Archive » July 2024 » Columns

Enterprise file photo — Michael Koff 

Ghost bike: A bicycle painted entirely white was installed on Washington Avenue Extension, near the main entrance to Crossgates Commons, where bicyclist Roger Sawyer, 31, of Guilderland died in October 2017 after being struck by an SUV.  

Many years ago, an energetic young lady — a budding entrepreneur with a growing business — was killed while riding her bicycle early one morning by the University at Albany uptown campus on Western Avenue.

The story resonated locally for a long time. A bright flame extinguished at such a young age. I used to drive right by the corner where it happened every day during my commute to and from work.

Not long after the accident, a white bicycle appeared on the corner where the accident occurred. It was chained to a road sign, and adorned with flowers and floral garlands.

Clearly someone wanted to memorialize this lady’s life, in a very public way. I’ve since learned that bicycles installed at accident scenes are called ghost bikes. I’m not sure I like the idea.

I know the folks who install these memorials are suffering from the intense grief caused by the loss of a loved one. That’s understandable.

But let’s look at it from another perspective. Once a ghost bike gets installed, everyone who walks, rides, or drives past it gets reminded of a horrible tragedy.

In my case, I had to think about that girl’s death twice a day for months if not years. Is that mentally healthy for those of us forced to look at it? How can it be?

OK, Frank, stop being such a whiner. Find another way to get to work. For me that would have been Washington Avenue Extension, right past Walmart and Home Depot.

So I switched to that route, even though I would have preferred staying on Western Avenue. Not long after, another bicyclist was killed right at the entrance to those stores. Can you guess what happened next?

Another ghost bike appeared there, right where I got to see it, again, twice a day. I like being reminded of lots of things: my beautiful wife, my wonderful kids and grandkids, terrific motorcycle rides, etc. One thing I don’t like being reminded of is horrible traffic accidents.

Inevitably, whoever installs the ghost bike, over time, either loses interest in maintaining it or can’t keep up with the maintenance for some reason. What maintenance you ask? Keeping up the flowers and decorations, for one.

But the bicycle tires soon go flat, and then the steel parts start to rust. Before you know it, the bicycle looks like crap. Then, one day, it’s gone. Is that the way to properly memorialize someone? By letting their memorial get all rotted out until it has to be removed because it’s such an eyesore?

My cousin lives on a busy corner in Maspeth, Queens. It’s a very tight and congested neighborhood, but all the houses are well maintained.

One time, there was a car accident right on the corner in front of her house. People died.

Not long after, the victims’ families started having Saturday night prayer services right on the corner. They’d pray, sing, and leave candles and flowers. This went on for, if you can believe it, years, before it finally stopped.

Can you imagine having a weekly memorial service right in front of your living room window for such a long time? What are people thinking?

We all grieve differently. I think about my deceased parents every single day, yet I don’t run around in a funk. I know I don’t visit the cemetery as often as I should. But they are in my mind constantly.

I’ll bet, if you could ask them, they would say to go ahead and keep on living, trying to do good things and be a responsible husband, parent, and neighbor. To try to be happy. And to remember them.

The last thing they would want is some kind of public shrine. They would be livid if I did something like that.

My father was a veteran, so both my parents are buried in the Gerald Solomon National Cemetery in Saratoga. When you go there, you can’t help but feel awed and reverent for how our brave men and women who have served our country are memorialized.

The place is beautiful, serene, and well maintained. This is how you remember people: in a proper cemetery, where they can rest in peace. Not with a rusting bicycle or makeshift shrine at an accident scene.

Some people like to take their dear departed’s ashes and spread them in a meaningful place. Oceans and mountains seem to be very popular for this kind of remembrance.

I’ve always said I want to be cremated, and then have my ashes put in the gas tank of my motorcycle while one of my buddies rides my bike up scenic Route 30 in the Adirondacks. But with my luck, I’d just clog the fuel filter and cause a breakdown, haha.

I’m seeing accident shrines more and more these days. On the highways, on the back roads, etc. Sometimes it’s flowers, or it may be a sign, or something else from the deceased person’s life.

I hope this trend doesn’t go much further. Churches and cemeteries are great places to mourn. Out on a blind curve in the middle of nowhere? Not so much.

I don’t like seeing more and more ghost bikes and roadside shrines in my travels. I like it better when we grieve in appropriate places, or just in our minds.

Bicycling is a great way to get and stay in shape. It’s so much fun, and it can even be a way to go green and commute. But bicycling is very, very dangerous.

One of my best friends was Mark Fiato, who owned Taco Pronto on Western Avenue. He was killed in the prime of his life on a bicycle. I think about him and the three beautiful daughters he left behind all the time.

How come something so good for us and the environment has to be so dangerous? I’d love to see dedicated bicycle lanes all over the place. One thing we can all do is refuse to text, watch movies, or drink while driving. The stakes are too high to do anything less.

My wife is big into grief. What I mean is she has seen a lot of her friends, as well as her mother, pass away. She genuinely mourns deeply for these folks.

Fortunately, she found a great group to help her, called Grief Share, which can be found at www.griefshare.org/. I’ve talked to her friends who participate in it, and they all love it.

One widow told me it was like finally finding the right way to remember her dear departed husband. Again, I don’t grieve like most people — I choose to move on with fond memories — but if you are suffering from the loss of a loved one, give Grief Share a try. I have heard nothing but good things about it.

Ghost bikes and roadside shrines are well intentioned, but there are better ways of remembering our loved ones. How about donating that bicycle to a needy kid instead? I’m sure your dear departed loved one would be very happy if you did something that nice in his or her memory.

DUANESBURG — A special Tuesday at Chris’s Chuck Wagon Diner awaited the OMOTM when they arrived for their breakfast on July 16. The first thing we noticed was a “Happy Birthday” banner stretched across the far end of the room.

Word spread quickly around the room which OF among us was celebrating becoming an octogenarian. This short-lived mystery was solved as we all signed a birthday-card poem for a certain John Dab, current age octogenarian. Happy Birthday, John!

The OMOTM have our own pastor who said a few nice words about John. Even John’s wife, Barbara, joined us and had some nice things to say about her husband. Enjoy this day, John; it is an unbelievable trifecta to have all the OMOTM; a man of the cloth, a pastor no less; and your wife all praising you and saying nice things, all at the same time! Amazing. Congratulations.

I can remember when a certain drinking establishment in Albany would breathe a sigh of relief when yet another customer would celebrate turning 18, the legal drinking age long, long ago. Something tells me that most of the OMOTM can absolutely remember where they were when they turned 18.

