Archive » November 2023 » Columns

by John R. Williams

Tuesday is named for the Roman God Tyr, and the rest of the days of the week were named by the Romans after the Sun and Moon. Then came other Roman gods to fill out the remaining five.

Those Romans were responsible for a lot of things that we still use today. Today, when we try to do something with our calendar (like the Romans) we have a tendency to make a mess of it like changing the time back and forth an hour.

The Old Men of the Mountain traveled to Quaker Street on Tuesday, Nov. 14, to have their morning repast at Gibby’s Diner. Gibby’s is tough to miss. Quaker Street has just four public buildings along Route 7: a church, the village store, the fire department, and Gibby’s.

The column has mentioned that many of the OMOTM have had chances to get out and about. Part of the discussion at Gibby’s was how to drive in Europe.

It also should have been brought up how to drive in the U.S. Those who have never driven in Europe think driving there is a little weird and don’t think they could handle it, while those that have had the opportunity say they were able to catch on pretty quickly.

One rule that was mentioned (and exactly where was not brought up) was that trucks are not allowed to run on Sunday. That is OK maybe in countries no larger than many of our states, but it was thought in our country which is about 1,600 miles long and 3,000 miles wide, early morning Monday deliveries would be rather tough to make.

Driving on any day in bad weather with the spray from trucks makes driving very hard, especially at night. One OF thought the spray from any vehicle in bad weather and wet roads is hard.

 

Duct tape

On TV, there once was a show called “The Red Green Show” and Red Green was a miracle worker with duct tape. Currently there are ads where Phil Swift makes boats out of a duct-tape facsimile; then there is NASCAR that patches whole cars that are traveling 200 miles per hour around the track with duct tape.

We now have one OF who has become a duct-tape aficionado, maybe not to the point of giving lessons yet, but close. It seems this OF was working on a project following the routine and right way, but nothing seemed to be working out and nothing fit or went together.

Finally, after many hours of frustration, the OF said, “Screw it” and proceeded to go the way of the infamous duct-tape repair. Apparently this approach worked very well, and for some reason it usually does.

Those OFs who have gone to the duct-tape saver are so satisfied with the results they never go back and remove the duct tape to do it right.

 

Memory lane

Now for a trip down memory lane of OFs, which in a way shows nothing has changed. The OFs — back when — had to follow a set of bylaws and a constitution, with a mission purpose. Yeah, right! Those OFs didn’t even know what those words were, but politics and religion were off limits, not completely, but rarely used.

Back then, the OFs had some members who were teachers, and one was a retired principal. Also in this group was a professional OF agitator.

This OF just liked to get people riled up. At one breakfast at the Home Front Café in Altamont, the OF got these educators so perturbed and demonstrative on the school budget and taxes at that time, the principal started shouting and jumped up shaking his fist, while the others were banging the table.

The retired principal became so red in the face while shaking his fist that it was thought it would become necessary to call 9-1-1. This scribe does not remember ever having another OMOTM breakfast like that one.

The OF who started the whole thing could hardly contain himself from laughing out loud; he had to turn his back so it would not excite them more. 

This never made the paper; only now that all the participants have passed on there shouldn’t be any problem. Some of the OFs after this outburst thought the ranks of the OMOTM at the next breakfast would be slimmer, but it wasn’t. Everyone involved was there for the next breakfast and many more beyond.

The apparent attendance of the Old Men of the Mountain at Gibby’s the OMOTM found their way and those who were there are: Bill Lichliter, George Washburn, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Joe Rack, Jake Herzog, Roger Shafer, Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Jack Norray, Lou Schenck, Dick Dexter, Herb Bahrmann, Gerry Cross, Ted Feurer, Jake Lederman, Elwood Vanderbilt, Bob Donnelly, Dave Hodgetts, Allen Defazio, John Dab. Rick LaGrange, Paul Guition, Doug Marshall, Warren Willsey, Russ Pokorny, Gerry Chartier, Paul Whitbeck, and not me.

Post date: 
November 22, 2023

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by Mary Ellen Johnson

— Photo from the Guilderland Historical Society

This photograph of Batterman’s Mill seems to be taken from the rear. In the lower left is an insert photo of a mill grindstone that could have actually been used in that mill. Note the groves in the mill stone, which would have required annual dressing to keep them functioning properly. This would have been one of two, one on top of the other to do the grinding.

At frequent intervals along Guilderland’s main roads, gas stations appear — not striking architecture but they serve a useful, necessary purpose for those who continue to drive cars with combustion engines. The same could be said of 19th-century grist mills, not particularly impressive, but necessary in their day to serve Guilderland’s large farm population if families, animals, and fowl were to be fed for the year ahead.

In 1845, for the first time, New York State conducted a state census, not only of population, but agricultural statistics as well as business information. At that time, Guilderland had two grist mills.

One was the Globe Mill on the Normanskill at Frenchs Hollow and the other was Batterman’s Mill on the Hungerkill in Guilderland where the stream was crossed by the Western Turnpike. Both mills operated by water power. Decades later, in the 19th Century, they were joined by a third mill in Altamont powered by steam.

In about the year 1800, coinciding with the opening of the Great Western Turnpike, George Batterman leased sizable acreage from the Van Rensselaer interests. He dammed the east and west branches of the Hungerkill where they joined together to create a large mill pond on the north side of the turnpike.

A sluice to carry the water ran under the turnpike to power the large mill opposite on the south side of the road. His mill combined the functions of a grist mill, plaster mill, and satinet factory to manufacture a cloth combining wool and cotton thread.

The mill was finally taken down in 1899 and its last year of operation isn’t known. Today, the level of Route 20 has been raised many feet higher than it was in the early 1800s and the sizable mill pond is now silted in, making it difficult to imagine the original mill site.

During the last years of the 18th Century, the rushing waters of the Normanskill at Frenchs Hollow were dammed and water was sent through a pipe into the mill to turn the water wheel, reputed to be 24 feet high although it’s possible that this early mill wasn’t as large as the mill had become in its later years.

The dimension of the mill wheel was cited in a 1932 article appearing in the Knickerbocker News, perhaps using as the source someone who could still remember the old mill in operation. This was also a dual-purpose mill with woolen cloth produced during the off season when there were no grains to mill.

At some point during the 19th Century, Elijah Spawn took over the mill and operated it with his son until the end of that century when he leased it out. On the 1854 Gould Map of Albany County showing Guilderland in detail, the site is marked Globe Mill, but a few years later, on the 1866 Beers Map, it is marked E. Spawn.

In 1896, Spawn leased the mill to Wesley Fuller, and it is not clear when the mill last operated. The property itself remained in Spawn hands until 1915 when the Watervliet Reservoir was being established.

