oven.

Family members who assist our elders know about creating new routines and altering old ones to help their loved one live life to the fullest each day. This holiday season, it’s incumbent upon those family members who live at a distance and may not have seen Mom or Dad in months to understand that the local caregiving family member is doing his or her best.

No doubt it’s a long ways from perfect. It’s common that Mom or Dad reject assistance that clearly is needed. It’s difficult to graciously accept the help of others after a lifetime of independence.

So, for those of us gathering this holiday season, it’s vital to stay flexible, communicate with compassion, and — above all — keep a sense of humor. This year, as we savor a slice of Mom’s apple pie, we will enjoy each other’s company and our new family traditions that make the holidays work for everyone.

Happy Thanksgiving from Community Caregivers to you and your family.

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

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November 21, 2018

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by Dennis Sullivan

— Rockwell Kent

For many years now, when Thanksgiving rolls around, I find myself thinking about gratitude.

“Plagued” might be a better word, in that folks, dead and alive, who have done “good” things for me over the years, enter my consciousness and demand attention.

They come in a parade of sorts and are persistent, but in no way Felliniesque. Perhaps you experience something similar.

I know the paraders are not there bodily — many are dead or live far away — but the result of introjection, my taking on the life of others from another world. I know it derives from a continuing sense of obligation and indebtedness.

That is, I remain emotionally whelmed (not over) by how generous people have been in freeing me of worries and debilitating burdens. One came to pump out my cellar during a hurricane, another jacked up the house to make it even again.

You can understand why I’m attached to these “creatures” in a dependent sort of way. They reflect an emotional connection — even though I’m still not able to define it. It’s related to humility though.

I said the paraders persist; they do not leave until acknowledged. They’re here this very moment; I think they’re behind me writing this.

At Thanksgiving dinner, sometimes the person saying grace touches on gratitude by mentioning someone who did something for the family, but always in passing. Folks at the table nod but want to get on with the meal.

I always want to know what lies at the base of that person’s gratitude, especially the connection between speaker and person mentioned. It would say so much about how people experience gratitude.

And I never heard gratitude mentioned at Thanksgiving dinner that wasn’t received with gratitude. It’s always heartfelt.

Because my parading “friends” show up seeking attention, every year I’m forced to withdraw for a bit to attend to their needs. It’s a retreat of sorts as I spend my time figuring out what I’m feeling. It used to be hit-and-miss; now it’s a calling.

I’m on retreat this very moment. And because of what the practice requires, Thanksgiving time has turned into a kind of New Year’s for me, a time to assess where I’m at and what resolutions I need to make to do things better.

I do not make resolutions exactly but I do examine the foundation stones I walk on and weigh the emotional solidity they afford, especially the gifts of those who’ve come before me.

Solidity is a good word. It sometimes shows in directives telling me how to live a healthier body-mind.

You can see it in my consciousness, in the language I use. Language is telltale, it always says where a person’s at maturity-wise, especially how gratitude fits into his life.

I could give you the name of every person in my parade this year — right down to a librarian who walks an extra mile for me almost daily — but you’d say I sounded like the Academy Awards.

If you read at all, you will have noticed the continuing flow of articles about gratitude in newspapers and magazines and on the Internet.

Whole sections of conferences are dedicated to understanding its transformative power. Scientists come with data on how gratitude metamorphizes.

I know that anyone who lives a mature spiritual life (non-pious-oozing) will tell you how intimately they are involved with gratitude, pointing to where it resides at their core.

The data I’ve collected say gratitude is reflected in a level of consciousness that can only be described as equanimous, a mind-set that allows a person to be at ease in the world — because he has solid foundation stones to stand on.

I know there are those with nothing and especially those whose mind nothing has control of, but they too are faced with issues of gratitude in their daily life; no one is exempt.

Taking the time to talk to the paraders is always a joy; a believer would call it a godsend. It’s like spending an afternoon with nine Carthusian monks at the heart of a fiery furnace.

I mentioned “spiritual life” before. Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu saints say gratitude is essential for living like a god on earth. St. Therese Lisieux said “Prayer is an aspiration of the heart ... a cry of gratitude and love in the midst of trial as well as joy.”

Do you buy that? Is gratitude that central to your life? It’s not something that can be bought or sold.

The neuroscientist Alex Korb, in his recent “The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time,” starts talking about how to deal with depression, and unhappiness generally.