Now, 62 years later, we turn 80 and we are not so much glad that we can legally have a beer (Hedrick’s beer if you were in Albany), we are just glad we are still here to toast our OMOTM friends with a cup of coffee and enjoy some special homemade cupcakes and cookies provided by Chris at The Chuck Wagon Diner and listen to a special poem written by our own Poet Laureate, OF Jake Herzog.

By the way, the Hedrick’s Brewing Company had a good long run in Albany from 1891 to 1965 with time out for the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) from 1920 to 1933.

 

History lives

Also special today was seeing the Scribe Emeritus already sitting at his regular normal place when I walked in. He had emailed me that he had something to show me but I was not expecting to see him this week. I thought it was next week.

After breakfast, I followed the Scribe to his car and he handed me a three-ring binder labeled OMOTM:  Book 1. What a treasure!

I now know who the Founding Fathers were. There were three of them — Curly, Moe, … — just kidding. All will be revealed in due time.

A quick glance answers some other fun facts, like all the places where they have been well fed on Tuesday mornings.

There used to be officers of the OMOTM, and to demonstrate how the OMOTM have been a serious organization for all these years, our Scribe Emeritus wrote, “John Williams, being the youngest, has permission to keep a record of jokes and stories told and after the third time he can interrupt and say, ‘We have heard that before.’”

That was taken from an OMOTM column dated Jan. 15, 1998.

I guess this suggests that I may be writing this column for a bit longer. I used to worry about running out of things to write about (not to worry about with this bunch) but with this binder I am good to go forever! Here is a quick example.

Some, or all, of the OMOTM were getting a little confused as to where they were all supposed to meet for breakfast on a particular Tuesday, which resulted in these few paragraphs appearing in The Altamont Enterprise on May 28, 1998, under the heading of “Old Mountain Men,” headlined: “The Old Men of the Mountain are back together.

“This week they met to try to solve the problem. Their business meeting consisted of having John Williams (future scribe) draw a circle on a napkin with the locations of the restaurants they frequent around the circle. A discussion developed on whether to follow the circle clockwise or counterclockwise.

“It was noted that the left-handed old men said counter-clockwise and the right-handed men said clockwise. Herb Wolford (Founding Father and first president) is looking into a government grant to study this further. Is this a medical discovery or just a brain malfunction?

“Paul Giebetz (Paul is head of transportation. He decides whether to drive or fly, but he decides just for himself) will make copies of the napkins for each old man, with arrows pointing clockwise around the circle so the left-handed old men will end up at the right restaurant.”

Those OMOTM who came to the birthday party were: Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Miner Stevens, John R. Williams, Ted Feurer, Jake Lederman, Peter Whitbeck, George Washburn, Wm Lichliter, Frank A. Fuss, Kevin McDonald, Gary Schultz, Jake Herzog, WarrenWillsey, Russ Pokorny, Roland Tozer, Paul Guiton, Roger Shafer, Glenn Patterson, Joe Rack, Mark Traver, Pastor Jay Francis, Jack Norray, Dick Dexter, Lou Schenck, John Jaz, Herb Bahrmann, John and Barbara Dab, Dave Hodgetts, Bob Donnelly, Frank Dees, Henry Whipple, and me.

— Photo by Diego Delso, delso.photo, license CC-BY-SA

Known in ancient times as “Djeser Djeseru” — “the holy of holies” — the great temple of Pharaoh Hatshepsut is the work of Senenmut, her architect and consort.

It appears in the desert like a shimmering mirage — appropriately, as temperatures here can rise to 125 degrees Fahrenheit. At the base of the mountains west of the Egyptian city of Luxor in an embayment called Deir el-Bahari sits the temple known in ancient days as Djeser Djeseru — “the holy of holies.”

It was constructed at the command of a royal woman named Hatshepsut under the direction of Senenmut, her architect, and is like no other building in Egypt. With its polished limestone pillars reflecting the blazing sun punctuated by dark spaces that draw the eye inwards to the temple’s dark recesses, its design seems to mirror the cliffs above it with their vertical faults and fractures and the shadowy spaces within them.

Though it is three and a half millennia old, it appears modern. Its design and setting evoke awe and its history contains some of the greatest mysteries that have come down from ancient Egypt.

Near the beginning of Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty, around 1500 B.C., the country was ruled by a pharaoh named Thutmose II.  The word “pharaoh” comes from the Egyptian word “pero” meaning “great house,” and was applied to the kings much as we use today the expression “the White House” to refer to the president. 

Thutmose II was married to the royal woman Hatshepsut who may have been his half-sister. (Such relationships were not uncommon among Egyptian royalty.) By her, he had two daughters but no sons and, when he died at an early age, the next in line was his nephew, Thutmose III, a small child who required a regent.

 

Usurpation

Hatshepsut was only too eager to fulfill the role and soon their images appeared side by side on monuments with inscriptions describing young Thutmose as pharaoh but stating that Hatshepsut “settled the affairs of Egypt.” In the words of Egyptologist Barbara Mertz, that statement must be one of history’s most tactful descriptions of usurpation.

Ancient Egyptian does not have a word for “queen,” as almost all of the rulers during the country’s 3,000-year history were male. The word sometimes translated as “queen” is the Egyptian expression “king’s great wife,” used to describe the pharaoh’s foremost spouse — pharaohs had many!

But before long Hatshepsut dropped her pretense of being the power behind young Thutmose and on monumental walls and in statuary had herself portrayed in the male garb of pharaohs, even to displaying the false beard they wore in ceremonies; on occasion, carvers even confusedly used the words “he” and “she” referring to her in the same inscription.

But since the language lacked a word for “queen,” she is often awkwardly described as “the (female) pharaoh.” Meanwhile, as young Thutmose grew older, he was being denied the throne that should have been his.

Hatshepsut proved herself a capable ruler, quelling rebellions in far parts of the country’s empire, sending trade expeditions to the exotic land of Punt on the east African coast, and building monuments and obelisks.

But one of the first mysteries that emerge is the question of how she persuaded other Egyptian royalty and the common people of the country to accept her role as pharaoh. One would think that such a stunning intrusion into the usual line of succession would have been earthshaking but from all evidence the years of her usurpation of the throne were peaceful and prosperous with time and resources available to build Djeser Djeseru.

 

Senenmut

How and when Senenmut came into the picture is another mystery.  From the little that is known of his person it can be deduced that he was not of noble lineage. None of the few references to him that remain indicate nobility but since he was apparently a commoner one has to wonder from whence came his great talent as an architect and engineer.

He first appears as a tutor for Hatshepsut’s two daughters and, as he was obviously a frequent visitor to the royal quarters, one can imagine that he might have attempted to ingratiate himself with the widowed Hatshepsut — a “man on the make” in the words of Barbara Mertz.