The 1854 Gould Map also shows Normanvale Mills on the Hungerkill near where it flows into the Normanskill. Although the New York State 1845 Census mentions that only two grist mills operated in town, it’s possible these were just saw mills at this location also. The 1866 Beers Map shows only a saw mill here.

Few details of mill operation in Guilderland in the early decades of the 19th Century are known but, as Guilderland was a rural farming community, and of necessity families had to be self-sufficient in that era, the grist mills must have been very busy at harvest time, grinding grains into flour or meal to feed farm families and to produce feed for their animals and fowl.

 

Late 1800s

The later years of the 19th Century are more thoroughly documented. Once The Enterprise began publishing in 1884, it became possible to get some closer glimpses of Guilderland’s mill operation. 

In Altamont, Adam Sand began operating a steam-powered grist mill, probably in the 1870s or early 1880s with his sons. In 1885, they announced they were ready to resume business after having completed repairs on their steam mill.

The next year, they let readers of The Enterprise know that they had acquired a corn sheller that would remove corn from the cob at no charge. Tragically, Adam Sand was killed in 1890 by an exploding mill stone.

A year later, his sons expanded their mill and then, in 1895, they erected a new building at Park Street and Fairview Avenue. A year later, the mill was sold to John H. Ottman who ran the mill until his death in 1905 when Miles Hayes took over, running the mill until it burned in 1928.

By the late 1800s, large-scale wheat-growing and milling had moved to the Midwest, but the local mills continued to have much business grinding rye, oats, corn, and buckwheat grown on the town’s farms until the early 20th Century.

“The grist mill of E. Spawn & Son is running day and night in order to grind the pancake timber,” that being buckwheat. “The crop is reported huge, flour selling at $2.25,” wrote the Enterprise Fullers columnist in October 1884.

A few years later, Spawn’s mill was doing a “lively business running day and night.” The same was said of Sands & Sons Mill, running day and night several different Octobers, which seemed to be the mills’ busiest time, both mills producing “pancake timber,” the local term for buckwheat flour.

Buckwheat was a very important local crop and breakfast staple of that day, and by the late 19th Century, the single most important output of the two mills. Buckwheat, a crop brought in by the Dutch in the 1600s, was easy to grow, a prolific producer even in poor soil, and very nutritious. It was widely grown in this area.

 

Economics

Mill owners earned their profits from either being paid in cash or in a percentage of the grain being milled, which they then resold. Spawn advertised that his standard horse feed was available for sale at several local general stores such as P. Petinger’s in Guilderland Center and Van Allen & Quackenbush in Fullers.

At the same time, he offered to pay for buckwheat and flour ground at his mill temporarily and advertised they would do custom feed grinding “for either cash or toll.”

Mills required maintenance to continue. It was noted at various times that both Spawn’s mill and Sands/Ottman mill were doing maintenance on their mills and would close down for a few weeks in the off season.

Mill stones required someone to “dress” them by having the grooves recut to allow the grain to be ground properly. It was noted at the death of John Batterman, the last Batterman owner of the family mill, that his mill hadn’t been brought up to date with the changes in milling, leading to a premature end to its operation.

John Batterman, owner of the Batterman’s mill for several decades, had been a very prosperous businessman, running his mill and operating a feed store in Albany, even serving as a trustee of Albany City Savings Institution.

By the 1890s, he had fallen on such hard times that his mill was sold at foreclosure for $5,500 in 1892. A year later, he was arrested after being caught red handed in Foundry owner Jay Newberry’s barn pilfering oats. He ended his days in the Albany Home for Aged Men, dying in 1902.

The author of the Enterprise’s “Guilderland” column sadly marked the 1899 demolition with a nostalgic final farewell: “Adieu, Thou was once so great and powerful and that hath prepared the staff of life for untold thousands. Thou hast outlived thy usefulness…”

This final goodbye could have been applied to each of our town’s grist mills as they closed down. In the years ahead, with the rapid development of electric vehicles, our town’s gas stations may eventually go the route of those long-ago grist mills.

Post date: 
November 22, 2023

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by John R. Williams

On a balmy Tuesday morning, Nov. 7, the Old Men of the Mountain met at the Your Way Café in Schoharie. The OMOTM meet early for breakfast — early enough so some of the restaurants are just opening and getting started.

It has been mentioned before that sometimes the OMOTM have their warm-up meeting out in the parking lot. Maybe the restaurants could give the keys to a reliable OF and the OMOTM could open the place up and get it ready. Just a thought.

Again, at the Your Way, the waitress brings her kids to the restaurant in the morning and they help setting up the tables. When this is all done, the littler kids retire to a booth in the front and do their screens or homework while the older still helps out, and, when the bus comes, out they go.

Also, as has happened before, the littlest one held the door open for the OFs and greeted the OGs as they entered the restaurant.

This scribe does not know how many OFs are chefs but a discussion was held on apple coring. Some OFs eat the apple core, seeds and all, but not the stem, but this is pumpkin- and apple-pie season, so it is imaginable that this type of discussion would come up especially if an OF is a collector of old apple corers, or those that were combination corers and peelers.

One OF said he had a brother that all he waited for at Thanksgiving were the desserts at the end, especially the pies. This OF’s brother’s favorite did not require a corer; it was mincemeat pie he went after.

 

Medical chemistry

There are all kinds of advertisements advising everyone, not only the OFs, to get their shots. This can cause discussions in any group, not only the OMOTM. Some are for getting the shots, and some against. 

One OF advises in favor. This OF practices what he preaches and had his flu shots, COVID booster, and shingles shot all at the same time, but not in the same arm. His body, trying to sort all this out, must be wondering what the heck is going on with all these chemicals pumped into it.

The body is not supposed to use these shots until it is invaded by some foreign germ, if that germ even bothers to show up at all. Boy, there are a lot of smart people roaming this planet. Thank goodness.

As one OF put it, “There are a lot more important people out there than movie stars and football players.”

This scribe at one time asked a doctor friend of his how does the body know what to do with the medications that are used and how do they go to the right place or do the right thing. The doctor replied: “In essence, chemistry. Just plain ole chemistry.”

Apparently (and this scribe is not an expert on this) if a disease is XYZ, it is up to someone to come up with a group of chemicals that are going to knock out XYZ, and that may be MNOP. And if the doctor guesses wrong and thinks ABC is going to do it, it won’t touch it.

Hmm! Not only are we just one great big battery, but a bunch of OF chemical plants walking around. No wonder we sometimes explode.

This scribe wonders if the head is the plus and the feet are the negative, and if the OFs urinate and defecate just to clean out all those unused chemicals the OFs either ingest, or filter in through our pores — a simple OF just wondering.

