Archive » December 2019 » Columns

Whether you add an ox, a cow, or three wise men to the first nativity scene in Bethlehem, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph remain the stars of Christmas. For centuries, artists have shown the blissful parents looking down on their child stretched out in a manger — all three wearing a heavenly glow. Guido Reni’s 17th-Century “The Nativity at Night” is a good example.

Because the Roman Catholic Church wished to honor the Christmas trio, they set aside a day in December called The Feast of the Holy Family. It’s (supposed to be) a time for the faithful to reflect on how the “first family” showed them how to be better. But that may be more than the texts allow.

The feast is observed on the Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s and, should these fall on Sunday, the Family moves to the 30th. This year, they’re on the 29th.

To insure that the family continues to receive attention, over the years the Catholic Church has published documents explaining their essentiality. The Benedictine monk Bernard Strasser says in “With Christ Through the Year” that “The primary purpose of the Church in instituting and promoting this feast is to present the Holy Family as the model and Exemplar of all Christian families.”

A lot of people, when asked to describe this family though, conjure up the three in the manger scene and God forbid you interrupt the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s “Away in the Manger.”

For them, Jesus will always remain a child, thus they never hear what he said about “family” later in life. It results in a spiritual life that lacks the enlightened mind that William James described in 1902 in “The Varieties of Religious Experience.”

I don’t read that much about Jesus but I recently came upon a passage in John Dominic Crossan’s “Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography” (Harper, 1994) where he records what Jesus said about family later in life. Crossan says it’s an “almost savage attack on family values.”

And it started when Jesus was 12, traveling with Mary and Joseph to Jerusalem, like the family did every year, to observe Passover.

All went well until, on the way home, after a day on the road, Mary and Joseph couldn’t find their son among the family and friends who made up the caravan.

Panicked, they bolted back to the city to find the boy, which they finally did, in a temple, sitting among rabbis, listening to what they had to say, but also asking questions, the weight of which made observers turn their heads and say: Who is this kid!

The miffed mother and father went up to the boy — to use a certain parlance — and said: Hey! what’s going on! We’re at our wit’s end! Have you lost your mind! Is this how you treat your family! Is the Holy Family thing off?

And the boy, still racing from the discussion on the moral questions of the day, says — to stay with the parlance — What are YOU doing here! I’m at work! Have you no sense of calling? Why ARE you here!

The two were stunned, the good book says, because they had no idea what the boy was talking about.

I’ve always imagined them saying back — to stay with the parlance — Hey, you! Shut up! Get in the car! You don’t talk to your parents that way! Wait till we get home.

It’s a funny image, isn’t it, the Holy Family of Christmas — advertised by the Roman Catholic Church as teachers of how to be better — themselves in a tizzy: mother and father in the front seat and the kid in the back.

The Gospel of Thomas says the separation language got worse, “Whoever does not hate father and mother,” the older Jesus says, “cannot be followers of me, and whoever does not hate brothers and sisters ... will not be worthy of me.”

Hate? Hate Mary and Joseph? Is this the kid from the manger speaking?

And I must mention that Jesus, by introducing the concept of worth, was entering big-time into the field of economics. Later, as you know, he set a standard for price that was breathtaking.

I’ll add one more from Mark who says that one day Mary shows up at one of her son’s gigs — maybe he was 31. She sends a message, letting Jesus know she’s outside, with his brothers, and maybe he could step out and say hello.

When Jesus hears this, he doesn’t go: Wow, my mother, my brothers are here! Are they OK? Tell them to come in.

No, he says, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” It must have driven the messenger nuts.

The gospel says he then turned to the crowd and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

The messenger must have dropped a second time, hearing a proclamation on what it means to be a follower, a member of the Christian-Christmas family. That is, a loving community is your mother and brothers, a community that allows you to be born again.

Norman Brown in “Love’s Body” (Random House,1966) says that the issue of who’s your mother and brothers is the great political question of the day, of any day, and of every person who wishes to excel spiritually into adulthood.

Look at the annals of psychology, study the mystics, it’s not a Catholic thing or a Christian thing or even a Buddhist thing, but the struggle every person faces with how much they will give to the commonweal, to the outsider, to the good that cements a community of worth.

“Silent night, Holy night” is the quiet that allows a soul to find their community of worth and to create a Christmas in which they become the newborn child in the manger.

William Blake described the firmament as the Mundane shell we are all born in, like a womb; the Christians describe that womb as a living protoplasmic shell whose nutrients — like the yoke of an egg — feed each soul equally from the start and never flag in commitment.

