Dutch NYS Era Good Luck Stones

 In my 87 year old  aunts home in South Schodack NY is a stone by her fire place. On this stone is hand carved a small H. As she has explained it is not for say Hudson Hawk.....it stands for Hogaboom.. An old Dutch name and on my mothers side of ancestors. From what I have been able to glean from brief family oral histories and old tales from  Great Aunts these were semi important stones to the old Dutch colonists. One of the uses for them were to be kept by the fire place and kept warm and brought to bed with you to help warm you on a cold winters night. I suppose they might also have been used as a simple tool of sorts.  But what intrigues me is the use of them  as a good luck charm of sorts. Apparently , these rocks were taken from stream beds or found while cultivating fields. They were most often egg shaped and smooth. Why egg shaped ?  Some Dutch legends appear to say that was so that evil or bad luck could slide off them or could not easily attach.
 My mother had one as well in her home she used as a door stop. I  don't know how prevalent  this belief  may have permeated people back then in say 17th century New York  but superstition has effected people throughout history. Just look at The Icabod Crane story. So , a brief bit of tangential oral history , a piece that I am told  will some day be mine. I shall put it by my fire place.

Me And My 73 VW Super Beetle

 This has been an interesting summer of 2015. Did some travel......some digging........watching the grandsons on their long summer vacation. My great surprise was a gift from family. My daughter and son in law in Belmont NC who are classic car collectors to an extent {they own a 67 VW Karmen Ghia}convertible. They found a Super Beetle for me  , my other kids and wife chipped in and upon our visit presented me with an early Birthday and Christmas present. Great party as well. So .......here I am again.....a classic car owner again.She is blue , 4 speed , curved front wind shield. {first year for that}. Perhaps in some ways the Beetle was the most influential car ever built , some car historians have written and they be very well be correct.
 I drove it up in 95 degree temps {without air conditioning} from western NC to Schenectady NY. Not an easy trip. On my second day of travel a major truck accident on the NJ Turnpike closed the road. So I spent two and a half hours waiting to be turned around by a NJ  State Trooper who by that time was in a bad mood. I know this cause he yelled at me to move it with that" piece of junk."
It needs some restoration mind you. A couple of fenders , tires , new dash board are a few of the things on my list of things to do. But I must say on my way up from Carolina  something wonderful happened . I forgot how many yrs on this earth I have been . Now that was a nice mini restoration. Oh and I learned something.....many people  look very fondly on the old VW;s . When I go out in it I have to be prepared  to be in a good mood. I have had many people come up to me to tell me of their bugs or VW experiences. Want to take a picture of it , have their wives pose in front of it. I and my VW seem to actually spread a certain car joy wherever we go. I must say that brings a certain sense of satisfaction as well. So another summer , another hobby. Onward to further restorations and history research.

Papscanee Island Preserve Clam Shell Mound Discovered

 This summer I have been working in the Papscanee Island Preserve in the Town of Schodack NY 12033. I have also been doing some exploring some of the lesser  accessed areas of the Schodack State Park along the Hudson River. At Papscanee Island recently I discovered the remnants of an old clam shell mound  no doubt left from the native population. To many peoples surprise  many types of fresh water clams . are edible , however , not very tasty and/or easily chewed as they can be on the tough side. It was a few hundred feet from the Hudson river near the blue line path  on a rise above a swampy , very wet area.  These mounds were usually made as the shells were shucked and left. Because of the rather pungent smell of  clam residue especially on a hot day the clam remnants were often covered up.
 I discovered my second  mound in Schodack Island Park. Once again , a few hundred feet from the river , near the bicycle path {. Relatively }  This mound was only about half the size of the previously found one. I speculate that a hole was dug and the clam remains put in it. I really stumbled onto this one as I was searching a small rock carne I had come across. My speculation on the rock pile is it may have been rocks piled  up during construction of the Castleton Thruway Bridge by workers. So , in conclusion , 2 small mounds  , appx 4 miles apart. This shows activity along a wide range of the river being accessed. Age of the mound is difficult for me to ascertain. Has to be over one hundred plus yrs.

Deborah Rowley RIP

 Yesterday , Mrs. Deborah Rowley died at the age of 102. Died in Queens NY. Her life like many lives were full of the tragic and  wonderful events that a person living so long would go through. I will leave most of that for her obituary and her families memories. What I wish to remember at this moment  is an historical event.
 We are in this age of social media , telecommunication satellites , 24 yr news cycle and of course the internet we have become used to the instant awareness and viewing of events as they happen. Of course this was not all ways  In the late 1920's American Aviator Charles Lindburgh flew the first non stop trans Atlantic flight. This was for that era a huge event. It made him for a time a major hero/ celebrity in the world. I will leave who is unaware of this man to discover his biography and his effect on America for the good and ill. What this means for this blog entry is simply this......
Deborah Rowley may very well be the last person on  the face of this earth to have witnessed  this event as it was happening. Then a young child in Ireland , the plane and pilot flew right over her parents small farm. Her father picked her up and put her on his shoulders yelling " there he is , there he is." She knew he came from America and watched in a young wonder as this small plane passed over their farm and disappeared over the horizon. Soon he would land in France. The word slowly spread , in many places fire sirens were sounded and church bells were rung to let people know it was a success. This was done in my hometown of Castleton NY. With radio still in it's infancy most would read about it in their newspaper. For my generation , we watched our first landing on the moon as it happened.  Not so of previous generations. So with Mrs. Rowley's passing and her advanced age of her witness we may in a real way make a case  that the final sentence of the last chapter of this event in history has now been  written.