Then toward the end he comes up with a startling revelation: Gratitude can reverse psychological (and physical) ill-being by rewiring that part of the brain (the anterior cingulate cortex) that controls our psychological elevator.

Who are you to believe, Therese or Korb?

The answer is both, because both are saying the same thing: There’s a level of consciousness where a person understands the importance of all the gifts given him and is thus transformed into a person of peace. Gratitude makes us stop poking other people’s eyes out.

The first person on my parade this year — and he’s been there for 40 years — is Kevin O’Toole, the builder from New Scotland. His unending intelligence in solving structural, electrical, plumbing, remodeling, and hurricane-effect problems has been a foundation stone for me and my family to walk on in peace.

He’s a portrait painter too.

I could say the same about Rich Frohlich, who ran a garage in Voorheesville for 40 years but Jim Giner and Bill Stone, two members of the Voorheesville Fire Department, keep tugging at my pen.

They’ve been walking in my gratitude parade since August 2011 when Irene flooded us out like a river. There was Jim in the middle of the darkened road, red wand in hand, waving cars by, battered by sideways needles of rain.

Then every few hours Chief Bill Stone appeared on our lawn to check the generator the department had set up, asking if we were alright.

At different times, when I saw Jim in Smitty’s, I’d treat him to a drink at the bar, a tiny gesture to help him (me) dry out from the storm.

This is how my Thanksgiving has begun this year. I wonder if you’re experiencing the same sort of thing.

Post date: 
November 19, 2018

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by Frank L. Palmeri

I work with a guy whose name is, for the sake of this story, Art. Many years ago, Art and I had a lot of common work-related projects, so we’d be in meetings together quite often. Then, as the years went on and our responsibilities no longer overlapped as much, I might only meet with Art once or twice a year.

At some point, Art and I no longer had any meetings together anymore, but I’d still see him around every now and then. Just another work acquaintance like we all have.

One day, I was walking around the hallways after not seeing Art for many years when he showed up just like that, so I said hello. He gave me a big smile as usual, then looked me straight in the eye and shouted out, “Hi, Joe!”

At first, I thought he must be talking to someone behind me but I looked around and there was no one there, so I just laughed. Now, to this day, every time he sees me he calls me Joe.

This is a little odd, especially when others are around that know both of us. He probably forgot who I was after so many years, but not all the way, and then somehow associated my face with the name Joe for some reason. Who knows why he did it, but I never correct him because, quite frankly (no pun intended), I get a kick out of it.

In my normal life as Frank, I continue on as just another average guy who works in a Dilbert-like office complete with cubicle and pictures of the wife and kids on the walls — yet another working stiff with a family and all the responsibilities that come with that.

Very plain-vanilla I must admit — just another average Joe, haha. So whenever Art calls me Joe, for that brief little time, I imagine that I really am Joe, and I have such a good time with it, it’s unbelievable.

In my Joe persona, I’m no longer stuck at a keyboard all day. As Joe, I’m either a roofer, carpenter, electrician, or auto mechanic, depending on my mood. The good thing is: As Joe, I go out and Get Things Done — real, tangible things that anyone can look at and see, not like the ethereal software that I normally create and maintain.

As Joe, I have a much more physical presence in the world. When I’m Joe, I can grunt and really mean it.

As Joe, when the day is over, I get home, and there’s a happy wife and a hot meal waiting for me always. In my mind, all the hard-working blue-collar Joes of the world get that as a matter of course.

Then, depending on the night, I’d do what all good Joes do: crack open a six-pack and watch the Yankees, or go out and play in the bowling league, or attend the poker game. Of course, if it’s the weekend, there’s lawn-mowing and barbecuing one day, then fishing and family time the next.

Joe doesn’t do a lot of different things but the things he does he just loves and does them as often and as heartily as he can. Joe is all about the flag, baseball, and apple pie. Nothing wrong with that. Good for him.

I sometimes imagine what it would have been like if Art had called me another name instead of Joe, like Sergio. Now there’s a good name. Think of great shoes, a nice sport coat, a flashy silk shirt, and of course a dark tan and great hair.

As Sergio, I’d be so good-looking and full of confidence the ladies would really notice. Then again my lovely wife wouldn’t be so happy with that, I’m sure. Maybe it’s a good thing Art called me Joe instead of Sergio. I don’t need any more problems; I have enough already, thank you very much.