That then is the message of Christmas, that every human being born — whether from a womb, a shell, or the firmament of community — can achieve divinity like Jesus did.

And that’s what the texts allow.

Feliz Navidad a todo el mundo.

Last month, The Greenwich Journal and Salem Press — published just a stone’s throw to our northeast in Washington County — celebrated its 177th anniversary as one of America’s oldest continuously published newspapers.  

Last week, in the wake of the heartbreaking death of its 44-year-old owner, that historic local publication locked its doors and shuttered the windows, retiring a voice that for nearly two centuries informed Washington County’s citizens, expressed their ambitions, and chronicled their colorful lives.   

Heavy sigh.  2019 has offered too many occasions to note that all good things must come to an end.

By this point, you’re no doubt sufficiently familiar with my neuroses to be unsurprised that this news sent me into a full-blown panic.  Ergo, I hereby DEMAND answers of Enterprise co-publisher Melissa Hale-Spencer, and have thus assembled the following list of seven questions, presented with as much hysteria as the typeface will permit:

1. WHAT IS THE ALTAMONT ENTERPRISE’S CONTINGENCY PLAN IN THE EVENT OF CATASTROPHIC CATACLYSM?!?!  

2. HAS THE MANAGERIAL STAFF CODIFIED THE EDITORIAL LINE OF SUCCESSION?!?!?!

3. HOW DOES THE ENTERPRISE INTEND TO PERMANENTLY PRESERVE AND MAKE PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE ITS VAST DIGITAL ARCHIVES?!?!?!

4. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOUR QUARTERLY BUSINESS PROJECTIONS DON’T EXTEND TWO CENTURIES INTO THE FUTURE?!?!?  Relatedly: WHO WILL CARRY FORTH THE ENTERPRISE’S BANNER AND MASTHEAD IN THE YEAR 2219?!?!  

5. DID SOMEONE WRITE DOWN THE WEBSITE’S ADMIN PASSWORD JUST IN CASE?!?!?!

6. WHERE IS THE ACCOUNT INFORMATION FOR THE DAMN ELECTRICITY BILL, AND HAS IT BEEN PAID OR NOT?!?!?!

7. IS ANYBODY LISTENINGGGGGGG?????

While the probability that Ms. Hale-Spencer will soon be abducted by extraterrestrials is admittedly slim, denying that possibility is statistically irresponsible.  It’s simple math, folks: 2 + 2 = 4.

Sure, you’d be forgiven for forgetting that Ms. Hale-Spencer is mortal.  At the helm of the Altamont Enterprise since 1994, she’s become an award-winning institution in her own right, breathing new life into this vibrant and venerable local publication.  (It’s a stupendous feat at a time when the carcasses of celebrated print publications line the morgues of local counties and nationwide markets alike.)  

But nothing lasts forever.  And almost by design, the new media which has emerged to fill the void left by the loss of regional news outlets like The Greenwich Journal and Salem Press usually lack the journalistic standards, credible research, and diligent reporting which — at its best — define the local print media industry.  

In an age where Instagram influencers unabashedly manipulate their photos, “deep fake” videos look more real than reality, and paid advertisements masquerade as factual reporting, the Altamont Enterprise nonetheless remains an unassailable staple of objective truth and dignified integrity.  It’s our shared imperative to preserve this hometown newspaper. 

To be clear, I’m not just referencing the Enterprise’s physical manifestation; the “paper” component isn’t the essential product, so much as the classic vehicle by which that essential product is delivered.  

The essential product, of course, is the information that the Enterprise contains.  And information never grows stale; the Altamont Enterprise is as vital and useful now as it was in 1884 when its first issue tumbled off the presses.  

Today, the Enterprise emerges from more than just presses. I’m routinely impressed by the diligence of Enterprise staff as they leverage the power of podcasting, Facebook Live, email newsletters, digital newsfeed announcements, Instagram stories, and one of the internet’s most navigable websites to reach us wherever we may be, whenever we need the update.

But my exalted congratulations for this weekly publication have less to do with its form than its function, for there’s an even more critical observation about media outlets, generally, that is truest about the Enterprise, specifically.  

And that is this:  The Altamont Enterprise is a mirror — a reflection of us, an opportunity to take stock of who we are and what our locality deems important.  

It’s the core legacy bequeathed unto us by those who inhabited Home before we arrived.  It was in its pages that a conception of “place” first came into being, in a manner that could be reported, recounted, and recalled.

Even now, it’s through the Enterprise and its letters to the editor that we develop a sense of “us”.  As communities grow increasingly transient and individuals slip into more isolated existences, exploring the Enterprise cover-to-cover affords readers a chance to peek into the lives of the genuine neighbors who share a connection to this little corner of the planet.  By listening or contributing to that ongoing conversation, we develop an identity that binds us together, instilling significance into the municipal boundaries which unite us in the first place.  