 

Dees’ delight

Around this time last year, one of the OFs decided he would purchase a turkey and have an Old Man of the Mountain raffle, and raffle off the turkey. This year, he did the same thing.

This year, instead of a couple of OFs collecting the names to drop in a hat, the OF enlisted the help of the “littlest and youngest” waitress in the mountains to hand out the slips of paper and gather the names, fold them up and drop them in the hat for the drawing.

Then the youngun took the hat to an OF to draw out a name. The first name drawn unfortunately belonged to an OF who had to leave and was already gone, a re-draw was done, and another OF’s name was drawn and went home with the bird.

The OFs would like to thank Frank Dees for putting all this effort in, especially for supplying the turkey.

Those Old Men of the Mountain who met at the Your Way Café in Schoharie, and had their parking lot meeting, were: Bill Lichliter, George Washburn, Dick Dexter, Herb Bahrmann, Miner Stevens, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Joe Rack, Jake Herzog, Marty Herzog, Roger Shafer, Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Jack Norray, Lou Schenck, Gerry Cross, Rev. Jay Francis, Russ Pokorny, Gerry Chartier, Bob Donnelly, Dave Hodgetts, John Dab, Rick LaGrange, Paul Guiton, Doug Marshall, Frank Dees, Henry Whipple, Frank Fuss, and again not me.

Post date: 
November 18, 2023

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by Frank L. Palmeri

— Photo from Frank Palmeri

Frank Palmeri, second from left in the front row, poses with his grade-school classmates.

— Photo from Frank Palmeri

The badge Frank Palmeri wore at his reunion showed his graduation picture.

I can still remember my last day of school in eighth grade at what is now known as Blessed Sacrament Academy, on Euclid Avenue in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn. This would have been in June 1973.

The nuns handed out these small leather-bound books with the school logo and zippers. When you unzipped it, it was full of blank pages. The idea was, since this was our last day together, to get all our friends to sign our books. Even at that age, I knew something was wrong about this.

I had been with my classmates at that point for seven years (I actually attended kindergarten and first grade at another school before my father uplifted us to live near his family). I knew we’d all be going to different high schools, and then on to college.

I remember so clearly thinking: How will we ever keep up with one another? Here we’ve spent all this time together, and now we’re all going our separate ways? It didn’t seem right then and, in retrospect, it really wasn’t.

I then spent four rigorous years at Archbishop Molloy High School in Jamaica, Queens. Then I stumbled around until finally graduating from Pace University, before moving to Albany for my job.

Soon after that, I was married and raising kids. To say I was busy would be putting it mildly. Still, I never forgot my elementary-school friends, and I always wondered what happened to them.

That’s the thing about moving away from where you grew up and went to school. To this day, my wife can go into a store and see someone she went to school with. Many times, she may have not seen them for decades, yet they hit it off in an instant. It’s like they never left.

Because I grew up downstate and moved to the Capital District as an adult, I never have that pleasure. I would so have loved that.

A few years ago, I realized that it would soon be the 50th anniversary of my grade-school class. I got to thinking about some kind of a reunion. So I wrote a letter to the school asking for the 1973 school roster, including current addresses if they had them.

No response. I continued to write letters. Then I started sending in donations.

Finally, the older brother of a girl I went to school with called me (he is a school board member). Tony explained they would be doing either a golf outing or some other kind of school-wide activity, and would be sure to highlight the class of 1973. That was good enough for me so I forgot about all this for a while.

By this time, I’d started to reconnect with my grade-school pals on Facebook. One minute, you haven’t seen or heard from someone for almost 50 years; the next minute, you’re seeing photos of their grandkids graduating from college. Amazing.

I let them know I was working with our old school on a reunion. They were getting excited, which was great. But I had not heard back from the school, and for good reason.

After writing more letters (never underestimate the power of a well-written letter), Tony called me again. He said the school had been dealing with declining enrollment for years, and there was just not the funds or resources to pull off any kind of alumni event. That meant it was time to, as celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse always says, “kick it up a notch!”

I requested help from my classmates on doing our own 50th grade-school reunion. Wouldn’t you know it, the prettiest girl in our class, Francine — the one all the boys, including me, had a huge crush on — wound up being my go-to partner in getting this event going.

Unlike myself who never kept in contact with anyone once eighth grade was over, she had A) stayed living close to “the city,” and B) kept up with many of the girls in our class. Francine was a real help, and to be working so closely with her after all these years was really unbelievable and wonderful.

Here’s the plan we came up with:

— Have a tour of the old school on a Saturday at 3 p.m.;

— Have mass in the church right across the street at 4 p.m.;

— Get together for dinner somewhere at 6 p.m.

Of course, the big problem with this plan was getting into the old school. Fortunately, Tony, the board member who I had been working with, came through for us. He arranged for someone to meet us at “the door” on the date we chose, which turned out to be Saturday, Oct. 21.

I put “the door” in quotes because it wasn’t until I returned there after all these years that I remembered that there are actually separate boys’ and girls’ entrances at Blessed Sacrament School. That’s how long they’ve been around.

On the appointed day, my wife and I drove to Brooklyn. We were greeted at the boys’ entrance by Felix, a church employee, who was very welcoming. Then my classmates started to arrive and, just like that, we were inside halls and classrooms that I hadn’t set foot in for over 50 years.

The little desks, the bathrooms with that industrial-cleaner smell, and the lovely pine-floored gymnasium; it was all there just as I’d remembered it. What a feeling. Plus they now have beautiful outdoor recreation spaces for the kids, with playground equipment and everything. Wish we’d had that!

One of the things I most remember about elementary school was when the school-wide sound system would squeak to life and make the following announcement: “Mr. Peters, please report to Room 201” or some other room.

This meant that someone had either peed their pants or threw up. Our long-suffering janitor, Mr. Peters, was no doubt a saint.

When I mentioned this to my classmates one of them, a lady, said she was the reason for many of those calls. She said at times she got so panicked by something or other that she just couldn’t help it.

If my classmate was that nervous and scared in school 50 years ago, imagine how today’s kids must feel with all the school shootings these days? It hurts to think about it. These poor kids.

After the school tour was over, we went across the street for a Catholic Mass. The kids of the school were all sitting together with their classmates, just like we used to do.

Towards the end of the Mass, the priest asked if anyone from the class of 1973 would like to speak. You could see my classmates’ backs stiffen; public speaking, for many, is that scary. However, I’ve been thriving in Toastmasters for so many years now that I love getting any chance to speak in public, so I got up there, having no idea what I would say.

As I looked out and saw that sea of young faces so full of potential, it was obvious I should talk about the benefits of a Catholic education.