This whole thing about being called Joe instead of Frank has given me another idea. You know when you go to an event and they give you a peel-off label that you’re supposed to write your name on and then stick on your shirt? Who says you have to put your real name on there, anyway?

Maybe I should write Joe on there next time, or maybe Morris or Sheldon. I know Morris and Sheldon aren’t sexy like Sergio, but with a name like Morris or Sheldon I might finally have the discipline to forgo immediate pleasure and sit down and write the next great phone app. There’s a reason why great coders are often named Morris or Sheldon.

Now that I think of it, as much fun as it is being Joe every now and then, what if I’ve been mistakenly calling someone by the wrong name all these years? Hey, if it can happen to Art, it can happen to me. We’re about the same age after all.

Maybe this would help explain the weird stares and nervous laughs I get all the time. Or maybe it’s just my personality. Let’s face it, it could be that very easily. Gulp.

If you hear someone call me Joe, don’t say anything. Just go along with it. Why spoil it after all these years?

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November 15, 2018

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by John R. Williams

This little report of the Old Men of the Mountain has been hitting the printed page for about 23 or so years, and every Tuesday of those 23 or so years the Old Men of the Mountain have met at one restaurant or another. This Tuesday was no different; so on Tuesday, Nov. 6, the Old Men of the Mountain met at the Your Way Café in Schoharie.

This scribe does not know about other hearing-aid wearers (or should that be other people who wear hearing aids) but this scribe and other OMOTM who wear them say the same thing: Hearing aids do not work well in a crowded or noisy restaurant.

This Tuesday, the scribe forgot his and actually heard better than if he had worn them. This scribe thinks leaving them on the kitchen table may become a routine because, when they are in the ears, while driving to the eating place, all the scribe hears is the car engine and road noise, and very little conversation going on in the vehicle.

With them out of the ears, the scribe hears more of the conversation and says “what” when he can’t make it out and it is repeated more loudly. This works well.

Wood talk rekindled

Separated by a week, the wood conversation continued, only this time it was on pellet stoves, how they work, and what they cost, and deals that are out there. In essence, with these stoves, the OFs are still burning wood.

It is like a printer who gets ink in his veins, as does a writer who gets words in his brains. Wood-burners get wood in their veins, and smoke in their nostrils. If the house catches on fire, does a wood-burning aficionado think it is a natural smell and pays no attention to it? Hmm.

Cash conundrum

Next the OFs started talking about money, and who has it. The OFs looked up and down the table and arrived at the conclusion that none of them have any.

Then they started talking about 1,000-dollar bills, and one OF said you can’t get one anymore. That OF is right. The government stopped printing any bills higher than $100 in 1969. If you are lucky enough to have a few 1,000-dollar bills hanging around they will still be honored by the bank.

One OF who is in business for himself required a good sum of money to make a purchase on a large piece of equipment in a cash-only deal at an auction. This OF went to the bank and the OF said the request was for 10 grand in cash.

The OF claimed the bank could only scrape up 54 hundred bucks. The OFs all looked at the OF, telling the story like this is a bunch of hooey, but the OF insisted it was factual.

The grass is greener

Now that it is early November and the grass in the geography the OFs travel is greener than springtime, the OFs started talking about still having to mow the lawn, even though many have winterized their mowers. However, some of the OFs say, to heck with it.

One stated, “I am not mowing the lawn while everything is so wet; let it grow!”

Another added he doesn’t want to mow the lawn in a mackinaw and mukluks. “Amen to that one,” was the general reply.

This brought up (for some reason) lawn tractors that die in the middle of a mow. The OFs say they go by many homes where the old lawn mower sits in the yard right where it quit and grass is growing up around it. The owner has purchased a new one and just mows around the old one and there it sits.

Ah! Lawn Art!

One OF said, “Hey it is Lawn Art. Stick a potted plant on the seat and give it a title and there you go.  Heck, we have lots of OFs that have good examples of Lawn Art. Some by accident, and some by design. If you get a couple of junk cars, put some flowers on the roof, and vines around the bumper — bingo! There’s your Lawn Art.”

The OF continued, “If you have to replace the john, take the old one and put it alongside the driveway, stick a pole in the tank, and a sign on it with your name and house number — voila!  There it sits, a clever icon for your home that is not going to blow over.”

The OF continued with lots of what we consider junk and how he could turn it into Lawn Art with just a little imagination, time, and very little money.

