RIP, Dr. S.

      Barbara was a regular patient of his, as was Dorothy. They each had the same impression of  him, but continued as patients. Back at the time when I saw few doctors outside maternity care, I developed a small bump on my scalp in the front center of my forehead. I made an appointment with Dr. S. and drove to his Albany office.

      I had been forewarned about his energy so when he entered the office after his nurse had taken my history, etc.,  I wasn't that surprised when he zoomed into the room,  treatment appliance in hand. He must have greeted me but all I remember is his aiming the laser gun at my head: I felt a blinding pain, and could not see. I asked the nurse to take off whatever he had applied because of the searing  pain on my head, but she said she couldn't because nothing was on my head, that the keratosis had been treated with a laser, I think my first experience with such.

   Dr. S. came back into the room after his hasty exit, and told the nurse to take my blood pressure, and then to take it again.  He than told her to call for an ambulance and asked what Albany hospital I wanted to go to.  I emphatically said no, I needed to go home. the kids would be out of school. He said I couldn't drive; was there somebody they could call. At the time Dave was working in Albany, so they called him and he drove over. I remember Dr. S. apologizing to him for calling him away from work, and Dave's saying that was okay, he always liked a reason to get out of work. 

     My trusty convertible was parked on  the street so I decided to drive it home, which I  did. How could I leave it alone in Albany. The pain was abating so I made it safely home. I will say that I have never had such follow-up before or since. His office called that day, twice the next day, and the day after that. He really did strike a nerve.

Early Childhood Education

    Yes, it's important that children learn. But how we children did I can't quite comprehend. For the time, we were not different from many other families. We lived in houses without electricity, central heat and indoor plumbing for our early years, until we moved to the village. We had no educational toys; they didn't exist then as far as we knew, unless you count the wooden alphabet blocks, and even then we never had a full set.

      Our father traveled to work from dawn to dusk, literally. He'd leave in the early morning hours and arrive home in the evening in time for supper. 

    Our mother was always busy: doing laundry was a nightmare of pumping water outside, hauling it inside, heating it on the stove, washing and wringing the clothes by hand, and then hanging them  outside to dry unless the weather dictated they had to be dried inside on a line strung above the stove, and then many of the articles had to be ironed, which meant heating the flat iron on top of the wood stove. And she had to bring in the wood and feed it into the stove, after she had shaken it down, and carried out the ashes. The drip pan under the icebox also needed daily emptying to prevent overflow on the kitchen floor. Food preparation was not easy as she often had to construct a meal out of very few ingredients, and many times baked from scratch. And there were animals to tend to, and, seasonally, gardens and the canning process. And regular household chores in addition. 

    The point is she had little time to devote to teaching us. And no materials. We had no books except for a very old Bible, which was stored away, and an old dictionary, which was not really reading material. Sometimes, when she had time, she would take a pencil and a piece of paper and write letters of the alphabet on it. She must have taught us the alphabet, maybe along with our prayers, which we said every night. She must have taught us our numbers and how to count, probably on Sundays when people were not supposed to do physical work. We certainly never attended any educational classes or events; they didn't exist back then.

   However it happened though, we learned to read before we even set foot in school. No formal syllabus of instruction, no insight into what school would be like. We knew our letters and numbers. Knowing the letters of the alphabet made the ability to read almost automatic or so it seems.  I have an image, even today, of Dorothy, about age 3, standing on our parents' bed and reading from the holy picture hanging at the head of the bed. She read: "Angel of God, my Guardian dear, to whom God's love entrusts me here, ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen."  Her lifelong devotion to angels may have started then, I suppose. 

   In those days, education was much simpler than it is today; there is so much more that children have to learn. But I can't help but wonder if aggressive teaching of three and four year old children is unnecessarily stressful, considering that children are capable of assimilating so much information without even being aware of the process.  

Life Is (Like) A Dream

     When we are awake, our physical and mental faculties are both functioning. When we sleep, it is a state like death. We are aware of nothing, unless we dream. Then our mind wakens, leaving the body and more rational thought processes behind. At least one-third of our life is spent in the  death like suspension of sleep. For those of us who believe in some form of afterlife, might it not be similar to what we experience in dreams, a foreshadowing of what lies ahead of us all.