In any case, the relationship that seems to have formed between the two — an aristocratic woman and a commoner — suggests a novel of D.H. Lawrence. The evidence for this pairing being more than Platonic first appeared when the interior of Djeser Djeseru was excavated.

In the dark recesses of the temple in areas apparently infrequently visited in ancient days were found inscriptions reading “Senenmut, the royal architect.” Such a bold intrusion into a temple intended to glorify a sitting pharaoh and dedicated to the goddess Hathor, patron of women, and Osiris, god of the dead, would no doubt have scandalized both the elite and common people of Egypt.

In rock quarries near the great temple have been found obscene graffiti depicting Hatshepsut and Senenmut in compromising positions.

Moreover, as Hatshepsut had workmen prepare a magnificent tomb for her in the Valley of the Kings — another intrusion into traditional male territory — she also had prepared for Senenmut an elegant resting place in the cliffs bordering Djeser Djeseru.

The tomb still exists in spite of the eventual fate of Hatshepsut and her consort. Its walls are covered in hieroglyphic prayers for the dead and its ceiling is painted with astronomical star charts and constellations, the meanings of which Egyptologists are still trying to decipher.

But this fact coupled with Senenmut’s talents as an architect and teacher suggest a true Renaissance man — an Egyptian Leonardo da Vinci.

 

Egypt’s Bonaparte

Two decades into her reign, Hatshepsut disappears from history. Whether she died or was overthrown by her young nephew Thutmose is unknown but he finally ascended the throne and became one of Egypt’s most powerful rulers, conquering new territories and earning a reputation today among scholars as Egypt’s Napoleon Bonaparte.

What we do know is that 20 years into his reign he began a campaign to obliterate his aunt’s presence from Egypt’s often propagandistic history and Hatshepsut was removed from the list of kings, making young Thutmose appear to be the direct successor to Thutmose II.

Her name was erased from many of her monuments — even in Djeser Djeseru. Lofty obelisks proclaiming her greatness were covered in plaster or surrounded by casings that hid references to her. 

Colossal statues of her carved from hard Aswan granite were smashed to pieces and buried in the rubble in the slopes surrounding her great temple.

Most ominously, two almost identical beautifully carved granite sarcophagi intended for the mummies of Hatshepsut and Senenmut were also reduced to fragments — evidence of fury directed beyond the grave.

And yet another mystery arises: If young Thutmose was filled with such hatred directed at Hatshepsut and Senenmut, why did he wait 20 years to unleash his wrath?

Of course, Thutmose III eventually went to his elaborate tomb in the Valley of the Kings and his name is likely known only to the Egyptologists who labor in the dusty deserts of Egypt, retrieving the remnants of that ancient civilization’s wonders.

But most every visitor to Egypt today visits the Valley of the Kings and Djeser Djeseru. Mention Hatshepsut or Senenmut and one of the guides who haunt the temple will rush forward to regale you with stories of the two, some of them — needless to say — salacious.

But the ancients had a saying: “To speak the name of the dead is to make them live again.”

In the awe induced by the splendor of Djeser Djeseru, the woman who would be pharaoh and her architect lover do indeed walk the Earth again.

DUANESBURG — On a hot muggy morning, July 9, the OMOTM were more than a little pleased to feel the cool air inside Gibby’s Diner. The weather was one of the prime topics of the day; isn’t it always?

It is either too hot, too muggy, too cold, too snowy, too dry, or too rainy, but the good news is there are a few days when the weather is perfect. Today is not one of them. Thank goodness for all the lakes to be found scattered about the Helderbergs.

At one table, the conversation turned to “The Dog Days of Summer!” with the ending comment of “We are there right now.” No argument there.

As is usually the case, the memories of past Dog Days started to stir and the good-time stories would usually start with the phrase, “When we were kids ….”

The places to go to cool down were the Helderberg Mountains and Thompsons Lake & Hotel for a weekend get-away. It made all the difference in the world to be up in the mountains and sit in the shade of the trees with the ability to jump into the lake.

No motorboats in those days, maybe a row boat or canoe, but people driving up to a boat launch with their boat just wasn’t happening for another decade or two.

Remember the OMOTM column from a week or two ago about opening up the summer camps on the various lakes and the issues that the owners faced each year? Well, this past week’s weather is exactly why those folks did what they did.

When you had a great holiday weekend with hot weather and no rain, your extended family would be there for the family get-together, enjoying hamburgers, hot dogs, cold salads, soda for the kids, beer for the old guys, lots of kids running around jumping in the lake (only after our folks made us wait one hour after we ate lunch, remember that?)

Another lake that is close by was Warners Lake. At one time, there were three public beaches on that lake. One was at the north end of the lake at what is now the Maple on the Lake restaurant. Early on, it was a German restaurant called Zwickelbauer’s Hofbrau, and even earlier, the building also housed another restaurant operated by the Mattice family; I am sure several OFs can fill me in on the particulars of that establishment.  

As an interesting sidebar, in 1906, a family called Tompkins ran a boarding house at the north end of the lake called Lake View Cottage. They owned a small, 22-foot long, or so, covered steamboat, or launch, as it was called in those days.

This boat was called the Sarah E., after their daughter. The boat was available for sight-seeing rides around the lake for 10 cents. There are a couple of pictures of it on display at the present-day restaurant called the Maple on the Lake.

The folks at either end of the lake would raise a flag if they had customers who wanted a ride. The Sarah E. would come and pick them up for their ride. Who needs cell phones, anyway? Just raise a flag.

Halfway down the lake’s east side we come upon the second public beach. It started out life being known as Engle’s Fur Trading Post. I think the main claim to fame was that the owner had a pet bear and was known to spin a yarn to two.

About 1940, Mr. and Mrs. Pangburn bought the property and that public beach was born. In 1970, the Osterhouts purchased the property.

Willard Osterhout and his book, “Life Along The Way,” is my main source of information for this section of the OMOTM column.

Another source is an Old Friend, and neighbor, Lee Jones. Lee is one of those guys of whom people often say, “Lee has forgotten more about this or that than we will ever know.” This causes a problem now and again because sometimes he has forgotten more than he has ever known! Think about that; it will grow on you.

To complete the trip from the north end of the lake to the south end, we find the third of the public beaches, and it was also the first. This establishment went through several owners, not the least of which was a family called Roberts.

They had several small cabins at the southwestern end that they rented out, probably to the same people each year, and the whole place was called Roberts’ Pine Grove. My family would drive up from Clarksville to go for a swim and cool off.

That is where I learned how to swim in the late 1940s. By that time, the beach area was owned by the Vunck family in 1946 and then the Cocca family in 1950.