If you have two junk cars, put them on the front lawn, front end to front end, and jack up the back a couple of feet. Then hide some speakers inside one or the other vehicle, go purchase a sound-effect CD of crashes and explosion and have a ball — Ah! Lawn Art!

“With Christmas coming up,” this OF said, “look at the possibilities with the lights or old Christmas trees.”

The OF thought maybe we could use an old top-loading washer. Take a motor, some plywood, and any cheap thing to use as a couple of rods. Put a two-foot lighted tree in it and have the lid push up, and have the tree rise up at the same time and then go back down like a jack-in-the-box.

Of course, it would need Christmas music coming out of it. The OF thought that would be slick. Ah, Lawn Art.

Another OF came up with having two johns do the same thing with Santa hats on the tops, the lids going up and down with music playing. Why, three in a row could be choir. Ah, Lawn Art.

Those OFs who made it to the Your Way Café in Schoharie, and are going home to search for Lawn Art were: Roger Chapman, George Washburn, Robie Osterman, Bill Lichliter, Harold Guest, John Rossmann, Wally Guest, Roger Shafer, Chuck Aelesio, Richard Frank, Jim Heiser, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Joe Rack, Gerry Irwin, Herb Bahrmann, Mace Porter, Rev, Jay Francis, Russ Pokorny, Warren Willsey, Mine Willsey, Winnie Willsey, Gerry Chartier, Elwood Vanderbilt, Harold Grippen, and me.

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Post date: 
November 15, 2018

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by John R. Williams

The breakfast was on Tuesday, Oct. 30, one week before Election Day. Thank goodness! Election Day can’t come soon enough.

Those OMOTM who watch the news are so sick of the political ads they are ready to shoot the TV, or just give up watching it altogether until the election is over. Many of the OFs who have digital video recorders have recorded the shows they like and they will watch them later and skip the ads.

One OF said he thought it was a concentrated effort from all parties to keep the vote down so they can control the voting. This way, only the party faithful will go to the polls.

The OF is so disgusted by all of these ads he said, “How can we trust any of them?”

This OF said he just can’t vote for any of the people running for office because these ads are so intruding, unnecessary, and vulgar. How can their family and friends put up with these ads? Why would any decent person want to run for office?

After the venting settled down, at least we can report that Tuesday morning all who showed up at the Country Café in Schoharie (the waitress was nice enough to open up before the opening time and at least get the coffee going) did so without getting lost by road closures, or fog.

Christmas catalogs cause confusion

This time of year, the OFs are getting tons of catalogs that have (most of the time) mostly useless items in them and all the items seems to be priced at $14.99. Every now and then, one of the items will have a different or cute twist to it that just fills the bill for someone on the Christmas list and orders are made. This is all it takes to continue the flow of these catalogs.

A few of the OFs had the same experience and got snookered into a legitimate scheme used by the catalog companies to get the unsuspecting OF ordering into a “Free Shipping” program. Most of the time (this scribe heard), it was the wife doing the ordering. The OFs themselves think that these catalogs are comic books and they just look at them and emit the occasional chuckle from time to time.

Almost all these catalogs have a shipping trap in their order form and some of the OFs have been caught in that. One form to order so much in dollars, and that dollar amount is not much, so it is easy to get to it, then they will ship free when the box for free shipping is checked. That is a big whoop.

The OF found a charge on his credit card from a certain company and he had no idea what it was for. In checking with his credit-card company they researched it and found it was a shipping company from a catalog and the OF had signed up for that company to pay the shipping.

The charge would come every month and the shipping from that catalog would be free. “Say what!” That offer was killed in a hurry by the OF.

The other OF had his problem hidden in the order form (off in a corner space) and it offered basically the same thing. If you order so many dollars in merchandise, you receive free shipping.

However, this form said, if you do not want the free shipping, check the box. That is clever. Sure you want the free shipping — so the OF said to himself, why check the box? Then the same thing happened.  

The OF had this charge from some company he did not know, but the charge was small and he thought his wife bought something, so he paid it. The next month, the same company and the same charge so then the OF called the credit-card company.

Same scenario as above and, as the conversation went on, the OFs found out the amount being charged was the same in all cases. As one OF said, “It is always buyer beware.’”

Ahoy!