 Two nights ago, I became aware of a terrible loss. All of the family was devastated by what had happened. The grief I felt was overwhelming. I recalled that I had previously dreamed of this tragedy, and had hoped and prayed it would never actually occur, but yes, it had. In the morning I opened my eyes, full of sadness. The weight was immense. Gradually I realized it had been a dream. Life prevailed and I felt actual joy.

  Last night I was in  absolutely horrific personal  danger. What it was does not matter. I knew if I could call out for help, the danger would be overcome. I was unable to speak, but finally mustered all my strength and was able to call out. I yelled "Help! Help! Help! so loud  that on the third shout I woke myself up, with my frantic voice ringing in my ears. I lay there, waiting, but then gradually came to realize that, after the struggle to finally make my voice heard, there was no one there to hear me.    Life is but a dream.

Passage of Time: Daffodils to Tulips

    On the ride to Bennington yesterday, there were clusters and plantings of daffodils in full bloom, while I mourn the short daffodil lifespan in my yard. It seems that, planted close to the house, they may have bloomed quite a bit earlier than those a little to the north of us. I still have a few tulips, which so far have survived the wind and snow. And I see buds on the bleeding heart. I wish all could stay throughout the summer, but for everything there is a season.

Eye Doctor

 

Uh-Oh

   New army of Soldier Bugs awaiting deployment. They did their job for all of 2020.

Found this morning during shower. Raked a bunch of leaves yesterday...

Country Music Awards (Impression

    I can't offer a critique:  the show was on, but for most of it I was in another room, could hear, but did not view. I'm so out of the country music loop that I recognized only a few names, and was unfamiliar with almost all of the songs that were performed or even mentioned. A general impression was that most numbers sounded alike, and that the presenters were more concerned with their own appearance than any interest in the show itself. Most noted:

   1) The dowdiest outfit ever was worn by religious music singer Amy Grant. The black onesie was about 2 sizes too big and looked like a version of an old housecoat someone once gave my mother.

2) Bad haircut award goes, again, to Nicole Kidman's husband. His lank and stringy hair looks especially out of place when he rocks it and flings the strands over his face. 

3) Worst song ever, "Run, Maggie, Run", a tribute and blatant concession to today's  dog-o-centric society. Couldn't they just have resurrected "Old Shep?"

The Rest of the Street

     The house next to ours was where  Johnny Daurio grew up. The day we moved in  his mother asked if we had seen her child, who was 3 years old and had escaped from the large wooden packing box obtained from the mill that served as his outdoor playpen. Johnny had escaped, but soon showed up in his yard. He was the only child, born rather late in life to his mother, Gertie, and his father Pete. His childhood was challenging, and there were no available social services as today, but he was a smart child and overcame a lot of difficulties. After his parents were gone, George K. bought the house and completely renovated it, as he did many other houses in the village. He rented it at first to a man named Rivenburgh; he was quite particular and I remember his being involved in  a driveway use dispute with Sara McMahon, who used to park her car there. Later a young family, Ethel and Ben Mazur and their baby daughter lived in the house for a time. She was from the South and was a lovely person; my mother really liked her and her baby. I even babysat little Lisa on occasion. Eventually, the house was bought by the family who still lives there. We know them.

 Our old house: I could conjure up a million memories, some of which I have already recorded, so I'll forbear. In addition to its history, all 3 of us lived most of our childhoods there, leaving only when we got married and moved out. Most of the dreams I have even to this day take place in that house.

  When we moved to the village, the commercial building next to us was vacant, or so I recall. We knew it had once been a gas station because the concrete base for the pumps was still there. In those days, any place where there were no adults present was considered free property for kids. And so it was there. There was an open field for playing cowboys, even a large hollow area which was considered a canyon,  and a hill for sledding. Of course no one ever objected. A few years later, it became the Fisk and Boom Company; they made and sold cinder blocks, which were displayed right out to the sidewalk area in front, and after dark, who knew what dangers lurked in those dark stacks of  blocks. After that business closed, a man opened a gas station there again, for a brief time. I don't remember his name.

 Located near  the corner was the impressive Valley Inn, owned by the Hector Vincelette family.  They had a son, Frankie, and a beautiful daughter Rosemary, who at one time studied in Paris. My parents would go there on New Year's Eve with Uncle Frank and Aunt Mary, who was friends with  Mrs. V.