Take a second to consider what you’re reading right now.  Have you taken for granted that our letters to the editor are written by neighbors, edited by neighbors, and then published by neighbors for the benefit of neighbors?  

What you’re holding in your hands isn’t managed by some far-off corporation with only the remotest of passing concerns for local affairs, driven by a bottom-line commercial imperative that cheapens and determines coverage.

Nor is it the chaotically unconstrained emotional slugfest of social media, as illustrated by the hilarious Oct. 30 Facebook comment thread on which our community’s worst impulses amassed in response to the Village of Voorheesville’s cautiously tentative proposal to move Halloween to Saturday on account of rain.  (I’ve never before witnessed angry-face emojis weaponized with such elegant precision.)

Not everyone has access to such a robust independent press.  It’s no hyperbole to claim that the Enterprise embodies that most sacred of Constitutional ideals in our American experiment.  For what else is freedom but the right to have a thought, and to then publicly express it? Can it even be called “democracy” if voting citizens are nonetheless uninformed, and unconcerned with each other’s welfare?     

As it happens, I’m writing this op-ed on Veteran’s Day, and am thus reminded of what I actually defend in my capacity as a Servicemember.  (To that end: Thank you for your service, Enterprise!) 

In January, I deploy to fight in a distant war in an even more distant land far away from home, in service to a country whose freedom affords Americans the space to continually renew themselves.  The best part of our country is its promise, its encapsulation of ideals, and the fact that it contains the people I care about most. From the other side of the world, the Enterprise will keep me connected to it all.

Less a Voorheesvillager, or a New Yorker, or even an American, it’s most accurate to define me as:  “A reader of the Altamont Enterprise & Albany County Post”. Because no matter where the Army takes me, I can always claim a place in that demographic — among the people of the Hilltowns, the New Scots and Albanites, the Guilderlish and Bethlhemites — where the issues on which the Enterprise reports remain the ones for which I feel the most direct responsibility, the ones I’m most able to influence, the ones that are most worth influencing.

This Thanksgiving, take a moment to think of the people of Washington County, whose stories just became a bit harder to tell.  Then offer either silent or raucous thanks, as suits you, to the heroes of local journalism: To the Sean Mulkerrins of the world, and the Elizabeth Floyd Mairs and Noah Zweifels, the Michael Koffs and Carol Coogans, the Ellen Schreibsteins and Holly Busches, the Jo E. Prouts and Cherie Lussiers, the Marcello Iaias and myriad local columnists.  

And then, lend your indignant voice to my righteous fury as though we’re posting on Facebook: “WHAT’S THE PLAN, HALE-SPENCER?!?!”  Your flock demands answers, and your heroes deserve a permanent home. For as long as there exist Old Men of the Mountain — the ranks of whom I’ll one day join — there must always be an Enterprise to chronicle their exploits.  

Since penning my inaugural column last January, I’ve been honored to be a part of this 135-year-old organization, addressing those whose perspectives have been similarly shaped by the view of a sun setting over ancient Helderbergs.  In high school twenty years ago, the Enterprise published my adolescent musings via the Helderbarker insert; it’s a privilege to speak to that same audience from the Enterprise’s opinion pages now.   

And in exchange for your collective indulgence — for tolerating my monthly trespass on these opinion pages — I offer the following verses so that you might join me in toasting our own beloved Gray Lady.  Ahem:  

By newsstand (and by newsfeed),
on Thursday the Enterprise comes!
It contains a collection of articles
covering all of the things that we've done.

The faces inside look familiar,
for we’ve seen all these faces before—
some more weathered than in the past,
but still faces of those we adore.

A PTA meeting makes excellent reading
when it’s written up in the news;
the zoning board… local sports scores…
an assortment of your neighbors’ views.

And what could be better for letters to editor
than a citizen who reads?
You don’t always get the news that you want;
you get the news that you need.

We know all these names—these names are the same
as the names of our children and friends.
That’s what makes this news so important:
it’s news of the Home we defend.  

So to all my neighbors and ne’er-do-wells,
let’s raise our glass for a toast:
“Three cheers to the Altamont Enterprise
and the Albany County Post!”

#SayonaraStewarts

****

Captain Jesse Sommer is a paratrooper in the United States Army’s 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne).  He is a lifelong resident of Albany County.

Editor’s response: Of course, The Enterprise will rely on its subscribers in years to come, when this editor is long gone, to support the journalism vital to democracy, whatever form that takes.

