Blazing memories of high-school fire a century ago are accurate
SCHOHARIE — On the 3rd day of March, we OMOTM marshalled our hungry forces in Schoharie at the Your Way Café, on the north edge of the village. At the Your Way, the regulars seem mostly pushed to the corners, but they are charitable to us and grant us their space.
This spot was greatly impacted by Hurricane Irene. It was swamped and had to recover from almost nothing. Devastated by this flooding of 2011, it was previously the popular Alley Cat, which never returned, and was rebuilt and reopened as the Blue Star Café.
More recently, the café was bought and reopened as Schoharie County’s Diner. Now this venue is named the Your Way Café and is open every day except Thursday, closing at 2 p.m. And we do have it our way, compliments to the owner, Darcy, and the staff, Amber and Kelly, who took excellent care of us finely-aged breakfasters.
Leaving footprints
One of our most esteemed former emeritus founding members left behind a legacy of homemade hand-crafted clocks at several of our OMOTM diners, and it is always nice to see these clocks. We saw one at Mrs. K’s last week, and we were on the lookout for one this week.
It seems that this member was short on cash at a visit for lunch with his wife on an occasion at the Your Way, as recounted by Darcy, the owner of said café, and was so grateful to be granted credit, that he gifted the diner with a clock, which does live to this day at the Your Way. We love to think we might be leaving such nice footprints behind us.
In this season of ice, the art of navigating, especially driveways with flows of the slippery stuff, was examined. A headstart is recommended, and also, the owner of the driveway might have buckets of sand available as needed.
New words for waste
Back when, we recall, we used to go to the “dump” with garbage, probably just throwing it willy-nilly over the edge into a pre-dug hole or on a spot prepared for later excavation and burial.
But calling this a dump now seems a little irreverent or disrespectful when these facilities are now quite sophisticated, well lighted, controlled, and staffed. They are processing enterprises using compressors, and everything is hauled away to mostly we don’t know where.
We don’t mention the cost of constructing these lovely places. But we should mention all the user participation required in presorting our waste into paper, plastic, metal, cardboard, electronics, and finally garbage.
So the new terminology, if you think old dogs could learn new tricks, might better be “transfer station” out of respect for all this modern enhancement. Or stick with what you know.
Unnerving surveillance
Cameras are common everywhere today, but of special interest at the table on Tuesday morning were the ones installed on poles with self-charging solar panels to monitor traffic, and record license plates and any vehicular activity.
This may be of special value in the event of a crime that needs to be solved, but the thought of being observed so much was found to be unnerving to some who prefer more privacy.
No embellishment
Some of the memories around the breakfast table on Tuesday mornings give the appearance of being a little foggy, and may suffer from enhancement or embellishment over the years, so when the subject of a bad fire at the school exactly 100 years ago came up, not to be a sceptic of course, but it seemed worth fortifying this with some fact-checking.
After some research, it was uncovered that the Schoharie High School was totally destroyed by fire early in the morning on Feb. 11, 1926, resulting in an estimated $100,000 loss. Credit to The Altamont Enterprise and Mohawk Museums for that information.
As an aside, it is likely true that today the front entrance probably would cost more than that. A comment was reportedly made by one former scholar that he wished it had happened when he went to school there.
Finding ourselves less than a week from springing the clocks forward, and on the cusp of the glorious season of mud and potholes, which we are hopeful will give way to greenness, even flowers, and seeing at least the willow trees yellowing and some weedy bushes sporting red shoots, and as always, enjoying each others’ more-than-experienced company and fresh coffee, poured generously by Amber and Kelly, at the Your Way Café in Schoharie, were Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Ed Goff, Roger W. Shafer, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Joe Rack, Will Lichliter, Frank A. Fuss, Jamey Darrah, Roland Tozer, Robert Schanz, Chuck Batcher, Warren Willsey, Lou Schenck, John, Williams - Scribe Emeritus, Herb Bahrmann, Paul Guiton, John Dab, Elwood Vanderbilt, Bob Donnelly, Dave Hodgetts, Gerry Cross, Jack Norray, John Jaz, and me. How’s that for a run-on sentence?