And of course the Post Office Building, where Mary Farnan and Carolyn Edwards and Dot Carroll all were employed at some time. Billy O'Neill delivered the mail from there but we had a Post Office Box, so we picked up  our own mail, from Box 18. There was a downstairs apartment where Nora and Tom McMahon lived. He was brother to Sara's husband Jack, and Tom was a fastidious groundskeeper, with areas of gardens in the small back yard. There was an upstairs apartment where a few years later,  the Vaszi family lived, Helen and Steve and their children Stephen and Eileen. My mother watched those kids when Helen got  a job at the mill. (Later on Sandy and John Dyer and little Sean lived in one apartment in the building and Sharon and Bob lived in the apartment next door.  Good times.

 Not exactly on the street, but actually true in a way. The back yard of Angelo and Carmen Rospo's house abutted the field area behind the garage building. Their yard had a high open mesh iron fence around it. Playing in the field as we did, we heard a child's voice calling to us from behind the fence, a small girl. She told us her name was Lucille, but we heard Little Seal, and that's who we thought she was. We would chat through the fence, and sometimes we would enter her yard  through a narrow passage at the top of the property, though she was not allowed to go out of the yard. When her parents  were at work in the Tavern, Jackie Vickery babysat her and her younger brother Leo. Dorothy and Lucille  became good friends later on, and she would come to our house and yard like the rest of the kids.

 

Back to bed, and so to dream

     Because it was snowing early this morning, I went back to bed. I should have known better because that's the time when dreams take over, such as this:

     I was at B's house on a nice summer day.  I should have detected change was in the air because Don was sitting in a different chair, the chair on the right near the front door. He was engaged in friendly conversation with a man who was introduced to me, but I didn't quite get the connection,  a neighbor, I presumed.

   B. asked if she could bring to my house some type of  machine, thinking I could list it on eBay or such. I said ok, and she later came to my house with that unidentified piece, some sort of small wooden building, an armload of new-looking dresses on hangers, and 3 small yellow kittens and her dog. One dress was really pretty, with a yellow bell-shaped skirt and lacy top. It was Size Small. The kittens were tiny, buff-colored and playful. She said someone had brought them to her house and she thought maybe I could find homes for them. I told her that would be easy as many people were looking for kittens at this time. I asked if she was sure she wanted to leave her dog and she said yes; the neighborhood where she lived was being renovated in some way, and she couldn't keep him or the other stuff. She seemed okay with it. After she left, I noticed the dog was not to be found. My other family members had been in and out of the house and I thought he may have escaped through an open door and was trying to get back to his house. I notified B. who came to my house, and the dog appeared. All was well, and B. went back home.

ME but no TOO

   Long ago, before there was a name to such movement, I took a solitary stand against what I perceived as what would later be termed "sexism," though of course that was all yet to be a thing.

   A senior girl member of our class proposed that the girls in our class carry a rose in our procession to the stage where graduation would be held. That would have been a first at our school. I thought not. After all those high school years  together, males  and females held to the same academic standards, why now should the girls have to go all romantic-era  when the boys would be free to walk in as themselves. 

   The teacher in charge of our ceremony asked me if I rejected the idea because of the cost of the roses, about $3-$5 each. I said no and he said he hadn't thought  that was the reason.

    I'm pretty sure the rose project did not come about that year. Later on, it appears to have happened. Maybe if more women had given some thought...

    

Houses on Our Street

   That would be River Road.

         When we moved there, in 1945, the last house on the street belonged to Louise Clark. Her home  had previously been a bar, or maybe a saloon, as was a term used then for a spot to get a drink or a few. I don't recall if she drove a car; many women then did not drive. I know that she, as others did, walked by our house quite often. At one point in time, she owned a quite large Llewellin Setter, which was an active dog and it would tug her down the street. I think she might have been related in some way to the Andrew's.

 The house next to hers was at first O'Connor's. Parents Charles and Helen both worked at the Mill, from which they  walked to and from several times each workday. Their sons were Sonny and Butch. Sonny was older, very serious, later married Ruth Speanburg, but Butch was younger and would come down at times to play ball and such games. Later, Agnes and Gibby Tyrrell lived there, for a time with her mother, whose dog once  bit me and knocked me off the bike I was riding.