I told the kids that at times they may find wearing uniforms (plaid skirts and white blouses for girls; white shirts, plaid ties, and black pants for boys) to be cumbersome; that they may find constantly being reminded to sit up straight, turn in their assignments, and keep in order to be trying; and that they may find the heavy academic workload to be unbearable at times, just as I and all my classmates did.

But then I told them, if they just kept up with it, I knew that I was looking at the next generation of doctors, engineers, lawyers, and other professionals. I told them to look at my fellow classmates and me as inspiration, because, if we could do it, so could they.

My speech was very well received. When you speak from the heart about truly good things, then truly good things happen.

After the Mass we all went out to dinner at a fine restaurant. Catching up with everyone after so many years was exhilarating. The food and friendship were both terrific.

Everyone said we need to get together again real soon. My plan going forward is to have some kind of a picnic in the summer. Many of my classmates now live on “the island,” so it’ll probably be in Nassau County somewhere.

But no matter where it is, I know we’ll all enjoy each other’s company and just reconnecting after all this time.

Many of my classmates, including my closest friends, could not be located despite scouring social media for hours. Others are no longer with us, which is to be expected of course since we’re all in our sixties now.

I wish I could get a handle on each and every one of us, and I’ll continue to try. But it’s just so great that we have this core group now. Many good times await us, I’m sure.

Putting together a 50th elementary-school reunion was a lot of work, but the results were outstanding. If you still have friends from grade school that you are in contact with, consider yourself lucky. Material things come and go, but long-time friendships are just priceless.

Post date: 
November 18, 2023

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by Dennis Sullivan

 A drawing John Keats rendered of an engraving of the Sosibios Vase circa 1819.

The great English poet John Keats caused a sensation when he ended his much-beloved “Ode on a Grecian Urn” with the couplet: 

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

In the four-and-a-half stanzas preceding those lines, Keats reveals how he reached that conclusion; the couplet is like the QED at the end of a math problem or a riddle from the Sphinx of Thebes.

Whatever exegeses literary enthusiasts have come up with over the years to decode the two-line cipher — and there have been many — one thing that has not changed is that the 18 words are a statement of “cultural literacy,” that is, Keats is telling us what knowledge people need to have in order to live in the world successfully, which involves sharing a language with others so conversations can occur without folks resorting to aggression or violence.   

In 1978, the great American poet Adrienne Rich came out with a book of poems titled “The Dream of a Common Language” which reflected her desire that someday there’d be a society where people would understand each other’s language well enough so as to avoid engaging in a continuous war of words: Word A would mean A and Word B would mean B, no more no less, as in 1 and 1 are always 2.

Culturally literate people are able to translate the metaphors others use and through that understanding create and maintain the common bond communities and societies need to stay alive, to evolve successfully — and communities and societies that lack such a bond do in fact fail.

The translating in question is a skill that can be learned but requires considerable practice in the same way that mastering French or Greek requires considerable practice. What is sad about America today is that so many Americans have given up on learning that skill—indeed downgrade its value—and thereby fail to add to the social capital that keeps America e pluribus unum.

In the same way that we call someone literate who can read and write — they know their way around the alphabet — we say someone is culturally literate who has the foundational knowledge of the culture he lives in and is able to respond to the tongues of others without feeling threatened and then compelled to start a war of words; to repeat: the culturally literate person is fluent in his own tongue as well as those of others, even subcultures that are diverse and abrasive and requiring great patience to understand and accept: Rich’s dream of a common language come true.

When the subject of cultural literacy arises, culturally literate people — pardonnez-moi — think right away of the American educator Eric “E. D.” Hirsch and his much-lauded “Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know” which came out in 1987. Underscore “What Every American Needs to Know;” it’s a tremendously bold imperative. Every American? And nowhere does Hirsch mention that Keats scooped him 168 years earlier.

Hirsch’s basic premise was/is: (1) “all human communities are founded upon specific shared information;” and (2) “culturally literate [people] possess the basic information needed to thrive in the modern world,” and by “modern world” he means the world a person is living in at the time. And, because there are so many cultures and subcultures, the culturally literate person is a kind of master linguist.

By using the word “thrive” Hirsch was more than implying that the culturally ill-literate person is ailing in some way — is sick — and needs to immerse himself in the ethical culture he’s living in to save his own soul.   

What made Hirsch’s work problematic is that the same year his book came out, there appeared the American classicist and philosopher Allan Bloom’s “The Closing of the American Mind,” which is another tremendously bold imperative. Bloom was saying America was slowly losing her mind.

Some readers interested in Bloom’s ideas started taking off the gloves as soon as they got to the subtitle of the book, “How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students.”  

It’s one thing to say someone is failing democracy, it’s quite another to accuse him of demolishing the souls of the young and thereby lessening their chances of getting into heaven.  

One wonders what was in the water at the time because, as those two books were making their way to the best-seller list, William Bennett — the Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan (1985-1988) — started accusing American educators of “dumbing down” what they were teaching kids, especially the “underserved.” It’s a form of cultural triage. 

The journal “American Speech,” which publishes articles on the origin of words and phrases, says that “dumbing down” was instituted “so as to appeal to those of little education or intelligence” and that it was Hollywood moguls who led the charge by telling script writers and directors during the Great Depression to stop being “too subtle,” that dumbing down “saves time and wearying gestures.” And sells tickets!

Hirsch made a major error by providing at the end of his book a list of the “names, phrases, dates, and concepts every American should know” that ignited a culture war of sorts — some groups claiming that their names, phrases, dates, and concepts were not among the 5,000 Hirsch gave; they felt they were being relegated to the realm of non-American. Hirsch’s list can be viewed as cultural preparation for the SAT exam. 

Forgotten, or submerged, for years, “cultural literacy” came to the fore on Oct. 7 when Hamas slaughtered more than a thousand Israeli people and their associates and the Israeli government responded with (still-going-on) vengeful military strikes.

But what sparked a war of words at home was the statement the Graduate Students for Palestine and the Palestine Solidarity Committee at Harvard, issued on Instagram the day after Hamas’s slaughter; it reads, “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” It was co-signed by more than 30 other organizations on the Harvard campus. The statement is like telling a woman who’d just been raped about the concept of “victim-precipitated rape.”

As the reverberations of the statement continue to be felt to this day, on Oct. 17 — nine days after the pro-Palestinian j’accuse appeared — the Vice Provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, Ezekiel J. Emanuel — came out with an op-ed piece in The New York Times called “The Moral Deficiencies of a Liberal Education.”  

He said the pro-Palestinian ideologues at Harvard were able to get away with such a view because their professors — as with professors at American colleges and universities across the board — and by deduction teachers at secondary schools — had dumbed down the required lessons on the ethics and morality of social life.  