Today there are no longer any public beaches or boat launches on Warners Lake, but ask the OMOTM, they will tell you a few stories about a lot of the lakes in the Hilltowns from the simpler times when inner tubes, with a bunch of patches on them, ruled the waters.

The OMOTM who enjoyed another breakfast together were: Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Ed Goff, Frank Fuss, Kevin McDonald, Duncan Bellinger, Warren Willsey, Russ Pokorny, George Washburn, Wm Lichliter, Josh Buck, Peter Whitbeck, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Joe Rack, Ken Parks, Marty Herzog, Jake Herzog, Ted Feurer, Jake Lederman, Wayne Gaul, Lou Schenck, Greg Hawk, Gerry Cross, Dick Dexter, John Jaz, Paul Guiton, John Dab, Elwood Vanderbilt, Dave Hodgetts, Bob Donnelly, Henry Whipple, Herb Bahrmann, and me.

— Photo by Christopher Payne

Patient ward mural at Creedmoor State Hospital in Queens, New York.

There’s a cruel dictum attributed to Ernest Hemingway about a person’s worth when measured against the eternal flow of time; it says, “Every man has two deaths: When he is buried in the ground and the last time someone says his name.”  

It’s not because I’m turning 84 next month (and on my way out) that I’m thinking about post-mortem anonymity because my philosophical self has entertained such thoughts since first reading the work of my favorite Roman poet, Quintus Horatius Flaccus, commonly known as Horace. 

To some extent he scooped Hemingway by two-thousand years in his oft-quoted Ode 30 in Book 3 of his “Odes” which appeared in 23 B.C.

The first line of the poem reads, “Exegi monumentum aere perennius” which translates to, “I have made a monument that will last longer than brass.” Of course, Horace is speaking about his work.

Then he gets bolder, “regalique situ pyramidum altius.” Which means, “And that work will have more staying power than the pyramids of kings.”

In lines six and seven he boasts even more, “Non omnis moriar multaque pars mei vitabit Libitinam” which is “I will not fully die; a big part of me will escape Death.”  

Add 23 B.C. to 2024 A.D. and, 2047 years later, we see Horace was right. On the Internet there’s an endless parade of pictures of pyramids — built two-thousand years before Horace was born — but here we are still talking about Horace, which puts him right up there with the pyramid-making kings of Egypt. Mirabile dictu.

And, for all the propaganda religionists spout about people not dying because of the eternal joy they will receive through the resurrection of the body — see “The Treatise on the Resurrection” found at Nag Hammadi — what Hemingway said is true: There is no resurrection, there is no eternal life for someone fallen from memory, when not a single soul has incorporated you.

The ideas of being forgotten and bodily resurrection were reignited yesterday during a conversation I had with a clerk in the vital records office of Smithtown, New York about an official document.

It was the death certificate of a member of my family — a Sullivan who died in 1944 — and I think I’m safe in saying that the Sullivans of my generation have all but forgotten her. Her monumentum has had the staying power of wilting lettuce.

I’m here today to unwilt that lettuce, if you will, through a resurrection of my own, hoping to bring that Sullivan back from the grave so she can say with Horace, “Non omnis moriar.”

The name of the Sullivan on the certificate is Elizabeth Lillian, my father’s older sister by five years and called by the family Lilly or Lill. I used to ask the adults when I was growing up why we heard so little of Lill.   

A short eight-page memoir my aunt Catherine (Cass), put together during our Bicentennial year, provides an answer that in some way brings Lill back to life. (Cass was Lill’s younger sister by six years.)

She says the family got multi-socked by Sorrow. First, there was the death of a sister, “Baby Barbara,” who died at seven months. Then in 1926, the backbone of the family, her mother, Barbara — after a two-year illness — left this world, leaving the family in disarray.

Lill had been the caretaker of her mother while she was sick and after she died, Lill became the mother of the house — which seems to have been too much to handle.

That is, Cass says: “Either because of the strain of my mother’s two years’ illness and death or the responsibility afterwards or for some other unknown reason, [Lill] suffered a complete nervous breakdown about 1927.”

Thus, the Sullivans were now Sorrow’s favored friend: They lost Baby Barbara, then Barbara the mother died, then Lill went to pieces.

I do not know who decided where Lill should go to patch herself together but she wound up in Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens, a massive, other-worldly panopticon complex Oliver Twist wouldn’t be caught dead in.

The family did everything to keep Lill’s soul alive. Cass says, “My father and even my stepmother were very faithful to her and visited her often. I did occasionally as did my brothers Neal and John … It was a very traumatic experience for me every time I went to see her because I saw the pretty young girl in such dreadful surroundings.”  

During the 1930s and early 1940s Creedmoor was Lill’s home, though listed as an “inmate.” 

I was talking to the clerk at Smithtown because Lill did not die at Creedmoor in Queens (New York City) but in Suffolk County; between April 1940 and her death four years later, she was moved to Kings Park Psychiatric Center located in Smithtown, Suffolk County — and the vital records officer in the town had information about how Lill died.   

When my mother was about the age I am now, I asked her to tell me the “Lill story” one last time — and she did, and added something new.

She said Lill was a pious soul and had a “close” relationship with — and this is the new part — Father John B. Snyder the priest in the parish where Lill went to Mass, confessed her sins, and sought pastoral counseling.

Father Snyder died in January 1934, ten years before Lill; The Herald Statesman of Yonkers for Monday, Jan. 22, 1934 revealed he “had been seriously ill with a nervous breakdown for a long time and several months ago had been relieved of his duties as assistant to the Rev. Michael, J. Tighe at the Staten Island [St. Mary’s] church.”

Two nervous breakdowns, though in the priest’s case, the Statesman added: “Secrecy was thrown about the circumstances attending death by members of the family.” 

But a headline in The New York Times the following day (the Jan. 23 edition) uncovered the secret: “Rev. J. B. Snyder of Staten Island Hangs Self While Visiting Brother.”

Cass, too, said Lill was pious; my mother said she was “close” to the parish priest, and the paper said he too had a breakdown to which he added a suicide.

By saying my mother used the word “close” I am in no way implying something was “going on.” That generation of Sullivans — Cass, my father, their brother Neal, and both their parents were straight-laced — personable people but imbued, like many Irish, with a deep sense of modesty.

I see Lill and Father John as Pyramus and Thisbe whom Ovid and Shakespeare wrote about: The couple, forbidden to marry — even to see each other — were forced to speak through a chink in the wall between their houses.   

But the walls at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center had no chinks. And we have no idea if the priest ever saw his parishioner in confinement.

Stymied by Fate, Pyramus and Thisbe decide not to have breakdowns but to elope, agreeing to meet at a mulberry tree with white berries. 