Swirling flakes of a November snowstorm once signaled the beginning of sleighing season, bringing joy to people of all ages. A century or more ago people looked forward to a snowfall of several inches when travel by sleigh would be smooth and quick and farmers could use sledges to easily haul heavy loads such as logs or blocks of ice.

Sleighs came in many sizes. Cutters were designed for one or two people, while larger bob sleighs or “heavy” sleighs could accommodate additional passengers. An 1895 Altamont Carriage Works advertisement in The Enterprise offered a line of Portland Cutters, Pleasure and Heavy Bob Sleighs.

Sleighs could even be ordered from a Sears Catalog. In 1902, the Sears catalog offered Portland Cutters priced at $16.95, $19.90, and $22.50 while a luxurious Russian Bob Sleigh was $46.90.

In addition to individual ownership of a sleigh, livery stable owners had on hand one or more designed to carry many passengers. Huybertie Pruyn, a wealthy young Albany girl, who in her memoirs written in later life, described riding on a sleigh that hauled as many as 20 young people from Albany on the Western Turnpike to Sloan’s Hotel in Guilderland by having the passengers seated along both sides facing each other.

In addition to passenger sleighs, there were work sledges for hauling heavy loads by farmers and other businessmen. Stephen Lainhart, a farmer living on his ancestral farm near Altamont, often made references to sleighs in his diaries covering the years from 1859 until the time of his death in 1923.

The anonymous authors of Enterprise columns covering the various parts of town from 1884 until the 1930s give frequent references to sleighs or sleighing weather until automobiles and plowed roadways ended what had been standard winter transportation.

We look back upon riding in a horse-drawn sleigh as romantic, but in their day, they were considered strictly utilitarian, necessary to get around on business or errands or to church and various social events on snow-covered roads.

Sleighs had to be brought out of storage when the snow began falling; in spring, they were washed and stored away. An early winter visit to the blacksmith or farrier was necessary for your horse or team because studs were needed on horseshoes to get through the snow.

Theft, a downside

Gliding over the snow, especially on a crisp, moonlit night with sleigh bells jingling was exhilarating. However, sleigh ownership brought some downsides. Sleighs and horses left unattended in a hotel shed could easily be stolen as one man discovered when his horse and sleigh disappeared from the Dunnsville Hotel shed while he was inside. Fortunately, the thief apparently just needed a ride as the horse and sleigh turned up in Altamont a short time later with the thief long gone.

Isaac Van Patten was a local youth who paid an intoxicated visit to Schenectady where he absconded with a horse and sleigh from one hotel shed, cruised the city for a time, stopped at another hotel, traded the first horse and sleigh for another, eventually making his way back to his father’s home in Fullers Station where he hid the sleigh and put the horse in a stall.

He was in bed sleeping it off when the city police arrived and, finding the evidence, charged him with grand larceny. A good lawyer got the charge dropped to intoxication and he got off with a $10 fine. These incidents were rare, but did happen from time to time.

Runaways

Sleighs were pulled by one or more horses, hard-working and long-suffering animals, which on occasion, having great sensitivity to unusual sounds or motions, suddenly became uncontrollable runaways, much to the regret of any passengers who happened to be in the sleigh at that moment.

The “cars” or trains was one of the most common causes of runaways, giving a fright to a skittish horse, which took off from in front of Mynderse’s store in Altamont. The young lad waiting in the sleigh was dumped out as the horse fled down Church Street (now Maple Avenue), where the horse and sleigh ended up in someone’s yard.

In this case there was no injury or damage, unlike an incident in Guilderland Center. This occurred when a rather loud group was returning from a lively social gathering in the village. Apparently spooked by the jolly noise of the sleigh’s occupants, the horse took off.

As it ran out of control, one woman panicked and, leaping out of the careening sleigh, landed on her head, remained unconscious for hours and was still “prostrate” at the time of the column writing. In the meantime, the onrushing sleigh tipped over, flinging out the other passengers who were uninjured. But by then the empty sleigh had collided with a hitching post, separating the box and rear bob from the terrified horse and front bob. Both were discovered the next morning in Voorheesville.

Although there never seemed to be a fatality, there were the occasional person “quite seriously injured” as a Guilderland man was when tipped out of his cutter. Or having a very close call as John Blessing did when crossing the West Shore tracks in a heavy snowstorm; he and his horse were just clear of an oncoming locomotive as it demolished his sleigh but left Blessing and his horse unharmed.

Another runaway scenario that almost seems like an episode in an early silent movie occurred on Altamont’s Main Street in 1920 when village Doctor Cullen and Arthur Dorsett were gliding quietly down Main Street in a cutter.