Emanuel said the American university system had failed, “to give them [the pro-Palestinian students at Harvard and similar-thinking souls] the ethical foundation and moral compass to recognize the basics of humanity.” He was repeating Bloom’s warning that there were too many ill-literate Americans who could not speak to others without engaging in a war of words.

To pay some degree of homage to Emanuel’s concerns, I suggest that every university in the country require every incoming frosh to take a two-semester Civics 101 course where each student must satisfactorily be able to answer the questions: (1) what does it mean to be a moral person? (2) am I a moral person? (3) what is the payoff for being moral — the psychological and spiritual benefits?; and (4) if such a thing as a moral nation exists, does America fit the profile?

If Keats were alive today he’d say those questions sum up the beauty/truth cultural literacy imperative he laid out, that is, when a person becomes an ethically moral agent, he achieves a psychological and spiritual security that no attack of words or arms can turn him into a machine of revenge and retribution.

¡Les deseo a todos un Día de Acción de Gracias seguro y saludable!

Post date: 
November 17, 2023

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by John R. Williams

On Halloween this year, the Old Men of the Mountain met in their costumes at Mrs. K’s Restaurant in Middleburgh on Oct. 31. The OMOTM with their wrinkled bodies are, at most of their ages, in constant costume so to become outfitted for Halloween is no trick for these OFs; all they have to do is show up.

At one corner of the table, there were some OFs who worked at, or had very close relatives who worked at, the penitentiaries of the state of New York. Most of them did not stick it out and moved on to better things.

Although one person did hang in there for quite a while. It was the understanding most of these people working in these institutions worked away from the general population. For the OFs to keep their sanity, this is a good thing.

Halloween is not a holiday, yet a couple of OFs mentioned that so much is done with Halloween, and getting ready for All Saints Day is similar to preparing for Christmas with the Halloween decorations, colored lights, and all.

Christmas has the crèche, Halloween has its graveyards. Christmas colors are green and red; Halloween, orange and black. Houses decorated with lights and scenes — one with the holiday of Christmas, and the other just for the fun of it. One day, many people head for their house of worship; the other day, they head for a house of horror.

Thanksgiving was also a topic, and the reason for the day was not mentioned; it was the get-togethers and how large or small they were. One OF mentioned that one of these he attended required a lot of food. The OF said two turkeys and he thinks two hams are necessary to feed this group.

One OF mentioned Thanksgiving was a more important extended family get-together than Christmas. More of the family traveled to be with each other than at Christmastime.

They thought that Christmas should be more of a family time, meaning your family, rather than the whole dang group down to cousins three times removed. With the young ones scurrying about and confusion, oftentimes everything is running amuck with dinner just being food consumed and not really enjoyed — and still is looked forward to every year, even planned a year in advance to attend the next one.

 

Engine sounds

As always, cars and trucks entered the conversation on Tuesday morning and the discussion was about how an engine sounds. Not as much as it used to be, but many of the OFs claimed they could tell the make and model of a vehicle by the sound of its engine. While others said nowadays they all sound alike to them.

One OF said that on the farm they had a small Farmall tractor and it had its own particular sound. The sound though was the same on all the Farmalls of this type.

One day at the fair, he was passing the Ferris wheel and heard that sound. Upon further investigation, he found he was right. That engine was the same engine being used to operate the Ferris wheel.

However, that was then, and maybe now being able to tell engine sound from engine sound with the new muffler systems may not be so easy.

One OF said he could tell when an engine was starting up just by how the engine cranked, or how long it took for the engine to fire up. Today it is: Hit the ignition and the engine is running so there doesn’t seem to be any crank time.

 

Double duty

Some of the OFs have breakfast out two days a week. One of our members has been with the group a long time, and many at one time knew this member when they were kids.

This young OF received a call and formed Rock Road Chapel. Rock Road Chapel has a breakfast every Wednesday morning and is by donation, and if you are down on your luck the best donation is just being there.

Some of the OMOTM support this endeavor and this is a “bring the whole family” breakfast not just the OM. From the reports, this is a very good breakfast — only you take what is there because no waitress is going to come out and ask what you want.

Rock Road Chapel is on Rock Road just a little way in, off Route 146 almost to Berne when traveling from Knox.

 

Reflections

Many people, not only the OFs, reflect on what they wished they did, or learned to do, when they were young. Learn to fly a plane, learn to really know how to cook, learn to play an instrument, and learn a foreign language, which is what brought up this discussion.

The OFs discussed their parents and those who came from different cultures and who took the time to teach their kids (who are now OFs) some of the culture and the language. Most of the OFs did a little of this reflecting at Tuesday morning’s breakfast on what they missed by not paying much attention in this regard to their parents. 

One OF listed a couple of should-a’s. One was playing the piano, to which another OF said, “Hey, I play the piano. I will take care of that. I will teach you.”

That is great, teach an OF how to play the piano when the OF has trouble remembering which door he came in.

The Old Men of the Mountain who met at Mrs. K’s Restaurant in Middleburgh and thought it might be a good idea to start a school for OFs who want to learn things, were: Lou Schenck, Herb Bahrmann, Dick Dexter, Jack Norray, Dave Hodgetts, Bob Donnelly, Marty Herzog, Jake Herzog, Rev. Jay Francis, Gerry Cross, Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Doug Marshall, Rick LaGrange, Ed Goff, Bill Lichliter, George Washburn, Mike Kruzinski, Joe Rack, Mark Traver, Russ Pokorny, Frank Dees, Ken Parks, Jake Lederman, Ted Feurer, and me.

Post date: 
November 10, 2023

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by John R. Williams

A tad chilly this Tuesday morning, Oct. 24, but it is the Northeast and this is what it is.

The Old Men of the Mountain who ventured out of bed this morning had breakfast at the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh.

Some OMOTM have breakfast served to them at home; some though married do what the little lady says, “Hey, fellow, I wait on you all day so you can make your own d--- breakfast,” and the OF does.

Then some have the part of their life that is not the best and are all alone (and not because of their wishes) and these OFs have to make breakfast by and for themselves.

At least once a week, the OMOTM don’t have to worry about it; the OFs have the best of all three worlds. Good friends, good food, and all the effort the OF has to do, other than getting to the right restaurant, is tell the server what he wants, and hope there is enough in his pocket to pay for it.

One of the so-called founding members of this rag-tag outfit had a personality as big as the whole outdoors. Many stories are told of this OF; one story was how most of the time coming back from the dump, he had more than what he took to the dump.

Over the years, the Old Men of the Mountain have had members with enough money that banks would ask them for a loan; however, one would never know it. Bibs and Dickey shirts were the basic outfit, sometimes even at formal affairs.

This scribe was fortunate enough to be good friends with this OF, and he was the next-door neighbor to boot. This OF wore a piece of rope for a belt when he wore jeans, and would say, “Why pay for a belt when this does the same thing and is always the right size?”