The Pirate Ship was again a short topic of discussion as it is now in the water. The OF has the ship decorated for Halloween with life-sized skeletons waving to the passers-by with knives and swords in their hands.

This thing is getting to look more like the Flying Dutchman from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Best of times

The OFs — at one section of the table — jumped off the Hill for awhile and talked about what the small towns of Central Bridge and Howes Cave in Schoharie County were like in the late forties to the early seventies. They were much different than they are now.

North American Cement was thriving big-time, and supporting smaller little businesses that were around the area from Cobleskill to Schoharie and Middleburgh. Even Albany and Schenectady shared in what was required to keep the plant running.

Central Bridge had tons of businesses: a hardware store, a lumber and coal yard, a good-size grain mill, a hardware and fuel-oil company, a car dealership, an engine-reconditioning plant, and assorted stores. Since the demise of the cement plant, most all is gone now.

The OFs still think they lived in the best of times; however, these OFs will pass on and other OFs will take over and those OFs will think they lived in the best of times.

The OFs who think they lived in the best of times may be right as they are still able to make it to the Country Café in Schoharie and some were waiting at the door like cows waiting at the gate to go to the barn. Finally, the farmer’s daughter came and let them through, and these OFs were: Bill Lichliter, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Miner Stevens, John Rossmann, Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Wayne Gaul, Roger Shafer, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Joe Rack, Otis Lawyer, Richard Frank, Chuck Aelesio, Kenny Parks, Mace Porter, Jack Norray, Herb Bahrmann, Gerry Irwin, Bob Benninger, Bob Fink, Mike Willsey, Gerry Chartier, Elwood Vanderbilt, Harold Grippen, and me.

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November 8, 2018

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by Mary Ellen Johnson

No man’s land on the western front: The open attack at St. Mihiel was portrayed by Lucien Hector Jonas.

— United States National Archives and Records

“Dreadful scenes”: In the midst of the Meuse-Argonne Forest Offensive, Major Frank H. Hurst was gassed with phosgene, a compound of carbon monoxide and chlorine, and was carried on a stretcher to a base hospital. This Department of Defense photograph shows a gun crew from Regimental Headquarters Company, 23rd Infantry, firing during an advance against German entrenched positions at Meuse-Argonne.

— United States National Archives and Records

“Dr. F.H. Hurst Is In Thick of the Fighting” was the Altamont Enterprise headline, describing the Guilderland Center doctor helping the wounded in September 1918 after the Battle of St. Mihiel. Hurst in August had been transferred from a British regiment to the American Expeditionary Forces. This Army photograph shows the American Engineers returning from the front at St. Mihiel.

Dr. Frank H. Hurst was a Guilderland Center boy who became a doctor, graduating from Albany Medical College in 1895, followed by two years in Europe where he continued his medical studies. Returning home, he opened his practice in Guilderland Center in 1903 and served as the community’s physician until 1945, except for the years from 1917 to 1919.

August 1914 saw the opening shots of catastrophic World War I in Europe, a war that resulted in millions of casualties, a war in which the United States wanted no involvement. The nation adopted the official policy of neutrality.

When the Germans, who began unrestricted submarine warfare to prevent food supplies and war materiel from reaching Britain, started sinking American merchant ships in early 1917, the United States declared war on April 6. Having only a small regular army and an inadequate medical corps, the nation was ill prepared for all-out war. Many volunteers immediately came forward, including 44-year-old Dr. Hurst.

An early June Enterprise announcement informed everyone Dr. Hurst was leaving that day for Ft. Washington in D.C. where he would become part of the medical corps of the regular army, having been given the rank of lieutenant weeks before. Six weeks later, readers were assured the newly promoted Captain Hurst had reached France safely.

“Dr. Hurst Writes” was a front-page feature in early November 1917, penned in response to an Enterprise request to his wife for information. In a very lengthy letter written directly to the newspaper, Dr. Hurst gave details of his early months in service.

His Atlantic voyage had been uneventful under beautiful weather aboard an ocean liner he couldn’t name due to wartime censorship in a convoy protected by American and British destroyers. Upon landing at a British port he couldn’t name, he took a train to London where his accommodations at the “fashionable Hotel Curzon” in a posh neighborhood were provided by the British.

Free for the next few days, Hurst took the opportunity to “visit haunts of his medical school days” as well as doing considerable sightseeing, all described in detail in his letter.