While waiting for her lover, Thisbe is accosted by a lion and flees, leaving her cloak spread across the ground. 

When Pyramus arrives and sees the empty cloak, he thinks a lion has eaten his bride-to-be and in despair takes his life, his blood turning the berries of the mulberry tree red. 

Thisbe, returning to the meeting spot after escaping the lion, sees her lover’s body spread across the ground and, overcome by despair, takes her life as well.   

To commemorate the blood the dear-hearts shed for love, the fruit of mulberry trees remains red to this day. 

Eighty years ago this month — July 16, 1944 — Lill died and I cannot shake her. Is that what is meant by resurrection of the body? 

As long as I live, Lill will have, like Horace, the staying power of a pyramid; deep down I hear a voice saying “Non omnis moriar.”

— From Getty Museum Collection

In this 1300s manuscript, the Master of Jean de Mandeville, an anonymous French illuminator, shows Cain, at left, offering a sheaf of wheat to God while Abel sacrifices his first-born lamb. The figure of God is repeated in the arc of heaven, showing God, at left, smiling down diagonally on Abel, depicted with a smooth brow, while the figure of God to the right covers his face in displeasure as Cain, with furrowed brow, vainly looks up for approval.

 

For Fred Boehrer

It’s easy to look upon the story of Cain and Abel in the Book of Genesis as a cute little morality play where the blackguard Cain gets his comeuppance: He is exiled to the Land of Nod, cut off from his past — his mother and father, the mother and father of the universe — while watching his chances of getting into heaven when he dies wither by the day.

Probably his most remembered line is: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” sassing a god whose blood he already made boil.

But a deeper look at the text — beginning with the brothers offering their gifts to God — reveals the tale of Cain and Abel to be a lesson on how to — paradoxically — prevent murder and, on a macro scale, civil strife.

As we know, Cain was a farmer and Abel a herdsman and the original archetypes for Rodgers and Hammerstein’s line in “Oklahoma”: “Oh, the farmer and the cowman should be friends.”

Over the years, I’ve met more than a thousand criminologists but cannot recall a single one ever taking up the case of Cain and Abel or the crime-prevention message contained in Genesis 4:3-7.

If you’re up on your Old Testament, you know how the story goes. Genesis [4:3] says, “In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.”  

The next verse goes: “But Abel brought fat portions from some of the first born of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering; but on Cain and his offering” [4:5] “he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.”  

Of course, the key words are “fat portions from the first-born of his flock”; an enormous archive exists describing how peoples across the globe have dealt with “first fruits,” whether it be grain, lambs, olive oil, or some other part of the harvest.

“Fat portions” can be translated as the best of the best — of which there is no better, an ethic of giving Abel lived by.

And we must keep in mind that Cain sinned twice: The most glaring is the murder of course but he also refused to follow the rules that insure a community’s future — he chintzed on his gift to his God, which he got as a gift from God’s soil.  

Kenneth Mathews, in his extraordinary commentary on the early books of Genesis, asks whether the problem with Cain’s transgression is the nature of his gift or a personality flaw he couldn’t control.

The issue is worthy of discussion but it’s hair-splitting; the crux of the matter is the great importance communities assign(ed) to the “first fruits” of a harvest.

On one level the practice smacks of superstition but it’s the way civilizations guided their lives — in some religions the practice persists — and seemed happy with the results.   

The great ethnologist, J. G. Frazer, with a multitude of examples, has documented how communities regarded the “corn-spirit,” that is, the spirit or god inherent in a crop. 

They believed the new fruits were animated with a divine spirit and the way to keep that spirit alive was to ingest it sacramentally. By eating the body and blood of the corn-spirit — the body and blood of the god — the community was assured a future and its people renewed life. 

Christians eat the god to this day; when the priest holds up a host at Mass he does not say, “Here is a piece of bread”; he says, “This is the body of Jesus Christ.” 

And, when he holds up a chalice of wine, he does not call it wine but says: “Here is the blood of Jesus. Eat and drink this god and you will live forever.” 

Jesus, as the first and only begotten son of God, was himself a first fruit.

Tracing the practice of ingesting the god, Frazer in the second volume of “Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild” says, “Sometimes the first-fruits are presented to the king, perhaps in his character as a god; very often they are made over to the spirits of the human dead, who are sometimes thought to have it in their power to give or withhold the crops.”

But the rules are always the same, until “the first-fruits have been offered to the deity, the dead, or the king, people are not at liberty to eat the new crops.”

The first fruits belonged to those with power over nature, over the processes (rain, sun) that insure a bountiful crop and thus a community’s future. Cain’s offering was OK but it violated the ethic of offering your best for the common good.  

But somewhere along the line people no longer saw themselves as ingesting a god as a sacrament but as offering a sacrifice. Early on, the community ate “the new fruits sacramentally because they suppose them to be instinct with the divine spirit or life.”  

But then, Frazer adds, “The fruits of the earth are conceived as created rather than as animated by a divinity.” 

When this happens, “the new fruits are no longer partaken of sacramentally as the body and blood of the god; but a portion of them is offered to the divine beings who are believed to have produced them.” Whether sacrament or offering, the rules remain the same.

In New Caledonia, the first yams dug from the ground were eaten sacramentally. Then the chief got up and reminded everybody they were eating to their hearts’ delight because they had adhered to the rules of their ancestors; he then urged the young to continue the tradition (if they knew what was good for them). Not an LOL.

In classical antiquity, the people of Athens sacrificed the first fruits of wheat and barley to Demeter (the goddess of their harvest) and to her daughter, Persephone (also a vegetation goddess), in the city of Eleusis.

And in Rome, the first ears of corn were sacrificed to Ceres (the Roman god of agriculture) and the first new wine to Liber (the god of wine) and “until the priests had offered the sacrifices,” the rules said, “the people might not eat the new corn nor drink the new wine.”  

Then the New Testament came along and turned things upside down. Jesus said there are two commandments: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself, thereby putting the community on the same level as God. From then on, the first fruits were to be offered to the community, especially the poor who live within.

And it was John the Baptist who set the standard, “If you have extra clothes, you should share with those who have none. And if you have extra food, do the same.” The message is: Don’t be possessive; don’t be a Cain. 

Augustine of Hippo in Chapter 15 of his “City of God,” says, “Cain means ownership,” which centuries later Karl Marx translated as “class struggle.”

The gospel writer Matthew (19:22) says, when people find out they have to give their first fruits to the poor they go away sorrowful — like the proverbial rich man — knowing it requires a re-evaluation of their wealth in relation to what others have — and why Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

For years now, in all parts of our country, there’s been considerable talk about “economic equality” but, when the blueprint arrives showing the structural changes you/me/we need to make to make that happen, you/me/we head to the Land of Nod to percolate civil strife.