One day on a trip to the dump, this OF returned with one brand new shoe in the OF’s correct size. The OF’s wife questioned why he brought back the one shoe.

The OF replied, “Who knows, some day there might be another one tossed and I will have a pair; they might not match, but it will be a pair.” Perfect logic.

That shoe did come into play later on. This scribe was helping the OF rebuild his barn after a fire.

The OF and this scribe were playing construction among the rafters for the roof and this OF accidentally drove a nail right through the shoe nailing it to the joist, just missing the big toe and the one next to it.

The OF worked his way out of the shoe and finished the day with one shoe on, and the other foot barefoot, and that shoe is still nailed to that joist till this day.

Much, much more could be told about the antics of this OF and those around him and, if this OF’s wife had not kicked out those who gathered in the OF’s kitchen so she could get something done, more likely than not, there would be no Old Men of the Mountain.

 

Sure shot

Now for some current notes from the OMOTM. One topic was the difference between trap shooting and skeet shooting. OK, but there was no information on what the difference was, only that they discussed the sports.

Trap shooting is from a single location, only at different angles, with the clay target going away from the shooter. Skeet is a little more challenging. There are two clays which go up from different heights and the shooter is to get both.

These heights are varied as the session goes on and the clays cross over each other. Talk about hand-eye coordination. Thank you, internet.

 

Sleeper hold

Another topic, according to the reporter, was how the OFs discussed old-time wrestling. Back in our day, when the OFs were in their teens, wrestling was like choreographed dances (gee, old people use that term a lot — “back in my day”).

That hasn’t changed, and back then there were no ladies battling it out. The report states the OFs discussed the sleeper hold, which is very dangerous because it shuts off blood to the brain and, if applied too long, can cause death or brain damage.

When used in wrestling, it is often thought both parties were in on it and the fainting (supposedly) was faked. However, none of those guys are going to admit it.

Wrestling was on early TV, with a small screen, and in black and white, a staple. Many people got into it and would swear it was real.

 

Battling Mother Nature

Another report was on an OF who has property on Warner Lake and to get there one has to go over a rickety, little wooden bridge that crosses a small stream running from in back and to the side of this OFs property, down to the lake.

Apparently, this year, with all the rain and wet weather, this stream has gone from stream to creek and the OF is fighting the erosion of this running water on his property. In the battle of humans against Mother Nature, as in real life, Mother usually wins out.

Let’s hope this OF can divert Mother Nature if he can’t win the battle.

That little wooden bridge holds up because it is only holding half the vehicle; the front wheels are off the bridge and on the ground just before the rear wheels are on the bridge.

Those Old Men of the Mountain who made it to the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh for breakfast no matter what the situation was or is were: Bill Lichliter, George Washburn, Miner Stevens, Marty Herzog, Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Jack Norray, Dick Dexter, Lou Schenck, Ted Feurer, Jake Lederman, Rev. Jay Francis, Ed Goff, Doug Marshall, Frank Fuss, Frank Dees, Warren Willsey, Russ Pokorny, Gerry Chartier, and unfortunately not me again.

Post date: 
November 3, 2023

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by Frank L. Palmeri

I’ve been doing a lot of things with all the free time I have now that I’m retired. Bought a couple of new guitars. Bought a Harley Davidson motorcycle. Founded the Guilderland Guitar Group. Even successfully pulled off a 50th reunion for my Class of 1973 grade-school classmates.

But I’d always talked about volunteering more when I finally had the time. Well, now I can report I am officially a member of the Guilderland Fire Department. That’s right, I’m the newest firefighter at the Guilderland Fire Department on Western Avenue.

I was driving by one day and the big flashing sign in front of the firehouse said “volunteers needed.” I’d seen that many times before, but that was when I was working full-time and raising a family.

Then, when the kids became adults, my wife’s parents and my parents all began a slow and steady decline. They all needed a lot of our attention. For a long time I was maintaining my in-laws’ house as well as my own. I honestly thought I didn’t have the time for anything extra, but I’ve learned now that wasn’t entirely true.

Tim O’Hara, a longtime member of Guilderland Fire Department, has been very helpful in bringing me on board. He told me that, when it comes to volunteering, most fire companies would gladly accept any amount of time you can give them.

You just do what you can do. Had I known that, I would have joined years ago. Well, better late than never, as the saying goes.

I actually have a history with GFD. They’ve been to my house at least three times. Once for hard-wired smoke detectors that refused to stop beeping (hint: check the backup batteries). Once when our carbon-monoxide detector went off. In case you don’t know, carbon-monoxide poisoning can kill you. That turned out to be a fireplace venting problem. Finally, I had them come when a propane barbecue tank was leaking. Very scary.

GFD comes when you need them; they are 100-percent professional and capable, and they do what needs to be done. To be a part of this organization now is just a dream come true.

Before I could become a member of the GFD, they had to do an arson background check on me. What’s that? Well, it turns out that the adrenaline rush of fighting fires is so addicting for some people that actual trained firefighters sometimes start fires just for the thrill of then putting them out.

This is why, if I had not spent a career in information technology, I would have gone into psychology or psychiatry, because you can never predict what people will do. I’m certain there’s never a dull moment in those fields.

Here is what I would tell a firefighter who craves adrenalin: Take all your gear — jacket, helmet, ax, air tank, etc. — and go talk to middle-school kids about firefighting. If a gymnasium full of sixth-graders hanging on your every word doesn’t get your adrenaline flowing, nothing will, haha.

To become a firefighter, you have to pass a basic physical exam, which I did. But there’s one thing I never knew about firefighting, which is you can’t have a beard or facial hair, other than a mustache.

This is because the gas mask you need to wear that provides breathable air from a backpack mounted tank must have a very tight fit in order to seal out smoke. Not only can’t I have a beard, but I have to shave every day now. I had been slacking off to shaving every three days in my retirement. The things we have to do to serve our community, haha.

Here’s something you may not know about firefighting. I certainly didn’t. Guess how much it costs to outfit a firefighter, including flame-resistant clothing, smoke-resistant mask, gloves (three different kinds), boots, and everything else? About $5,000.

So the next time the fire department sends out a fundraising letter, or when they offer Valentine roses, please do your part. Trust me, these men and women are very, very dedicated and totally deserving of all of our support.

I just went to my first Monday evening drill at GFD. What I saw there just about floored me. It involved Assistant Fire Chief Sean Smith, who had already put in a full day at his full-time job, performing a “bailout” exercise.

He did this two ways, both while wearing all his gear, including an air tank and gas mask. First he exited a second-story window, head first, while connected to a rappelling device. Once outside the window, he turned around and made it down the wall (two other firefighters held him on a “belay” rope for safety during this training, thankfully).