At week’s end, when his orders came through to report to ------------ (because of censorship, lines replaced specific information) in France, he boarded a troop train to ----------, a seaport on the south coast of England where they embarked on a troop ship. After a very rough voyage across the stormy English Channel when half of the 1,300 men on board were seasick, they landed at ------------, a French seaport.

Dr. Hurst had a few leisurely days for sightseeing and a swim in the ocean at a nearby beach. During that time, the fresh troops were being taught how to wear the protective “tin hat” (Dr. Hurst’s quotes), the helmet worn by British soldiers, and how to wear the gas mask so crucial against German poison gas attacks.

Dr. Hurst, although a captain in the American Expeditionary Force, was assigned to a British regiment and would serve with the British until the summer of 1918 when he was reassigned to an American unit. This came about because, immediately after the Americans declared war, the British sent over the Balfour Mission seeking aid, including at least 1,000 doctors.

In a mutual agreement, Dr. Hurst was one of the American doctors and other medical personnel who would be aiding the British in dealing with mass casualties by filling out their depleted medical corps while at the same time learning from British experience in treating the wounded.

His lengthy letter continued that, after being assigned to a unit, they were loaded on a troop train moving only at night, everything darkened; otherwise German planes would have bombed them. Met by automobile, he was driven to headquarters of the 4th Cavalry Division of the Third Army where he was met by “fine British officers” who were “gentlemen,” fed a big breakfast and enjoyed an after-breakfast smoke.

At first, Dr. Hurst was assigned as the medical officer of the Division Advanced Supply Column, then, after several weeks, he was transferred to a British Field Hospital in charge of six wards and given his own operating room. His promotion to captain had come at this time.

Soon after the 1914 outbreak of the war, the Western front became a stalemate between the British and French against the Germans. Each side dug miles of deep trenches through Belgium and France with a no man’s land between them, the trenches protected by rolls of barbed wire.

For long periods of time, soldiers lived in these trenches often in terrible conditions. The strategy of generals on both sides was to initiate attacks with huge artillery bombardments of the enemy, followed by ordering the men out of the trenches to race across no man’s land through the barbed wire to attack the entrenched enemy in the face of machine gun fire, shrapnel, and after 1915 poison gas.

Casualty rates were catastrophic and by war’s end the British alone counted 487,994 dead. In his references to actual combat Captain Hurst (for the remainder of the war, this is how he signed his letters) refers to “carnage” and “roar of the battle,” additionally mentioning the constant strain from the danger of shrapnel, bombs, shot and shell, and poison gas.

Because his hospital was near an aerodrome, Captain Hurst often treated aviators who were sick or wounded, making friends with many of them. He didn’t hesitate when offered the opportunity to fly numerous times, once to the altitude of 16,500 feet, which he noted in his letter was about the distance from Guilderland Center to Altamont. He claimed the sight of the sky when flying above the clouds was “one of the finest experiences of my life.”

After time on the front line, he was given leave, and always the intrepid sightseer, he visited Paris and Rouen, observing that almost every woman whom he saw was dressed in mourning. He did admit that sleeping in a real bed and enjoying a real hot tub bath was deeply appreciated.

Captain Hurst’s letter ended with his address, giving the folks at home the opportunity to write the latest hometown news. His letter was actually the length of a magazine article, not what you would ordinarily think of as a letter.

New year in a wasteland

The next of his published letters was written soon after New Year’s Day in 1918 to the Guilderland Center Red Cross branch that he had helped to establish before he shipped out, leaving his wife in charge for the duration of the war. Appearing in the Jan. 11, 1918 edition of The Altamont Enterprise, the letter came from “somewhere in France.”

He thanked Enterprise readers for their Christmas greetings, giving assurances he had read and reread them. After characterizing the Germans as “ruthless” and “insidious,” he let the Red Cross members know how much the troops appreciated the items that had been sent over to them.

Describing the devastated countryside as being in complete ruin, there were few comforts for the troops in the trenches, “just the bare necessities of coarse food, scant shelter from the elements and only enough fire to keep from actually suffering in the wintery atmosphere and when in actual fighting not even that.”

While giving no specifics of the recent fighting on the front lines, he let his correspondents know by telling them if they had followed the activities of the cavalry from Nov. 19 to Dec. 6, they could get an idea of his surroundings.