And yet there are data that show, when someone adopts the blueprint of offering first fruits to those with less, he starts flushing his Xanax down the toilet.

SCHOHARIE — As the OMOTM made their way to the Your Way Café in Schoharie on June 29 for our usual Tuesday morning breakfast, it occurred to me that we OFs are such creatures of habit that, when we are called by St. Peter, we will probably stop by the proper diner/café for that week and order breakfast on our way up to say hello to St. Peter!

But today was different, because in a couple of days our nation will come together and celebrate its birthday.

Exactly 248 years ago, on this date, July 2, 1776 the Second Continental Congress unanimously approved the Declaration of Independence to separate from England.

So, as the OMOTM gathered at the Your Way Café in Schoharie on a bright, sunshiny morning, we were reminded of the most famous line contained in the preamble to one of the most sacred documents of our nation: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Two days later, on the 4th of July, this declaration was unanimously adopted, dated the 4th of July, printed, and given out to the public. That is why we celebrate on the 4th of July because that is when it was adopted, dated, printed and handed out.

As I moved around the room, I discovered over half the OMOTM who were eating breakfast were present at those meetings in 1776 and voted unanimously to adopt the Declaration of Independence. Kidding aside, the tables would grow quiet as we considered the courage of these men from the 13 colonies who gathered in Philadelphia and spoke with one unanimous voice.

These were serious men, some of whom traveled weeks on horseback to reach Philadelphia at the expense of their farms and businesses to consider this decision. They knew the consequences if they failed in their bid to be free.

We, who live right here in the Hilltowns, live within 50 miles or so of so much history of the Revolutionary War it is nearly overwhelming to try to consider it all.

Right here in Schoharie is what we call the Old Stone Fort, which was attacked by the British with the aid of Mohawk Indians who were led by their famous chief, Joseph Bryant.

Right up the road, the Battle of Saratoga, considered to be the turning point of the revolution; Fort Ticonderoga; the battles on Lake George and Lake Champlain (the birthplace of the United States Navy); West Point and Benedict Arnold; G. Washington, B. Franklin, A. Hamilton, and on and on.

Not only is this our birthday, but this area is an important part of the nation’s birth. Many of the OMOTM of today can easily trace their family heritage back to the Revolutionary War era and I have no doubt they could show us headstones and markers with the dates to prove it.

Two-hundred-and-forty-eight years later, here we are. Free.

There are numerous celebrations of the United States Independence Day abroad such as in Denmark, Norway, and even in Sidney, Australia.

Unlike today where there is considerable money being spent on the 4th, it used to be considered unpatriotic for businesses to be open for business on the 4th of July.

Do you know that there have been 27 different versions of the official United States flag from 1777 to 1960? Twenty-five of those changes were made only to the number of stars added when new states were admitted to the union. The last two are Alaska in January of 1959, and number 50 is Hawaii — added in August of 1959.

The Second Scribe thanks Wikipedia for providing me with the accuracy of information of dates and facts for the preceding paragraphs. As for the remainder of this column there are absolutely no guarantees about anything except possibly the final paragraph.

 

Odds and ends

At one of the tables, artificial intelligence was being discussed and that it wouldn’t be long before your Second Scribe would no longer be necessary.

Somebody would say, “AI, write the column about the OMOTM,” and three seconds later the printer would print it out. Not really a comforting discussion.

The talk moved on to a local brewery in Schoharie called Wayward Lane Brewing. The OF that brought up the topic says it is a cool place to go and the beer is outstanding. He has been there several times and, being that his heritage is Irish, it was generally accepted that his recommendation should be taken seriously.

Our annual OMOTM picnic held at Warner Lake was announced. It will be at the usual location on Warner Lake. Details to follow.

We also had a couple of vintage automobiles driven by a couple of vintage OFs, one a little more vintage than the other. The cars I mean, certainly not the OFs.

One car was a 1940 Ford sedan and the other, a lot younger, was a 1957 Ford Ranchero. It is absolutely amazing how these cars can attract a crowd.

All we needed was either the Plymouth Silver King farm tractor, and/or the Cushman motor scooter, both 1930s vintage that were mentioned in last week’s column, and we could have charged admission.

The OMOTM present at the Your Way Café for breakfast, including those who voted for the Declaration of Independence in 1776, were: Harold Guest, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Joe Rack, Ed Goff, Kevin McDonald, Frank A. Fuss, Peter T. Parisi, Ted Feurer, Wayne Gaul, Jake Lederman, Pete Whitbeck, George Washburn, Josh Buck, guest of  Wm Lichliter, Duncan Bellinger, Jake Herzog, Warren Willsey, Roland Tozer, Marty Herzog, Jack Norray, Dick Dexter, Wally Guest, Pastor Jay Francis, Gerry Cross, JohnWilliams, Lou Schenck, Herb Bahrmann, Elwood Vanderbilt, Bob Donnelly, Dave Hodgetts, John Dab, Paul Guiton, and me.

MIDDLEBURGH — June 25 was a perfect morning to enjoy breakfast with the OMOTM at Mrs. K’s Kitchen in Middleburgh. By 7 a.m., the long table was filled and only two seats were left at the far end while breakfast orders were already being taken.

The rest of the room filled up quickly and was filled with laughter from funny stories and memories. I think if you could be a fly on the wall and just listen in on all the conversations from just one breakfast, you would have enough material for a year’s worth of OMOTM columns in The Altamont Enterprise.

Those conversations would run the gamut of topics from sad to funny, to pride in grandkids, to love and to concern for fellow OFs. Today’s OMOTM column will be looking at some lighthearted and funny stories heard on Tuesday morning.

Somehow, it is never clear how a particular conversation gets started. On Tuesday morning, we got talking about motor scooters. One OF mentioned he had a Vespa scooter, which prompted me to mention my Harley-Davidson motor scooter that was called a Topper.

Most people who hear the name, Harley-Davidson, will instantly think of big, loud, fast motorcycles, not a little small scooter with a top speed around 45 miles per hour! We all smiled and had a chuckle about that.

Then one OF told the story of his scooter made by Cushman that his father got for him. It seems one day that a friend of his father asked if could take the scooter out for a ride. His father said sure.

After a while, our OF looked up and saw his Cushman Motor Scooter racing neck and neck against a big farm tractor, a Silver King, the model with just one front tire, coming down that country road as fast as they could go, which was about 35 to 40 miles per hour for both of them!

He said the guy driving the Silver King tractor was standing up and steering the tractor with one hand while reaching forward with the other to the engine to disengage the governor (a device that prevents the engine from going too fast) in order to get more speed!