 Third house down was the Wanko house. The youngest child still at home was Vera, a sweet and cheerful young woman / teenaged, who would run errands for her mother and would take her neighbor's kids for walks to the store and post office. I don't remember her mother ever leaving her house, though my mother would visit her on her porch during my mother's summer evening walks. Vera offered to teach Dorothy and me how to knit, and gave us lessons in her house. One day, newly engaged to Johnny Brenenstuhl, she brought us to her bedroom and showed us her wedding preparations. She had a new dresser set, and 3 new dresses in her closet. It was all new to Dorothy and me.  Later on, relatives from the South came to live with them for a while, Patty and Steve Wanko.  Patty liked to come to our house for games and to hear spooky stories from Scout Camp narrated in our garage. Steve stayed in the house as he was only 6 years old. He later married Patty Geren, became a Secret Service Agent and was on active and visible duty during the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan.

  Next door to them was the Andrew house, the only home still owned by the same family. Louise Sanzone Andrew  and Joby were parents of only Sandy and Johnny then. Dick was born later and the last born was Teresa, born when Sandy and we were in high school. Sandy would spend most summer vacations at her grandparents' home in Newcomb, and would have stories when she returned at end of summers.

Jesse and Orvin Van Dusen were neighbors to Andrew's. Their children were grown. I remember one of their daughters, Elizabeth,  had spent time in a sanitarium for T.B. Jesse was a very friendly and social woman; some would say a gossip, but, hey, that's all there was back then. She was active in all the local women's organizations, and she also offered to help tend the elderly or ailing folks in the village, so she knew the goings-on. She walked all over the village; I don't think Orvin had a car until several years later. Their grandchildren, Carol and Joey Wixted, children of Harriet Van Dusen and husband, would visit and of course would be at our house. I remember going to that house to watch tv a few times, as we didn't yet own a tv.

I think the house next to Van Dusen's was vacant when we moved to the village. I do remember Helene Cukrovany living there with her husband. She was pregnant, most likely with Stanley. And she was terrified of cats. Vickery's later moved in; all us kids on the street watched the move, hoping as we did then, that it would be a family with kids.  Jackie, Eddie, Roger and John, Bobby. Donna was already married to her husband Earl, and lived out of state, until the time they returned and he took over running the store formerly Hull's, which was where the post office later moved.

The Frisino house was next, now gone and replaced, much to Eleanor's dismay. Patsy and Eleanor had 6 children, older boys Harry, Frank and Leo, then Albert (Jeep), Dolly and George. When Dolly was at nursing school she brought a fellow student and friend home to introduce her to one brother, but Ann ended up marrying Frank.

 Pop Tyrrell lived third house up, I think at first by himself at that time. I remember the Warren family later  lived  there for a while. The youngest, Brian, would join the group at our place. That house at that time had by far the most activity on the street.

Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. (Add one more Ring

    It's almost 3:00 p.m. and my phone has rung 5 times, none of them for friendly conversation. First was a call to renew my automobile warranty, then someone named Trevor, whose call gets terminated by fraud alert I guess, a call offering to upgrade my medical insurance, a call, allegedly from Spectrum, and a call from Creative Styles, of which I have no idea. Alone as I am, I may have been tempted to engage, but I was too absorbed in watching Hoarders, as an alternative to My 600 LB. Life.   And so it goes...

* Just received Call #6, from Vince at Medical Alert Specialists

On the Street Where I Lived

      "History is a pack of lies."   A sentiment attributed to George Santayana, Napoleon Bonaparte and others. 

       My memories of "early days in Valley Falls" are not the same as some others. We tend to choose a memory or event from the past and report it as the actual event because that is our recall. Then others pass the memory on, and history is made, oblivious of how  narrow the slice of life the memory conjured up.

   To my mind:  

 1) Johnny Daurio did not really have the nickname ascribed to him in the column about the old days. He wanted to be called Johnny or John.  Boys then often  called each other by their surnames, so that was the case. Nicknames then were also derived from a form of bullying. A double-bullying had him called Dow-Weer because another child on the street had a speech impediment, and couldn't pronounce his last name. The older boys from upstreet attached the name Tomato, even adding "head"  because his father grew tomatoes  and would  pass out the excess to those he knew or did gardening for. That was his means of income. The family was very limited, financially and in all other ways,  and Johnny pretty much raised himself. I can remember watching from the sidewalk on a hot  summer day as he, probably no more than 10 or 12 years old, crossed the road in front of his house, and went across the tracks, down the bank, jumped in the river and swam across to the other side. And then swam back. And at a young age, he and a neighbor would often hitchhike to Troy. But he survived----for a while.

