Reading predates memory and old joints can predict the weather

On Sept. 2, the Old Men of the Mountain met at the Home Front Café in Altamont, and the countdown to Christmas begins.

This scribe feels safe in assuming that these words are being read because the reader is reading The Enterprise. The OFs discussed reading and learning to read. None of the OFs at the scribe’s end of the table remember learning to read.

The mental process was not something the OFs could bring back. This scribe is in the same boat. When did any of the OFs realize they were reading, and when did it become a routine in the thought process?

We did have one OF say he remembered learning to read because, on the farm where he was raised, there were no books. The occasional newspaper did come to the house — but no books.

This OF definitely learned to speak because he does talk, and he learned to talk before he attended school. The OF said he did not learn to read until he went to school in the first grade, but did he realize he was reading after doing a few things by rote? When did it sink in, “Golly, I am reading?”

Some OFs are still voracious readers; some read occasionally, some read magazines, some read trade journals, some read the comics; however, none of the OFs seem to read instructions.

This scribe did think of this conversation later on when he was in a small group outside the OFs with younger people (and that is not hard being an OF) and asked the question based on the OFs’ discussion.

No one there actually could remember when they realized they were reading. Again, one had a mental association of learning to read along with another person, but picking up something and realizing they were reading did not sink in. As the OFs suggested, we can all thank a teacher even if that teacher in some cases was a parent.

Tough skins

and sweet corn

The OFs do not know how prevalent this is, but those who have gardens and who are beginning to partake of their labors in the form of harvesting what was planted have noticed how tough the skins on some of the vegetables are this year. Some of the OFs said that the skins on their tomatoes took a chainsaw to cut through and get started.

On some of the squash, the skins were so thick and tough that, to have fried squash, the vegetable had to be parboiled first in order to cut it in slices for frying, and then all that was edible was the center.

One OF said he had only one apple on the tree, so he and his wife would have to share it. This is just that one OF though, because driving by Indian Ladder Farms, we see many apples on the trees. Maybe it is the elevation of Hilltowns that causes problems.

All the OFs know is that Whipple’s corn is so sweet that sugar runs down the OFs’ arms with the butter when eating it, so some of the vegetables are turning out OK.

Eating better than kings

One OF said that rich people, and kings and queens don’t know how to eat. They eat fancy food, where all you get to eat will barely cover a fork.

They should come to the Hilltowns and get a couple of juicy, red hamburgers from the grill, a couple of ears of good sweet corn, and hot apple pie with some vanilla ice cream, or a piece of cheese, along with a good cold Bud, and heaven can’t be too far from that.

Pheasant under glass with truffles, two small pieces of celery, and half a carrot stick, with an olive or two and a glass of fancy champagne is what the devil serves up.

One OF said, “Just picture the aroma of both meals wafting through the air — that bird doesn’t stand a chance against the air filled with smoke from the grill, with hamburgers or chicken, or hot dogs or kielbasa flavors mixed in.”

The OFs have spoken.

Insights from joints

When the OFs were not so old, many of them pooh-poohed the idea of various joints of the body being able to predict the weather. Now that the OFs are OFs they have found that this is true.

Many of the OFs say their bodies are better forecasters of the weather than a meteorologist. One OF said that he can predict almost two days in advance of what the weather is going to be like just by the degree of his joint pain, and in some cases not much pain at all indicates nice, dry weather.

No pain, the OF said, will mean he is dead.

One OF said he thinks this idea still is a lot of hogwash because his joints hurt all the time. Another said he has so much metal he can only really tell the temperature. If it is really cold, he thinks some of the metal he has in him has frost on it.

One OF offered the suggestion that, when it becomes cold, the OF should drink some good old-fashioned hot toddies.  They’ll warm you up on the inside and get those steel rods warm too and the frost won’t form.

Old school

Many of the OFs attend plays and concerts that their grandkids are in, and they marvel at the new schools. The schools the OFs went to are a far cry from what schools are today.

The OFs were relating stories of their school days when there were four or five classes in one room, and one teacher taught all. Kids showed up for school on horseback and even tractors.

Some kids even had a job that required them to get to school early in the winter months because they had to get the fire going for the one-room schoolhouse. Yet most of the Industrial Revolution, and the basis for some of the technology of today, was developed by OFs who received their early education from schools like this.

Yes, the OFs even learned to read, spell, and cipher.

Those OFs who made it to the Home Front Café in Altamont, and who did not arrive on horseback or drive their tractors to the restaurant, were: Robie Osterman, Miner Stevens, George Washburn, Karl Remmers, Dick Ogsbury, Henry Witt, Roger Chapman, Art Frament, Bob Benac with guest Jack Benac, John Rossmann, Frank Pauli, Roger Shafer, Steve Kelly, Bill Bartholomew, Dave Williams, Harold Guest, Mark Traver, Chuck Aleseio, Otis Lawyer, Glenn Patterson, Jack Norray, Mace Porter, Lou Schenck, Joe Loubier, Duane Wagonbaugh, Bob Lassome, Ted Willsey, Rich Donnelly, Andy Tinning, Carl Walls, Bill Krause, Jim Rissacher, Henry Whipple, Elwood Vanderbilt, Harold Grippen, Dick Vanderbilt, and me.