I just couldn’t keep myself from laughing at the visual picture I had in my mind of a great big farm tractor racing down the country road side by side against a little bitty motor scooter! At 35 to 40 miles per hour each! Probably not even the speed limit, if they even had speed limits on country roads in the mid- to late 1930s.

As he told the story, I glanced around the table and saw the other OFs nodding in agreement when the name Silver King tractor, with only one front tire, was mentioned. They all knew exactly what he was talking about.

Except me. You remember me, the shirt-and-tie office guy from the Flatlands, so I had to ask about the Silver King and they all happily explained all about the tractor. It got its name because it was painted silver. That’s reasonable.

So I Googled the name Silver King and found an article “History of the Plymouth Silver King” from the Antique Power written in 1991. Turns out the factory was in Plymouth, Ohio, thus the name Plymouth.

It also mentioned that an earlier version of the company had made fewer than 200 trucks and one car before going out of business. Long story short, Chrysler Corp. sued Plymouth Silver King over the name “Plymouth.”

Chrysler lost the suit because of that one car that was built before Chrysler was even in business. Chrysler had to buy the right to use the name “Plymouth,” which it reportedly did for one dollar.

The stuff I learn while writing this column is astounding!

 

Boating challenges

Keeping this week’s column lighthearted but oh-so-interesting, our conversation moved on to boating and more specifically the trials and tribulations found at any boat launch in America.

Several stories were quickly told of people who really should never be allowed to try and back up a boat trailer into the water. So many of them seem to get the boat trailer at right angles to the car.

One OF told the story of the guy who failed to remove the tie down stern straps before backing his boat into the water and couldn’t figure out why his boat would not float off the trailer.

He tried several times, each time driving further up the ramp and then going faster and faster back down trying to “launch” his boat by slamming on the brakes. Nothing worked.

Finally, the brakes got wet, and boat launches are notorious for being slippery and he wound up sliding into the water, boat trailer, car and all. The boat was  still attached to the trailer, which was now sort of floating.

The driver crawled out of the car window and tried to jump to shore, he was short by a few feet and slipped on the aforementioned slippery ramp and fell into water!

I don’t know if that story might qualify for tall-tale status, but I’ll tell you this: I was launching my boat at the Albany boat launch for about the 100th time, and went to step on the trailer with my wet, slippery sneakers, and wound up flat on my back in about one foot of water in a heartbeat!

I got up, faced the laughing crowd of onlookers on shore, and promptly gave them my very best bow. I did get a nice round of applause mixed in with the laughter. I proceeded with the launch and received another round of applause and handwaving as I left the launch area in my boat and wet clothes as quickly as I could!

The OMOTM who enjoyed their breakfast at Mrs. K’s Kitchen were: Wally Guest, Harold Guest, Ed Goff, Wm. Lichliter, Robie Ostermann, Pete Whitbeck, Marty Herzog, Otis Lawyer, Mark Traver, Joe Rack, Frank Fuss, Roger Shafer, Roland Tozer, Ken Parks, Jake Herzog, Gerry Chartier, Paul Whitbeck, Russ Pokorny, Pastor Jay Francis, Lou Schenck, John Jaz, Bill Rice, Henry Whipple, Gerry Cross, Dick Dexter, Jack Norray, Herb Bahrmann, Elwood Vanderbilt, Allen DeFazio, Dave Hodgetts, Bob Donnely, Duncan Bellinger, John Dab, Paul Guiton, and me.

Art by Elisabeth Vines

Dear graduates in our towns and villages hereabouts:

When my older grandson was about to be born, my son and daughter-in-law asked family and friends to send the boy — they knew beforehand — their favorite childhood story so that, when they were read to him, he could incorporate their values as a source of strength for the future.

I did not buy a book but wrote a story called “Grandfather Dream for Gus.” A name had not yet been assigned to the child and, because he was slated to be born in August, in utero we called him “Gus.”

On the cover of my storybook is a photo of myself (at my brother John’s graduation from grammar school) along with my father and grandfather, so the Sullivan-to-be — little Gus — would be aware of five generations of Sullivans: himself; his father (my son); his grandfather (me); my father; and my grandfather. I was hoping the historical continuity of our family could offer help should things go awry.

Gus is a fine young man today with a deep sense of purpose, headed to New Zealand in September for a semester abroad to study the marine life of the waters down under. He’s a scholar in the making, which brings joy to an old man who vowed to be a scholar for life at the age the boy is now. Had he incorporated something of me?

For many years, I’ve wondered what other grandparents hope their grandkids will incorporate of them. When Pablo Picasso’s son Claude was departing after a visit with his father, the painter would hold back a piece of the boy’s clothing such as a necktie or pair of pajamas.

Speaking of this ritual, the boy’s mother, Françoise Gilot, says in her memoir, “Pablo hoped by this method that some of Claude’s youth would enter into his own body. It was a metaphorical way of appropriating someone else’s substances, and in that way … prolong his own life.” Incorporation flipped on its head: a father borrowing from his son!

I “teach” a course at the Voorheesville Public Library called “Writing Personal History for Family, Friends, and Posterity.” It’s the second time around; last time, for five years the “students” brought in every two weeks pieces of memory-generated literature they wanted the world to see.

The new cohort — seven adults ranging from their 40s to 90s — also bring in every two weeks a dream-story that as a mother, father, grandmother, grandfather they wrote for the Gus in their life.

Several weeks ago, one of the students brought in a story about the year his sister, Rosie, was entering first grade and he, not wanting to stay home, got dressed and went along. But he was too young so the teachers told him, “Don’t come back.”

The written text of the story includes a photo of the author and his sister on their first day heading to first grade. They are dressed in sharp but simple new clothes carrying now-hip-retro school bags. You look and are drawn into their life.

The memoir student said he read the story to Rosie over the phone and she broke down in tears. What a treasure awaits his son and granddaughter and all the people in Rosie’s life who now have the dreams of ancestors to incorporate into their lives; as Prospero says in “The Tempest,” “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.”

“Among the Lapps,” the great ethnologist J. G. Frazer points out, “when a woman was with child and near the time of her delivery, a deceased ancestor or relation used to appear to her in a dream and inform her what dead person was to be born again in her infant, and whose name the child was therefore to bear.” That’s why I’m named Dennis after my grandfather.

Beloved children’s stories have been handed down for generations across the globe as collectively-shared dreams, though sometimes they appear as a portent or omen.

Consider the case of “The Wonderful Story of Henny-Penny” which we know in the States as “The Story of Chicken Little.” My version comes from Joseph Cundall’s artfully-illustrated “A Treasury of Pleasure Books for Young Children,” which came out in 1850.