2) I can't be certain, but I don't ever remember Joby Andrew as a rural mail deliverer. As far as I knew, at least in our early years on River Road, his family, like many others then, did not own a car. The mailman I recall is Bill O'Neill, who worked out of the Post Office when it was down on the corner from us. He was an outgoing person who would sometimes strew the unwanted silver pennies in the driveway there for us kids to "find" as we cut through there on our way to school. He even delivered our mail when we lived in Schrieb's house, where he kept a Doberman  Pinscher in an enclosure that was filled with the bones he would bring it from time to time. I think my mother fed it in between. And he was probably the mailman who brought young Joseph to  Dr. Sproat after the dog bite. Maybe so. He kept a racehorse at the Schaghticoke Fairground, a trotter. One time he bought a goat fom my mother to keep the horse company, as was done then, to calm it down. Billy O'Neill was Sara O'Neill McMahon's nephew. He lived upstairs in her home later on. 

  So that's my version of history.

   

   

Bottle Return Protocol

 Nowhere is there a written policy, I guess, and who would have thought there was such a need.  My practice for bottle return is to keep a bag in the trunk of my  car where I deposit the empties almost every day. I don't want the empty containers in my house because, you know, odors and ants, etc.  I keep them in my car to return when the bottle redemption center at Schaghticoke is free of any redeemers. Never would I ever approach if anyone else is  returning their empties.

   So early afternoon one fine day last week, there was nobody at the center, not a soul in sight.  I took my bag from the trunk of my car; the bag contained 4 plastics and 20 cans. (There  were visitors who had drunk soda.) I deposited the 4 plastic bottles and was stepping over to the can return when a woman carrying 2 large bags of cans zoomed from behind me straight to the can return. She said not a word, just started depositing the cans. I took a few steps back, Covid aware, and just stood there. After she finished with the first bag, she turned to me and asked if I wanted to deposit my empties; she said she still had a lot to go. I said no thanks, it was a nice day to be outside. She finished, thanked me, and left. 

Jeopardy Look-Alike

 Present winner Dennis Chase and Mike from Better Call Saul

Trivia Q and A

 Question:  "What do you call a student who graduates last in their class at Medical School?"

Answer:   "Doctor."  

The Stuff of Dreams Crapola?

    I dreamt last night that I was shopping at Cohoes Mills.  No, not the Wanna-be snooty Cohoes Manufacturing Company, but before that, when it was  a bare-bones old mill with a store.  

     When we were young and cared a lot about appearances, having  exactly the right outfit for any one of a number of special occasions, we would spend a lot of time shopping. Oh, the usual places we'd go---Denby's, Peerless, The Towne Shop, Frear's (kind of dowdy), Up-To-Date Shop (kind of matronly), and probably  a few more. Usually we had success, sometimes not. Then one day Ruth was shopping with others for a special dress. It may have been for an occasion at Eastern Star, of which she was a member. They went to Cohoes Mills and she found exactly what she was looking for. She described it to us:  "If you can't find the dress you want there, it doesn't exist. They have a huge room filled wall to wall with dresses." 

    So we would go there to shop, and sometimes, not always, find what we wanted. It was the kind of place where you would go to get the item you wanted, not a place to browse. There was no attempt to appeal to the buyer, just clothing on hangers against the broad length of the 4 walls in a room. 

   My dream took me to that location, though not directly. Against a background of complicated driving and direction, I found myself right at the old Cohoes Mills building. I didn't really intend to buy anything, but what caught my eye was a dress vey similar to one I owned back in the heyday.It was a straight-line rust colored dress with a subtle ivory design. I looked at it, passing by. It was Size Small. A woman nearby commented it was a nice dress. I remembered it as such; wearing it I received a lot of compliments. So I went back and took another look, found one in my size, but it turned out the dress was made of paper. That did not necessarily dissuade me. I actually once bought a dress made of paper, back in the 60's. It was blue, and I wore it once. (It would be a collector's item today.) So I considered buying the dress in Cohoes today, but then decided its pricetag of $7.39 would not justify a single wearing.  (What a cheapskate!