Meanwhile, a team of horses that had been hitched to a heavy sleigh at the depot broke free, and thundering wildly down Main Street were about to overrun Dr. Cullen and Mr. Dorsett in their cutter.

Thinking fast, Dr. Cullen turned, and leaning out the rear of the cutter, he hoped to deter the pursuing team by striking them about their heads and faces with his hat while Mr. Dorsett was attempting to keep ahead of them. Fortunately, the men found a place to pull off as the runaway team raced by, finally floundering in a deep snowbank.

Most sleigh rides were quiet affairs and it was only a small number that ran out of control.

Road problems

It was certainly convenient to do errands or chores, go to church, carry on business, or pay visits by sleigh, but the roads weren’t always snow-covered throughout the winter due to thaws or sometimes a lack of snow.

And then sometimes there could be too much snow, especially if blizzard conditions had piled up high snow drifts across roads. Then farmers had to get out with shovels and clear a way through the drifts on the road in front of their farm to allow the horses and sleighs to get through.

Stephen Lainhart’s diaries mention having to shovel to open the road past his home after heavy drifting had taken place on many occasions. If his diaries are any indication, there was certainly much more snow and lower temperatures in those days.

At least once when temperatures were extremely low, he took his son in the sleigh back and forth to the Dunnsville District No. 2 School down the hill on Dunnsville Road near the Turnpike, a goodly distance from his home.

Chores and ‘jolly times’

Sleighs or sledges were used by farmers for various chores such as taking produce to market or, if they had surplus hay to sell, taking it to the nearest depot where a dealer in hay would buy it for shipment to a nearby city.

Ice houses had to be filled and the huge blocks of ice were hauled from ponds where it was cut to ice houses to be stored. Trees taken down in the wood lot were brought closer to the house to be cut into firewood or moved to a sawmill to be cut into lumber. Certain heavy chores were deliberately left until winter.

Although there was a rare tale of a sleigh theft or the occasional story of a sleighing accident, the endless mentions of sleighs in The Enterprise are almost always about transportation to church-related services or activities and social events and visits to friends and family.

For most people, a sleigh ride to a social event was greatly anticipated and highly enjoyed. Groups would pay a surprise visit to someone who always seemed to have plenty of refreshments for the crowd of visitors who always seemed to have had “a jolly time” or “an enjoyable evening” when reported in the next week’s Enterprise.

One description from the hamlet of Guilderland said, “A sleigh ride party of about 20 of the elder people of this place were pleasantly entertained at the home of Mr. & Mrs. H.S. Kapp of McKownville last Friday evening. The occasion was a complete surprise to Mr. & Mrs. Kapp.”

Other evening destinations included revival meetings and donation parties for ministers or someone in need.

Local hotel keepers benefited from good sleighing weather and were busy with city parties who enjoyed a sleigh ride out to a country place such as Sloan’s for an evening of dinner and dancing before heading back to the city many hours later. Sloan’s was the most well-known, and an 1891 note in The Enterprise mentioned “the good sleighing weather brings quite a good many parties from Albany to Sloan’s.”

The Fullers columnist once observed seven sleigh loads from Schenectady had passed through on their way to Sloan’s. In her memoirs, Hubertie Pruyn told how she and her wealthy Albany friends enjoyed trips to that “old Fashioned tavern” with return to Albany in the wee hours.

Another destination was the Altamont Hotel and, in Guilderland Center, Borst’s Hotel drew out-of-towners including the Bellevue (Schenectady) Euchre Players Club who challenged the Guilderland Center Euchre Club for an evening of dinner and card-playing.

Special sleigh rides were great treats for children. It would be difficult to top the sleigh ride provided by Jesse Parker when he transported the teacher and pupils attending District No. 14 School (Bigsbee at Fort Hunter) to the Van Curler Theatre to see “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

Another lucky group were the 26 McKownville young people who were taken in two sleighs to the Methodist parsonage in Guilderland where they were royally entertained.

Mentions of young people from Settles Hill, Altamont, Dunnsville, McKownville, Guilderland Center, and Guilderland being taken on sleigh rides show up at various times and usually ended up at a destination for refreshments and sometimes games. The special rides for children continued into the 1930s.

And a few Guilderland residents took their last sleigh ride in M.F. Hellenbeck’s sleigh hearse to one of the local cemeteries’ receiving vaults to await spring burial.

The automobile made the sleigh into an antiquarian object of curiosity. The time of their necessity and usefulness was over and, except for a special occasion, were abandoned in barns and wagon sheds. An era had passed.