Those who followed the war news would realize that it had been the Battle of Cambrai in France where the British Third Army bombarded the enemy’s Hindenburg Line firing 1,000 pieces of artillery, and then had ordered thousands of men and 476 tanks to attack the Germans along a five mile front. There had been huge losses on each side with little gain.

Captain Hurst’s dedication to the cause was clear when he wrote, “I am not complaining, for before I offered myself for the common cause, I knew full well all the privations and hardships and suffering that were before me.”

Brush with death

March 1918 saw a note in The Enterprise that Captain Hurst, while with the British army 10 miles back from the firing line, had had a close brush with death, when just after dismounting his horse, as he turned to speak to someone, a shot killed the horse.

Also recently he had been under fire on the front line when tending to a wounded soldier in a shell crater where he was trapped from early morning until after dark when he was able to crawl through the mud back to British lines.

The front page headline of May 3 read, “United States Medical Unit Was Captured,”  “Captain Frank H. Hurst of Guilderland Center Says Only Self and Major Escaped Somme Fight — Was Wounded in The Hand.”

Mrs. Hurst had notified the editor that Dr. Hurst and the major were the only two in their medical unit who weren’t killed or captured. He was wounded in the hand while evacuating wounded under shell fire on March 23 and by the 24th all had been captured or killed except himself and a major.

This attack was part of General Erich Ludendorff’s huge offensive to reach the English Channel by breaking out between the British and French armies. At first, the Germans successfully managed to push the British back 12 miles, hence the need to evacuate British wounded from the onslaught of the Germans. The German strategy was unsuccessful and their desperate attempt failed.

Soon after the offensive came to an end, Captain Hurst wrote to Mr. and Mrs. John Scrafford in Altamont on April 6, thanking them for cookies he had received the day before after having been without mail for 16 days dues to the German attack. Cookies were a real treat after all those days of eating nothing but hard tack and corned beef.

With an apology for writing the letter in pencil, Captain Hurst explained, “Please excuse my using pencil, for I cannot hold a pen, having been wounded in my right hand by a piece of bursting shrapnel, as we were evacuating our patients while under fire from the enemy as he was advancing on_____________, where our hospital was located. We were under fire the entire time, and as I was directing the loading of patients in next to the last car, a shrapnel burst just as my side, and one piece hit me.

“It is fortunate it was no worse. I held my wound with my left hand until I had finished loading, then jumped on the last car, and as we drove away, I applied First-Aid Dressing to myself and it was 10 o’clock at night, after we had all our patients under canvas on stretchers, that I found time to go to a CCS [Casualty Clearing Station] near our new camp to have my wound treated. But we had saved all our patients. Next morning we had to evacuate again as the enemy was still advancing, and my Colonel sent me to No.2 Stationary Hospital.”

After five days in the hospital, Captain Hurst requested he be sent back to his unit and was happy to report the Germans were being pushed back.

Joining other Americans

Captain Hurst was finally transferred to the American Expeditionary Forces in a different part of France in August 1918. His wife assured the Enterprise editor that her husband was pleased to be with American troops.

“Dr. F.H. Hurst Is In Thick of the Fighting” was the headline describing another letter shared by Mrs. Hurst. Writing in mid-September, he had been reassigned to the 89th Division’s 314th sanitary train, after having first been ordered to the 2nd Cavalry to “get their medical equipment in shape.”

Explaining that the 314th sanitary train corresponded to the field ambulance he had been attached to with the British, Captain Hurst went on to relate his first experience of battle with American troops.

Amazingly, he was writing on “Boche” paper left behind in the German field hospital his division had just captured, following “so closely on their heels that they left practically everything — even the water was hot on the stove in the sterilizer.”

The 89th had been part of the American army’s advance and capture of the St. Mihiel salient, a bulge in the German line held for four years of German occupation. This offensive from Sept. 12 to 16 was the first for the green American soldiers involved.

Captain Hurst’s wife was told not to worry about him if he didn’t communicate for a time, he was so busy dressing wounded that he barely had time or eat or snatch a little nap, noting, “I have been in the thick of it.” He had had no mail and hoped to send this letter out with an ambulance driver. He claimed to be well, and feeling fine, only very tired.

Captain Hurst sent a second letter a few days later, this time on a German officer’s stationery, unsure if she had received his earlier letter. He was terribly upset that, while he and others were fighting in the St. Mihiel offensive, thieves had entered the barracks they left behind and had ransacked it.