On the Move and Up?

    As I believe to be true:

        The first house my parents lived in was where the old mill gate is/ was located. That house has been gone a long time, but when we were kids, there were abandoned lilac bushes there, presumably in the dooryard of the house which once stood there. The mill workers would pick lilac bouquets on their way home from work.  I think it was a shared house,  now called apartments;  maybe some Osterhout family members lived there.  I don't know whether Charles and Mary  lived there when their first child was born, but it seems so.

  The next family home was a tenant house on the Bates farm in Melrose. I think that's where we lived when I was born. I remember my mother saying the Bates girls would admire the baby when they were in town. I think my father may have worked on that quite prestigious family farm for a time, until he took another job. My most vivid memory of that place was standing on the front porch of our yellow house and looking across the driveway to the porch of that main house, the brick house. My brother pointed out a buffalo standing on that porch. Of course I saw it; he told me it was there, and at that time in my life, he was the ultimate source of knowledge.  I would not have remembered that sight, except I do remember my mother acting very concerned and grilling me as to  what I'd seen. Turns out, my brother later saw the carved claws on the furniture turn alive; he had a fever, which was the ailment my mother most feared and dreaded.

  We then moved to the house on the road now called Brundige Road, the house on the hill. Once in a while my mother would walk us down to the store in Tomhannock, a long walk, especially uphill on the way home. I have a memory of my father and Tommy M. sitting in the doorway of the old barn and singing, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." It would have been war time.

      Next was the house owned by Schmidt's. My father left for work every day from there. I recall quite a lot of events at that time. But what stands out is the dog bite. My brother and I were outside. Dorothy was too young and inside with my mother, who would have been without telephone or any nearby neighbors. The task my brother assigned that day was to cover up the dog sleeping outside. The dog was a chow which someone had given our family; it was received as an adult, and I don't think we had it very long. We were intent on covering it with leaves, grass, twigs, anything we could find. Whether someone stepped on its paw or whether the dog just woke up to see kids leaning over it, the dog leaped up from its sleep and bit my brother in the face, right near his eye. With all the bleeding, crying, and tumult, my mother had to do the best she could to handle things, which was wait for the mailman so he could drive us into town to the doctor, Dr. Sproat.  I recall we also had a terrier type dog at that residence, named Laddie. Though most dogs then were of the free range type, Laddie had the bad habit of chasing cars, so my mother had him tied to the clothesline, where he could run back and forth quite freely. One day, Tommy was driving us to Troy, to the Pet Store, maybe Gordoneer's or something like that, with a litter of puppies. I don't recall where the puppies came from. When Laddie saw us leaving in Tommy's car, he backed up, slid out of his collar and began running alongside the car. I could see him from the window of the back seat. The car ran over Laddie, killing him.

  From there, we moved to the house on the curve, just outside Valley Falls. The house was owned by a German woman, and her daughter. I remember a great many things from when we lived there. I remember being terrified of Blackouts and the sound of airplanes flying overhead at night; the  rumor that the German woman kept a light in her window during Blackouts didn't help. Word was that she was signaling the Germans.  That house is where I came down with some serious sickness that seemed to have lasted a long time. After numerous house calls, Dr. Sproat "diagnosed" Vincent's Angina. I only know I felt so sick I told my mother I wanted to die, and I was 4 years old. My poor mother.

  And lastly, thanks to my mother's proactive and ultimately prevailing efforts, we moved to Valley Falls, to a home that had been in my father's family for years and years. My mother must have felt so relieved.

 

My Hometown Example #2 or maybe 3

   It's mostly true that my happiest memories are those from my childhood. And that's how it should be; children should be immune from suffering and tragedy. So it's good that the elderly have a place to recall and discuss the joys and happenings of childhood. 

   But I can't separate the happy innocent days of youth from what I know to be past sorrows and even tragedies of what life, and death, meant in the history of the village. 