Old Bali Hai Wine Bottle Discovered

Near Clove Rd in the Town of Schodack NY   In a small wooded area just off the highway  I discovered  what appeared to be an old wine bottle. It's obscured and deeply faded label , what was left of it was of a blueish tint. It was not intact , just the upper portion of the bottle was found. After checking out the internet and looking for a corresponding  picture I do believe I know what it was. An old broken bottle of Balli Hai wine.  It did spark a memory. This wine I believe made by Gallo was an inexpensive wine or in other words cheap. Sold in pints and quarts. This was sold in the late sixties through much of the seventies. It was of the old " Pop Wine" movement to lure younger people and wine drinkers whose taste had not moved to a more dry taste in wines. Very Fruity , quite light. To use an old parlance , it was chuggable. Since yes I did partake of this variety of wine let me say it had tastes of peaches , strawberry , a hint of apple.and but of course grape. Very sweet aftertaste. It was a wine for newbies but surprisingly more adults drank it than one might assume. It was advertised on TV in the late sixties as a sort of taste of the East. Some House Parties used it as a base for an early American Waspy version of Sangria. You have to remember.......America was still in the process of discovering wine and it was not as widely consumed as it is today. There were not very many boutique wineries as there is today as well. Gallo or Taylor were the big producers. For anyone wishing to sample what it may have tasted like I have been informed that a wine called Frutezia is the closest one can come to it today. As for me my last taste was at the Powder Ridge Music Festival in July of 1970 in Connecticut. So , perhaps a quick disposal of an old bottle led to it being chucked into this wooded area that I would many years later dig into after it had become more overgrown. and three quarter buried. My thanks to Ted Franconis , a favored bartender and  Kimberly Peacock of the Tousey Winery for some assistance in writing this blog

Going Home Again Schodack NY

I really did start the day hoping to finish my short dig on Clove Rd in my home town of Schodack NY. But today after a seemly long winter and slightly late spring I decided to just drive around  what appeared to me a newly minted home town. Thomas Wolfe was essentially correct , "you can't go home again". But on this warm , sunny , vibrant , spring morning everything seemed alive and beckoning to me. Gould Orchards with it's apple trees in full flower was remarkable. Stopped by to buy a bottle of wine. Residents bushes and trees were opening up in a fragrant explosion it seemed to me. Many people were busy tending gardens and mowing lawns. Maple Hill High School which was my old high school had kids out on the track and it appeared a class was being taught on the Tennis Bleachers. People soaking up the sunshine if not learning. Near Schodack Landing what appeared to be a mangy coyote ran across the road on Schodack Landing Rd. The Hudson River lite up with mid morning light , a high tide pushing up the river. I have had a stressful week.......but my mood began to feel more on the tranquil side as I toured. My mind did wander to some past things .....how things have changed , how they have not. This final 1.6 months of High School before graduation for the class of 2015. That truly is a mixture of feelings.Todays return filled me with transcendent calm. A quiet day in an upstate New York town. Sometimes therapy can be only a few bucks of gas away. So I write this ode to you my hometown. We certainly have had our differences , but transcendent thought can make quiet this so often intense life we may lead.

Aeroplane in Castleton

 Several yrs ago I wrote a blog about the first airplane landing in my hometown in Castleton NY 12033. I subsequently discovered a New York Times article about that event. Since my traffic has increased  in the last couple of yrs I wanted to repost where to find the article. Go to Google for instance and type in Aeroplane in Castleton and the article will come up. My ancestors were there and a couple of great uncles for instance took a crayon and wrote their initials on the canvas wing. Enjoy the post about the day Castleton N.Y. became the center of aviation in atleast the USA in 1911 and inspired a great uncle of mine to become an aviator with the 73rd Aero Squadron  in World War One. James Tobias.

