Icelandic adventurer is happy to be home in the Hilltowns
DUANESBURG — It was a nice, sunny, blue-sky spring morning on April 22 as the OMOTM made their way to Chris’s Chuck Wagon Diner for breakfast. As usual, our coffee arrived at our seats at the same time as we did.
Also as usual, we placed our usual breakfast orders. Now, these usual orders can be the same order each week or not. Some OFs order the same breakfast at a particular diner. Other OFs will wait and ask what the specials are, and then order what strikes their fancy, which usually is what they order all the time.
Strangely, no menus are ever handed out, 20 or 30 of the OMOTM can show up, and not one menu is needed. The breakfast specials are generally found on a handwritten wall sign.
Our Happy Wanderer, the OF who was last reported to be driving counterclockwise (don’t ask) around Iceland with his daughter and granddaughter was back with us enjoying breakfast.
He talked about the hot water found all over Iceland at a depth of 200 to 300 feet down. About like the depth of an average (if there is such a thing) well here in the Hilltowns. This hot water is used to provide the heat for the homes and businesses throughout the country. I wonder what they do for cold water?
He was asked if they saw the volcanoes erupting. No, they didn’t.
He asked his daughter, who was driving at the time, to turn right at the sign that points to the volcano fields. Missed it. Our OF wasn’t upset. He said he expected the road would be closed after a little way because of the active volcano, and besides, they were on their way to another attraction that Iceland has to offer, so all was well.
On another day, they did manage to drive into a blizzard. The OF was driving this time, and he couldn’t see from one brightly painted pole to the next. In Iceland, the special brightly painted poles are spaced out along the road to help keep you on the road in situations like this. He says there are no guardrails on the sides of the roads.
So here he was, in a blizzard, couldn’t see the poles, the wind was howling, so he stopped to let his daughter drive. Like all of OMOTM, we have reached the point where our children are much better drivers than we are.
Their eyes are better, and their reflexes are so much quicker it is ridiculous. He said he had to hold onto the car while moving from the driver’s side to the passenger’s side to keep from being blown down. They made the switch and all ended well. They all got home, safe and sound. This was just last week.
He did say it was great to be back in the Hilltowns. He says that, as wonderful as Iceland is, with its dramatic volcanoes, geysers, mountains, and tremendous people, it is equally terrific to drive in the Hilltowns here in our own backyard.
We are so fortunate to live where we do, it is easy to take all this for granted. Sometimes you have to go away and then come back in order to appreciate all that we have and the beauty right here at home.
Fan club
It was as our breakfast was starting to wind down, and some of us were getting up to pay our bills, when those advance distaff scouts, the ones who can trace their lineage back to Calamity Jane, Belle Star, and Annie Oakley, made a discreet appearance.
I had written a short couple of humorous, tongue-in-cheek, and purely fictional paragraphs about these three present-day friends who were having breakfast at the Chuck Wagon. I came back to our table to pick up my coat and stopped to say hello and kid them about scaring all the OMOTM away from our table, which was now empty. We all laughed and then a nice thing happened to me.
As our scribe emeritus, John Williams, knows very well, it is very nice to find some people (other than family) who have read and enjoyed what you have written in the Old Men of the Mountain column found in The Altamont Enterprise.
Well, they said they read The Enterprise and have enjoyed the OMOTM column for many years. Old habits are hard to break, so they still read the column to this day. I thank John for his wonderful body of work he created over the years writing this column. He certainly has a large and loyal following of readers.
The nice thing that happened to me was just a simple realization of that fact.These three friends, who were sitting down to breakfast at the Chuck Wagon, all said they enjoyed the column and they even informed me which one of them was the granddaughter of Belle Star, Calamity Jane, and Annie Oakley. Made my day! Thanks for sharing your fan club, John.
The OMOTM who also enjoyed breakfast today were Wally Guest, Harold Guest, Roland Tozer, Miner Stevens, Wm Lichliter, Pete Whitbeck, George Washburn, Frank Dees, Jim Gardner, Jake Herzog, Russ Pokorny, Wayne Gaul, Ted Feurer, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Joe Rack, Jamey Darrah, Marty Herzog, Lou Schenck, John Williams, Herb Bahrmann, Paul Bahrmann, Pastor Jay Francis, John Dabb, Elwood Vanderbilt, Dave Hodgetts, Gerry Cross, John Jaz, Jack Norray, Dick Dexter, Paul Guiton, and me.