If we go any slower, we might just stop
Summer is over. Long live the autumn.
Pleasant daytime temps, lower humidity, cool nights for sleeping, and the fall colors can’t be that far away. With the morning temperature in the mid to upper 40s, it was no surprise that the sandals, shorts, and short-sleeved shirts were nowhere to be found as the OMOTM gathered together at Mrs K's Kitchen in Middleburgh on Sept. 3.
We did enjoy a very nice Labor Day weekend from a weather point of view. But the third day of the holiday weekend is a little hard for us retired OMOTM to figure out what to do with it. We already are not working at a regular job so we are not enjoying a day off from a job we don’t have, and therefore the short four-day work week ahead holds no particular excitement for us.
As has been mentioned before, most of us are not closing up summer places and heading back “home”; we are home. We live here all year around. Now is our time. Slow down.
Slow down? Most of us are already moving around at a pretty slow pace. If we go any slower, we might just stop. That would not be good. We do notice the yellow school buses now moving around, but frankly, we are more interested in our vegetable gardens and watching our tomatoes ripen.
At the Long Table, 16 of us again, the quieter conversations ranged from the usual cars — there is a 1951 or 1952 Hudson for sale someplace nearby— to old and new rototillers for the aforementioned vegetable gardens. Not all OFs are helpless in the kitchen, especially those OFs with the vegetable gardens.
Overheard were recipes involving some of the impending harvest. One recipe and subsequent discussion had very little to do with the gardens however. It was solely concerned with cookies of various kinds and sizes.
Overheard also were some conversations among the OFs who still enjoy a ride through the mountains and Hilltowns on their motorcycles. To be honest, a nice ride on a perfect early autumn day does sound pretty good to me. Stop off for a BLT and a Coke at one of our diners and you have the makings of a great day.
The only thing to make it better would be to hook up with a couple of like-minded OFs at the diner a little later in the season so the autumn colors could be appreciated.
Remembering Irene
As we were eating breakfast on this beautiful Tuesday morning, some of us noticed a sign on the wall about five feet up from the floor. There was a horizontal line drawn on the sign showing the high water mark from the flood waters of the Schoharie Creek as a result of the rain fall from Tropical Storm Irene that hit the towns of Middleburgh and Schoharie on August 27 and 28, 2011.
Those dates, like only a few others for most of us, are forever etched in our memories. We all know where we were and what we were doing.
It has been noted before, the Middleburgh Diner, which is located just south of the center of town at the base of a mountain is high enough at that location not to flood. As a result, the diner stayed open nearly 24/7 to help friends and neighbors and the first responders find shelter, food, and some even slept there.
That’s just what friends, neighbors, and just ordinary strangers do when some other folks need a hand.
A lot of hands also helped many other homes and businesses get back on their feet as well.
Mrs K’s Kitchen was one of those small family businesses that was already an institution on Main Street in downtown Middleburgh; it has been at the same location since 1961, starting out as a small grocery store before opening as a diner in 1981. Same family, woman-owned. Different generations.
Just about four months to the day, give or take not much, Mrs K’s Kitchen reopened its doors on Jan. 7, 2022 to a waiting line of hungry friends and neighbors. They haven’t looked back since — what’s the point in that? — but they do have that little sign with the horizontal line, on the wall, about five feet up from the floor.
We OMOTM have been enjoying ourselves and the fine food and service at both of these fine Middleburgh institutions for many years. They both have been serving their customers for many more years than the OMOTM have been eating breakfast together. It really is our honor to be able to say to people that we eat breakfast on a regular basis at these and four more equally fine diners and cafés.
Those OMOTM enjoying breakfast at Mrs K’s while seated at tables and on chairs that were would have caused each and everyone of us to be a couple of feet under water some 14 years ago were Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Ed Goff, Jamey Darrah, Wm Litchliter, George Washburn, Pete Whitbeck, Frank A. Fuss, Mark Traver, Ken Parks, Joe Rack, Roger Shafer, Glenn Patterson, Roland Tozer, Marty Herzog, Jim Austin, Ted Feurer, Wayne Gaul, Jacob Ledernan, Pastor Jay Francis, Al Schager, Gerry Chartier, Chuck Batcher, Warren Willsey, Frank Dees, Russ Pokorny, Duncan Bellinger, Lou Schenck, Gerry Cross, Jack Norray, Dick Dexter, Herb Bahrmann, Elwood Vanderbilt, Bob Donnelly, Dave Hodgetts, Alan Defasio, John Dab, Paul Guiton, and me.