“I have lost my trunk and all my souvenirs and postcards, as well as my two good and almost new uniforms, everything I had except my old uniform I had on last spring when I was in the British retreat,” wrote Captain Hurst.

He also complained of losing his shaving kit and bedding roll. However, his most regretted loss was his diary. The two letters appeared in the Oct. 25, 1918 edition of The Enterprise.

Within a month, the 89th Division was relocated to the Verdun sector where they were heavily engaged in the Meuse-Argonne Forest Offensive, one of French Marshal Ferdinand Foch’s efforts to force the Germans to retreat from their defensive Hindenburg Line. Combining forces, the United States and France threw in 37 divisions but, while the Germans were pushed back, their line held and no breakthrough was achieved.

Major Hurst is gassed

In the midst of this battle, Major Hurst was gassed by phosgene, a compound of carbon monoxide and chlorine, and was carried on a stretcher to a base hospital where he lay for three weeks.

“Major Frank H. Hurst of Guilderland Center Tells How He Was Gassed” was the headline in the Dec. 13 Enterprise, updating readers about his promotion in rank and his latest news from the battlefield.

Unable to lift his head from the pillow for three weeks, and overcome with faintness if he tried, his heart had been weakened from the effects of the gas. According to his doctors, it would be a month before he would feel stronger.

Having been wounded twice previously, Major Hurst commented, “Nothing compared to this, the Huns nearly got me this time.”

His letter says that he had actually been gassed twice, the first time light enough to keep tending the wounded, but the second time weakness overcame him and hemorrhaging began from his lungs. Now that he was in a hospital bed away from the sound of guns, the quiet came as a relief after having been in constant warfare for over a month.

A second letter penned a few days later was also included in the paper. Now reporting much improvement, he was now able to sit up in a wheelchair, but was not yet allowed to walk.

As soon as his heart was stronger, he was going to be transferred to Cannes on the Mediterranean for further recuperation. As it was, the current hospital’s location was peaceful and beautifully located, one of 10 hospitals 40 miles from Dijon able to accommodate 20,000 patients.

A letter written Nov. 1 brought news that Major Hurst had walked the length of the ward, gaining strength so rapidly that, by the following day, he had walked around the pavilion outside. He expressed a wish that peace would come.

Armistice brings joy

The Armistice ending the fighting was to take effect at 11 a.m. — the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month: Nov. 11, 1918.

In Major Hurst’s next letter, written 11 days after the armistice had been signed and peace had come to the trenches, his expression of relief was obvious. “When I am well again,” he wrote, “I will not have to go back to those dreadful scenes.”

He followed this with a description of the rejoicing following news of the armistice in the nearby small village of Allavey, where there were parades and flags, singing and shouting, guns being fired off from the fort on the nearby mountain and from ships in the harbor while ecstatic Frenchmen shook hands and the women, weeping tears of joy, handed out flowers and kissed them, all in gratitude for American aid in winning the war.

The celebration went on far into the night. Now that he was in Cannes in southern France, Major Hurst felt the balmy climate was restoring his health. The time spent on the beach under the palm trees or sailing and fishing with other officers was just what was needed.

Early in January 1919, orders had come through for Major Hurst to report to the commanding general at Bordeaux who ordered him to take command of the 500-bed Camp Hospital No. 79, situated in a beautiful 600-year-old chateaux at St. Andre de Cuzal. He was feeling well, but still coughing at night, fearing it would be some time before embarkation home.

His next letter, written on Easter morning, mentioned his disappointment at not being sent home and discharged in spite of putting in for it, but he was hoping he’d be home by July or August.

He proudly related that, “General Noble, the Commanding General here at Bordeaux, told me I have established the finest hospital — large or small — that he’d seen in France, and he wants me to keep charge of it. We take care of the boys who are taken sick while here in the area awaiting embarkation; we get them in shape and well, to send them home to their people healthy.”

Finally released from active duty, Major Hurst sailed on the liner Saxonia, leaving Brest for the United States and finally reaching American shores in July. After getting his final discharge, he resumed his medical practice in the Guilderland Center area immediately.

However, his military career wasn’t over quite yet. In early January 1920, it was announced that he had been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in recognition of his faithful and distinguished work for medical services while in the war zone. He then served in the Army Medical Corps Reserve and during the next few years periodically reported for duty. He finally retired from the reserves in 1925.

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November 8, 2018

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