The second time, he came out of the window head first on a ladder. Then, while still on the ladder, he flipped himself upside down, which made him right side up, before descending. These were very athletic feats like you’d see at a ball game. Believe me when I say it. I was simply blown away.

Here’s how serious they are about safety at GFD. The ropes used in the above-mentioned training exercises can only be used so many times before they are discarded. This is to maximize safety above all else.

Talking about safety, the GFD building on Western Avenue is just huge. It is much bigger inside than it looks outside. Yet the whole place is as clean as a whistle, and it is a place where everything is in its place, stowed neatly and safely, ready for use at a moment's notice.

Believe me, as someone who spends wasted time looking for tools that I know I have, the level of organization and neatness at the firehouse is just through the roof.

When you see firefighters in a movie, it’s always a hunky guy taking a beautiful damsel in distress down a ladder. I always thought they did it this way because everyone likes looking at beautiful people.

But now that I’m a firefighter myself, it makes a lot of sense: The firefighter needs to be strong and, if the unlucky lady who needs to be rescued is a size 2, all the better. Just another reason for all of us to get in and stay in shape!

I’m finally a volunteer firefighter, in my retirement years of all things. Wow. Wish me luck.

Post date: 
November 3, 2023

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by Mary Ellen Johnson

— Photo from the Guilderland Historical Society

The charter members of the Guilderland Center fire company posed in front of their original firehouse in the “Old Town Hall” on the hamlet’s main street. The Village Queen is the piece of equipment on the left, which repaid its cost of $1,350 many times over, last used at a blaze in 1951. Note that it had to be towed to fire scenes. It is now the department’s parade piece.

Was it a lighted cigar tossed by a member departing the April 29, 1886 Good Templars’ meeting at their rooms that caused the village’s worst and most destructive fire?

At that time, the west side of Knowersville’s Church Street (now Altamont’s Maple Avenue) was lined with businesses: a tinsmith and hardware store, shoemaker, drug store, blacksmith, woodworking shop, harness maker, and carriage factory.

The Noah Masonic Lodge and the Good Templars, a temperance organization, met in rooms above businesses in two of these buildings.

Flames, suspected of erupting in the hallway or stairs near the Good Templars’ rooms, spread rapidly to sheds in the rear, then from building to building along the street where “in a short time the whole block of frame buildings was one mass of roaring flames.”

Once the alarm was given, men quickly came running with buckets and dragged the little hand engine owned by the community to the scene but, with no adequate water supply nearby, their efforts were fruitless. All was lost with the estimate of damage being $20,000, a huge sum in 1886.

Within a few years, after Knowersville had been renamed Altamont, the village was incorporated and water mains installed. When, in 1893, Altamont Hose Company was established, it was said that the disastrous fire of 1886 helped to motivate the villagers to organize to provide better fire protection.

 

Large buildings, large losses

Among Guilderland’s large buildings of that day were hotels. Very well known and heavily patronized was Sloans’ Hotel on the Western Turnpike (approximately opposite the Schoolcraft House) in the hamlet of Guilderland. Around 1 a.m. on March 14, 1900, the owner awoke to the crackling sound of a rapidly spreading fire, forcing him, his wife, and daughter to jump out of a window in their nightclothes, fleeing to their neighbors’.

The church bell was rung to sound the alarm, arousing the men of the community to come running with their buckets, hopeless against the raging flames in the 60-year-old structure, Thought to have begun in the cellar kitchen, this fire ended the history of a popular hotel. The loss was $6,000.

The other large structures of that day were the feed and grist mills serving the farmers of the surrounding area. Miles Hayes’s huge feed and grist mill adjoined the D & H tracks at the corner of Altamont’s Park Street and Fairview Avenue.

Late one afternoon in 1909, the discovery of fire in the third floor of his mill quickly brought out members of the Altamont Hose Company who played two streams of water on the structure. Fortunately for Hayes, the firemen had recently acquired a heavy section ladder that reached up to the third story capable of bearing the weight of two or three firemen holding a water-filled hose.

Pouring water into the window at the end of the building extinguished the flames, halting them from spreading, but in the process destroyed large quantities of grains, animal feed, and machinery. Insurance covered Hayes’s losses.

 

New companies

McKownville and Guilderland Center each established their own fire companies in 1918, commencing fundraising to purchase equipment. The year before the Witbeck Hotel, originally the McKown Tavern, had burned, motivating McKownville to establish its fire department.

In 1924, Guilderland Center had the foresight to acquire the Village Queen, a pumper powered by a Model T engine capable of shooting two streams of water up and over a three-story building.

Guilderland Center was the scene of the next huge fire when, in August 1926, the three-story former Hurst feed and grist mill located near the West Shore Railroad tracks went up in flames.

Described as a “spectacular blaze,” it could be seen for miles around, attracting hundreds to the scene. Guilderland Center called in Altamont and city firemen to deal with the huge fire.

The mill and an adjoining building were empty, due to be moved across the road because they stood in the path of the planned overpass bridging the West Shore tracks. The two buildings were a total loss, but firemen saved the nearby railroad station and hotel. No cause of the fire could be determined.

Next to burn was the Guilderland Center hotel that had survived the adjacent mill fire only months before. The building was under new ownership, but had not reopened.

Firemen had to run hoses out to a pond near the West Shore tracks for a water supply, causing a delay in dousing the hotel fire. The building was a total loss to its new owner, but its sheds, stable and hotel garage were saved. Again, no cause of the fire could be determined.

 

Pumper needed

The old Hayes Mill in Altamont, which had narrowly escaped destruction in 1909, was now operated by Fort Orange Feed Stores Inc. One evening in December 1927, a fire, possibly originating in the boiler room and spreading rapidly, had already made much headway by the time a bypassing resident noticed it.

In spite of quickly responding and aiming three streams of water at the building, the Altamont Hose Company was unable to put down the flames. The Guilderland Center Fire Department arrived towing the Village Queen, which was able to direct two forceful streams of water up and over the building.

Even this was not enough to quell the inferno. By midnight, the building was a total loss. Fortunately for the village of Altamont, the winter night was exceptionally warm and there was no wind blowing.

The Guilderland Center firefighters earned praise in The Enterprise for their assistance, but questions were raised in the village as to why Altamont had never purchased a pumper for its own hose company. The paper also pointed out firemen wore their own clothes and, if ruined while fighting a fire, were expected to pay for their replacement.

Miss Jennie Wasson, a wealthy woman who owned a summer cottage on the hill, then donated money for gear for the Altamont firemen. The pumper question was still being discussed when the next big fire broke out in Altamont.

This time, the Altamont Hotel was ablaze. Smelling smoke, the owner evacuated his family and raced to his neighbors to turn in the alarm. Hose company members hurried to the scene to find the attic and third floor in flames, kept confined by the hotel’s metal roof.