     What were and could still have been  historic and exemplary buildings were consumed by fire. Remember the Valley Falls Community Hall, the beautiful Funeral Home, once McClure's, later White's, the Valley Inn, long a mainstay of the community, the elegant James Thompson home, later Jensen's, the Mill itself, and the Village Tavern. I can still picture Carmen Rospo, standing in the street crying, while watching the Tavern go up in flames, liquor bottles bursting in the air like bombs. And there was that terrible fire in an outbuilding on the Coon farm where a woman and her 4, or was it 5? very young children lost their lives. Substandard housing and impoverished living conditions for certain. And there had been no one to know or care. Could so-called class distinction have been a factor.

Certainly there was "class inequity"  and a lot of poverty, which breeds abusive relationships. A nearby family to our home had no visible means of support. The woman's abdomen grew large and she was considered pregnant due to what limited medical care she could receive. As far as I know, only one person offered to provide help for her expected baby, and that woman was later murdered in her own home.

   And there was a whole lot of alcohol  use and abuse, by both men and women.  Drugs were not widely available at the time, neither legal or illegal. But there was plenty of drinking. I'll leave that for another screed.

Lost on Campus

    I feel relieved knowing I'm not the only one. Today's paper reports returning coach Jim Jabir almost missed the news conference reintroducing him as the Siena  women's basketball coach after 31 years away. He said the campus had tripled in size and he drove around trying to find the place. He couldn't make left turn, a gate was closed, and he was late for the meeting. 

    I had a similar experience a few weeks ago driving around on the SUNY Albany Campus, trying to cross through from Western to Washington Avenues. I couldn't find the way out of  the campus, with a gate closed and too-subtle, therefore unhelpful, signage. And I think the SUNY campus is way larger than that of Siena. 

  My meeting was not on campus, but at a facility on Washington Avenue, where I had an appointment. I was late, which I hate. I started  to drive  home, and figured I would call  to reschedule, but then decided to go into the building to do the same. So I did and they said no problem with my appointment as I wasn't that late. No problem, if you don't count my blood pressure surge.

   I was scheduled for a post-surgery visit at the Washington Avenue office last week, so the good doctor could check my progress. I asked if it could be a TELEHEALTH meeting, and so it was. So nice of him to be concerned. His last words to me were "See you soon."

OMG Missed Diagnosis?

      A mother reports that her daughter has been diagnosed as being on the Autism spectrum, and that she may have missed the early signs. The child made lists of everything, considered herself an expert on listmaking, wrote notes to herself on countless pads of sticky notes.   YeGads, were we blind?  (Through the haze of memory, I see a full-length mirror in a bedroom. The mirror is almost obscured by  a series of Post-it  notes. 

That Carjacking Killing in Maryland

 Sheesh!  About a year ago, I was reported as attempting to steal or break into a car in the parking lot of the Schaghticoke grocery store, in broad daylight. When I was approached by 2 police officers, I didn't run though. 

Wedding Tulip Bulbs

 

Par Exemple #1

     Winchell's Dry Cleaners was located next to the Railroad Station, and access to and from  the daily train runs. Walking to and from the station meant trying to avoid or treading lightly over the soggy or sometimes flooded ground. The noxious fluids from that business leaked out into the surrounding areas and were later found to have leached into the ground, where their effects remain today and forever. Most of the affected wells, last I knew, had only minimal traces of carcinogens in the ground water, but several homes were /are more highly affected. Those levels were, presumably still are, regularly checked by the health department.  Whether  the death rate from cancers in folks who lived nearby has ever been calculated, or publicized, is not evident. I can recall several young cancer victims who lived in the affected ground water area, but to what avail. 

   Of course, the dangers of dry cleaning fluids expelled onto and into the open ground was not known then, but should it be forgotten?  When the completed report containing the results of the study was released, a copy was sent to the VFL , but where it is now is unknown.

  As a side note to the Winchell business: The owner, Paul (?) Winchell, owned a delivery truck, a blue van as I recall. He employed a man from the village for pickup and delivery. He was let go after, according to reliable sources, he was in a sense running his own business from the truck. Winchell's prices were higher than  prices in Troy, as was expected. So the Winchell driver would pick up clothing, bring it to Troy (Roxy's), pay for it himself at the lower cost, then charge the customer the higher Winchell price, and pocket the difference.  I don't think he was ever charged. People didn't do that so much back then, and besides the driver had a lot of kids to support.

Ah, Memories

    It's true that childhood should be the best time of your life, and reflections from years later support this.  But  that also means we tend to  rewrite history, based on our memories. Peyton Place may not be representative of everyone's childhood village, but commonality does exist. 