The story begins with a hen, Henny-Penny, who was picking peas in the farmyard when all of a sudden a pea fell on her head with a thump so hard she thought a cloud had fallen from the sky.

Thunderstruck, if you will, by this freak of nature, she decides to report the incident to the king thinking it a matter of national security — and off she heads to the palace.

On the way, she runs into a rooster she tells about the “clouds” falling on her — she’s now using the plural, and why Chicken Little says “the sky” is falling.

The rooster tells Henny-Penny he’d love to come along to bring the news to the king.  

A ways down the road, they come upon a duck, a goose, and a turkey one after the other to whom Henny-Penny tells her story and they all join the brigade.

A little farther down the road, the five see a fox who, when he hears the story, says he’d be delighted to show them the way: “Come with me,” he says, “and I will show you the road to the king’s house.” They were delighted with the offer.

But soon they saw the fox was a trickster as he ushered them into his hole where he and his kids ate them up.

There are untold news stories on TV these days, and in the papers, and on social media about the number of young people suffering from loneliness, disabling anxiety, and depression, severe enough in some cases to require daily doses of drugs to help them fashion a morrow.

Some of the news stories imply the young sufferers are too weak to handle life’s load — in effect blaming the victim — “They just don’t got the goods.”

But what historical continuity do they have that offers succor during distressing times? Their purpose-in-life is blurred.

They live in a world filled with tornados and hurricanes blowing America’s heartland apart — The New York Times says expect 26 hotter days next year —  and are deeply rent by the ideological civil war going on; add Russia’s imperialistic blowing apart Ukrainian children to satisfy the whim of Rasputin; and then Israel’s leveling of Gaza producing millions of forsaken nomads hoping to find a rock to lay their head upon to sleep without a bomb whizzing by.

The dreams we’ve created for the Gusses in our lives are now collective nightmares; they offer the strength of a whittled-down tooth pick.

America, your sky is falling, as a rabid fox is ushering your people into a hole so he and his kin can eat them up. Or is that too Henny-Penny?

This time of year, schools all over the country will grace their commencement ceremony with the familiar song: Gaudeamus igitur; Juvenes dum sumus; Gaudeamus igitur; Juvenes dum sumus. In English it means: Let us celebrate the flower of our youth, let us live out the dreams we’re made for.

The final verse goes: Pereat tristitia; Pereant osores; Pereat diabolus; Quivis Antibacchius; Atque irrisores. The English is: As we go along on our journey, let us not give into sadness; let us resist the lies of haters; let us dismiss the devils who envy and mock our democratic ideals as the great majority of us strive to insure that the dreams of all are fulfilled.

That deserves a gaudeamus. And a big one at that.

Outlet Falls drains Thompsons Lake and can be viewed from the Indian Ladder Trail.

A few years back, a popular song urged, “Don’t go chasing waterfalls,” but there is no doubt that H20 pulled under the influence of gravity over precipitous drops and releasing dissolved oxygen in a froth of bubbles — to put the process prosaically — holds great fasciation for most of us.

In his great novel “Moby Dick,” Herman Melville mused about the human fascination with water and wondered: “Were Niagara [or any waterfall] but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it?”

This part of New York state is blessed with numerous waterfalls both permanent and seasonal and one of the finest examples — the Cohoes Falls — is easily accessible at any time of year and is impressive even in times of low precipitation.

But looming to the west of the Capital District and Schenectady is the great escarpment of the Helderberg Plateau and both at its sheer cliffs and deep in its shadowy valleys and gorges it features numbers of waterfalls; some flow only in events involving heavy precipitation, some usually just trickle, some gurgle deeply, and all are capable of roaring in times of heavy rain or sudden snowmelt. 

To view the escarpment during events of very heavy rain such as one of the tropical storms that occasionally pass through New York state is to witness a scene out of “The Lord of the Rings” when dozens of foamy torrents pour over the craggy cliffs.

 

At Thacher Park

Minelot Falls and Outlet Falls are two impressive waterfalls that can often be seen from the Indian Ladder Trail in Thacher Park and Minelot can also be viewed from a vantage point atop the escarpment close to the LaGrange Bush parking area.

But the key word here is “often,” for in stretches of dry weather the falls can disappear leaving their courses above the cliffs parched and the great piles of boulders that they formerly blasted dusty and dry.

Neither of these falls is what geologists call “seasonal” or “temporary.” Outlet Falls is fed by a stream that is a drain for nearby Thompsons Lake and can collect groundwater as it flows toward the cliff. (Some of its water also drains to the southwest through a cave.)

The stream that feeds Minelot Falls takes seepage from the upper escarpment as well as groundwater.

The key to their apparent whimsical nature is that the landscape of this area of the Helderberg Plateau is karst: The bedrock of the streams is limestone, honeycombed with caves and riddled with vertical fissures and sinkholes, which are capable of pirating the water feeding the waterfalls and channeling it into underground conduits that emerge at the base of the cliffs beneath the dry falls.

This “pirating” phenomenon can often be observed near the intersection of routes 85 and 443 where the Onesquethaw Creek crosses under Route 85. The Onesquethaw draws much of its water from Helderberg Lake and in times of high water roils over the limestone bedrock creating whirlpools and rapids.

But in dry periods the low-volume stream disappears into the fissures that scar the bedrock and flows underground to resurge in the gorge that borders the village of Clarksville.

 

At the Huyck Preserve

By far one of the most picturesque falls is on Ten-Mile Creek in the Huyck Preserve in the hamlet of Rensselaerville. Just a few minutes’ walk from the parking area on an easy trail, the waterfall drains Myosotis Lake through a fault-created canyon and tumbles in stages down a hundred or so feet.

Though its volume of water varies with the amount of precipitation throughout the year, the waterfall never goes dry and the sounds it generates as it splashes over the layered shale and sandstone strata never fail to soothe.

In winter, many waterfalls — these three in particular — freeze up and produce massive ice floes and columns.

Though the Indian Ladder Trail is closed in the cold months and Outlet Falls is not accessible, Minelot Falls becomes a giant column formed of a huge ice stalactite and stalagmite looking for all the world as though it belongs in Carlsbad Caverns, and it can easily be viewed from the overlook at the LaGrange Bush parking area.

Though the short rail to the Rensselaerville Falls can be icy and requires care to navigate, the waterfall becomes a descending display of distorted icicles and other odd shapes with frigid waters flowing through and around them and is well worth the hike.

As Melville observed, the sight of falling waters — whether miniscule or grand — seems universally to evoke fascination in humans.

But regarding his thought on a Niagara of sand — spacecraft orbiting Mars have sent back spectacular photographs of massive amounts of red dust carried by the alien winds cascading down into craters.  Future travelers to Mars, take note!