Again Guilderland Center firefighters rushed the Village Queen to the burning building, pouring water on the roof and the area where flames broke through while inside Altamont firemen were trying to quell the blaze.

Finally under control, fire had seriously damaged the third floor and attic and the gallons of water poured on the burning hotel had drenched the remaining interior. The hotel’s metal roof kept the flames confined while the brisk wind blowing earlier had died down, preventing the fire from threatening the village with disaster. 

The Guilderland Center Fire Department was thanked and praised in The Enterprise for responding to the request for help in fighting the March 1928 Altamont Hotel blaze so willingly, pulling the Village Queen, their powerful pumper, “no small favor when they come a distance of nearly three miles in the middle of the night to render assistance.”

It was very obvious that Altamont needed its own pumper.

 

Seminary burns

LaSalette Seminary, originally erected as the Kushaqua Hotel on the escarpment above Altamont, caught fire early on the morning of Oct. 25, 1946. Smelling smoke while at breakfast, the priests and seminarians, after discovering fire burning in the attic and third floor, quickly exited the building.

A combination of old wood, a shortage of water to effectively battle the blaze, and high winds all contributed to the venerable structure being consumed within an hour in spite of the efforts of firefighters from Altamont, Guilderland Center, Voorheesville, the Army Depot, and two trucks from Albany’s Fire Department.

 

Hamlet spared

A drought in the summer and fall of 1947 had left fields and hedgerows in the area tinder dry. Late one October morning, it was most likely a lighted cigarette butt tossed from a car window by a careless smoker along Route 146 east of Altamont that ignited a fast burning fire that came close to destroying Guilderland Center.

A furious west wind pushed a wall of flames toward the hamlet and Edward Griffith’s Fruitdale Farm situated just to the west. The conflagration covered an area one-quarter mile wide and raced like a wildfire, burning everything in its path.

State Police warned hamlet residents to be prepared to evacuate as flames 20 to 30 feet high bore down. Two-hundred men from seven fire companies and employees of the Army Depot lined up, managing to stop the flames just at the edge of the hamlet.

Fire Commissioner Joseph Banks later described it as “a ball of fire rolling toward the village.” Guilderland Center was saved through the strenuous efforts of the volunteer firemen and a plentiful supply of water from the nearby Black Creek.

Edward Griffin, owner of Fruitdale Orchard just west of the hamlet, wasn’t so fortunate. He lost two barns, over 1,000 fruit trees from his 30-acre orchard, farm equipment, a truck, and 2,000 apple-packing boxes. The only thing left standing was his house; everything else was lost.

 

Depot fires

The Voorheesville Holding and Reconsignment Point, then informally called the Army Depot (now the site of the Northeastern Industrial Park), has been the scene of three major fires.

The late Ella Van Eck, a World War II depot employee, remembered a huge fire in Warehouse No. 3, which burned a large supply of cots packed in flammable excelsior.

With no specific date, the details can’t be tracked down in print because of World War II censorship, although the Enterprise noted in an article about a later warehouse fire, that a major warehouse fire had occurred during the war.

When the United States Government constructed these warehouses in the early 1940s, the structures were 960 feet long and 190 to 200 feet wide, divided into four sections with firewalls separating the sections.

Discovered by a civilian guard on June 17, 1950, a fire in the south end of Warehouse No. 5 had apparently been blazing for some time, the firewall keeping it contained to that one very large section and confining most of the damage to that area.

Smoke rose 200 feet in the air with high winds driving flames 60 feet high, making the fire visible for miles around. This attracted hundreds of spectators who created a huge traffic tie-up on local roads.

The Army Depot had its own resident fire department, but controlling this blaze was beyond their capability and departments from Guilderland Center, Altamont, Voorheesville, Albany, and Schenectady were called in to give mutual aid.

The fire roared out of control for two hours and by the time it was finally out, $2,000,000 in damage was done to the warehouse and its military contents.

Sixteen months later, on Sept. 24, 1951, another major fire occurred at the Army Depot; this time, Warehouse No. 6 was completely destroyed. The fire was already burning out of control by the time it was discovered, so depot firemen quickly called in nearby departments from Voorheesville, Guilderland Center, Altamont, Westmere, McKownville, North Bethlehem ,and Albany’s Pumper No. 10.

As firemen were arriving on the scene, the warehouse roof collapsed and, not long after, the walls caved in. The blaze was brought under control in one-and-a-half hours, but water continued to be poured on throughout the night.

Soon after its discovery, just as the year before, a huge plume of smoke attracted many hundreds of curious onlookers who lined the depot fences and tied up traffic on local roads. Loss of the warehouse and material belonging to the Army Corps of Engineers was estimated to be $2,575,000.

 

More recent losses

After the huge 1927 fire at Altamont’s Fort Orange Mill, the site was rebuilt as a feed mill by W.G. Ackerman. The Ackerman Mill operated as one of the village’s prosperous businesses until Aug. 17, 1961, when in the midst of Fair Week, fire was discovered.

Believed to have started in the grain elevator, flames then raced through the office and feed-mixing and storage building, and within an hour the building was a $200,000 total loss.

Flames leaped 50 feet in the air with clouds of smoke and it was claimed that the plume could be seen as far away as Albany. Eleven fire companies fought the fire including Altamont, Fort Hunter, Guilderland Center, McKownville, and Westmere.

On the adjacent D & H tracks, a Walter Truck Co. crash truck sat pumping out 1,500 gallons a minute to prevent the flames from leaping the tracks to Ackerman’s coal and lumber yard on the other side.

Fortunately no wind was blowing; otherwise the neighboring Hayes House and other old houses on nearby streets and the fairgrounds, which backed on the Ackerman Mill property, could have burned as well.

As Altamont’s police chief said afterward, there were “catastrophic possibilities.”

Guilderland Center’s Helderberg Reformed Church was the victim of an arsonist on March 26, 1986 when he poured accelerant to start a fire that fully engulfed the historic structure. The fire was noticed by passing motorists about 10:30 p.m. and had a good start by the time firemen arrived.

Seven fire companies assisted the Guilderland Center Fire Department in bringing the fire under control. Spreading rapidly through the old, open building, when the flames reached the taller bell tower, the bell gave out one loud peal. By morning only a shell of the building remained.

The congregation was forced to demolish the remains and build a new church on the site. The arsonist was arrested and sentenced for his act.

Guilderland residents and businesses have been grateful for the protection provided by our volunteer firefighters beginning in the 1890s with the formation of Altamont’s Fire Department. These volunteers respond to our calls any hour of the day or night and deserve our thanks and support.

Post date: 
November 3, 2023

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