Ominous Words (Musings from "Final Tour)

     In my single years, early and mid-twenties, going out to nightclubs was a common thing.  Friday night was the day, as Saturday was date night.  The year I  worked at the Telephone Company in  Troy, we would go out in groups. I remember the Jamaica Inn, The Thunderbird,  and some other places in the Saratoga area for Girls' Night Out. Single in Cambridge, also out with the girls, though sometimes a mixed group. Though most gatherings were house parties---almost every weekend, we also visited The Town House, a place called The Orient, and a few other places in the area.  But our most memorable nights on the town, every Friday night, were just 2 of us. Very seldom, when Dorothy was not spoken for, we would go out to a place of her choosing in her neck of the woods.

    But mostly, it was Ruth and me, and we had our routine down. If we dropped in at Corkey's, The OCA, the Circle Inn, the Vandenburg, Country Grove  or other venues, we would often end the night at Faye's, where we would order pizza and felt comfortable, knowing the owner and the bartender, who had sort of befriended us, and would look out for us if needed. Sometimes, after closing hour--was it at 3a.m.---they would ask us to join them  at the closed bar. The bartender drank coffee, and if anyone was hungry, we'd all go to the all-night diner at the foot of the hill: Thorny's or possibly The Palace, am not sure. The point is we were used to feeling safe.

   One night after attending a graduation party, probably for Ruth's niece, we were dressed up and decided to go a little out of our element to a newer and more "formal" place, the Airport Inn, as I recall.   We entered and sat at  a table, as usual. And as often happened, 2 men sent us drinks and then joined us. The hotel was then hosting a convention, for some company, exclusively men, and most from out of town, and probably in their 30's, and most likely married.  That probably should have been a red flag, but we were completely unaware, being in our 20's. \

    Now I'm not saying this as any attempt to take credit, but as usually happened it seemed I always drew the attention of the really nice guy in the group. Nice guy complimented me as having nice hair and wearing a nice dress, and sort of wondered why we were in this place. Hmm. Then he said this to me, rather chilling:

"You know that your friend is not going home with you tonight."

     "Of course she is," I answered. "No, she's not," he said. 

     I didn't know what to say, or think. My friend had left our table to dance; there was a band. Then she and her partner  sat at the bar, so this  "nice guy" and  I were alone at our table. After delivering this message to me, he left, and shortly after Ruth came back to the table. She sat down and said she felt kind of funny, but we didn't think too much of it at first. Then I told her what my "nice guy" had said. We stared at each other. She said that "her guy," still waiting for her at the bar, had bought her a drink there, but had slid it down the bar, toward him. Now it was clear---she suspected he had slipped something into her glass. The guys had paid for the drinks we'd had at the table, but we wanted out. Wanting to be free, we threw some money on the table and out the door we went. I still remember it was late on a warm  summer night and we actually ran across the unfamiliar parking lot to my car. It was an exciting and exhilarating escape, ever so slightly tinged with danger. Ruth was the one who got away.

Is it still a thing?

 Anorexia, that is. Time was, post Karen Carpenter's death, that all the talk shows and even news casts reported such cases almost weekly, if not daily.

Wish they could stay...

 The daffodils have overcome so much this spring, with frost, snow and wind knocking them flat. But they rise

up better than before:

Jeopardy Hosts Musings

   Not that I'm in the mix any longer, but it was rather a pleasant visual to see a Jeopardy host with sex appeal. I thought Aaron Rodgers did a great job as host. I did not know who he was, but he seemed more relaxed and less programmed than most. To date, I'll rank him right up there next to Ken Jennings.

Daffodils Revived

 Not much but all I got. Daffodils bloomed, were hit with wind and snow, seem to have revived at Easter.

Round and round we go

   I mailed a package from Valley Falls P.O. on March 26. It left the P.O. 3 hours later. It arrived at  the Springfield Distribution Center on March 27and left the same day. On March 29, it arrived at Springfield at 6:22 p.m. and left at 11:12 the same day. It arrived at Hyattsville, MD. on March 30. On April 1, it arrived at Baltimore, then on to Frederick, MD. It left there April 4 and arrived at Baltimore P.O. on April 5. Word is it's now out for delivery.  

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