Seeking Some Voices From The Past 69/70

 It's kind of weird but I know what I was doing 45 yrs ago this past weekend.  Not that it was of any great importance. I was at an Aunt and Uncles home installing a TV antenna on their roof. How do I know this.....well in looking over a set of old mail and postcards from my Mom's old home before they get thrown out I discovered an unopened envelope with my name on it. I opened it and found a five dollar bill and a note from my aunt thanking me for putting up the antenna and watching over their house while they were vacationing in South Carolina. By an odd coincidence I remembered it was exactly 45yrs all most to the date that I did the job. Didn't know I got payed and like I said kind of weird  to have discovered it. So let me tell you of that memory and you can judge if it sheds any light on to that late 60's , early 70's time. So here goes my memory quirk. It had been a miserable week. My father was in the hospital with a heart procedure. Maple Hill High School in my home town of Schodack New York seemed to suffer a mini nervous brealdown. One junior was expelled from school for selling cigarettes out of his locker that his uncle brought up from the somewhere in the south. Three kids expelled for one day for smoking in the bathroom. One kid it was rumored did not because he apparently {turned states evidence} against the junior selling untaxed cigarettes to minors. There was a major fight between junior high school kids. One child got his nose apparently mildly broke. Again an expulsion. Someone had set a tire on fire in the back parking lot in the wee hours of the morning of 3/25 which was a Wednesday. From talking with a couple of people from that time it was an overall bitchy week between students and teachers as well.  Maybe it was from a version of cabin fever  but  the town itself was on edge as well.  Some arrests on our old Main Street from brawling outside the bars. two major car accidents   Finally......as I  stated before there was a palpable tension within the school. A teacher was letting it be known he was not getting tenure and was expressing his angry views to his students and this would boil over within a month to a nasty protest which all most got several more students expelled. Peter Stoll an English teacher there at the time confided to a couple of friends and myself that our principal Larry Davis was ready to pull his hair out. As he apparently  confided to some teachers  and school board members.....{when the hell are things going to go back to normal in this Goddamn world.} In actuality he didn't have  long to wait before things would settle down. The sixties were after all , over. Just the lingering after shocks were remaining. Principal Davis loved order like he had in the Navy in WWII.
 Other stuff was going on in the world and at home but I think I have set the stage for our small community. That Friday , after   school I was dropped off at my Aunt & Uncles. My Mom was going up to the hospital to attend to my father at the medical center. I had my list of chores and it was agreed I would spend the weekend there puttering around. It was gloomy , misty rain , chilly. My friends and I all agreed that no one was going out on this Friday because we were all bushed. Because I did some amateur radio my Aunt suggested I install their new antenna  , so for the next 2 hours that is what I did and it was cold on top of that house on top of a hill.  But it worked and because it was on a high vantage point the TV could also pick up stations out of the a immediate area  , namely channel 8 New Haven Ct and WTIC.  channel 3 in Hartford Ct.  I thought a job well done. But I had no place to go. Made dinner or should I say a prepared TV Dinner. So now what to do? It was dark , I had a certain senior year fatigue about me. So I did what I probably needed to do , something I have all ways sought out during various times of my life. I  decided on solitude. I also decided on a couple of Schlitz beers from the downstairs fridge. called up Kunicki , he was vegging out as well. Made plans for Saturday night. Now I jacked up the heat , pulled the Lazyboy recliner to the living room window , opened the window slightly , yes I smoked but one of my quirks is I like fresh air as well. I know ,  makes not a lot of sense. Lit up a Benson & Hedges Deluxe {you can guess where I got them and no I did not turn in the kid.} Anyway had my portable radio with me with shortwave ability. Turned on the BBC from London. Even then I liked to pay attention to the news. Usual bad news , protests in Paris , war in Vietnam.etc. They also spent a fair amount of time discussing the rumors that The Beatles were splitting up. Which in reality they soon would. One economist talked about how it might effect the economy in England. Imagine that. I then set in silence and let my mind wonder. I believe I realized that a major era of my life was ending , that being high school. My older and ill father , my strained relations with my brother who only a few short months before had returned from Vietnam.  My teenage insecurities along with a deep desire to escape Maple Hill High School. Before I knew it it was around 10:00 PM. I switched on a NYC radio station. Gene Shepard doing his radio show. You may know him as a writer and narrator of A Christmas Story. Could that man talk....for two hours five nights a week he would just do these flow of consciousness stories. I wrapped my mind around his voice and let him take me for a ride. I believe he talked about a date he had in a rich part on town in his early adulthood. It was then he said he more fully realized what was out in other parts of the world and he might get a piece of it. From there I listened Long John Nebel's talk show on WNBC. Discussion of the publishing industry and the hoax book Naked Came a Stranger. I truly do feel that there was a higher level of discussion back then. After 1:00 AM I simply went back to my wandering mind. What rich part of town might I visit or would not. I puzzled over  these matters I am sure Teenagers of this generation have these moments as well. One thing I don't think we had to deal with quite as often was what we wanted to do in our adult life. If you didn't know  , one had Liberal Arts. Figure it out down the road. Of course back then you could leave high school and often find a decent job with benefits. This does not happen often today. Somewhere in the night I drifted off to a reasonable sleep.  Wow , it was suddenly 11:00 AM. Got up ,  fixed a quick breakfast , checked the chore list twice and  started moving on it.
 Night would again fall , a non adult house ,  friends with transportation , I threw a small but respectful party. Cards , darts  , drinking , a few girls dropped by as well. People escaping for who knows where or what..Our major discussion point was Vietnam as it was in much of the nation. One slightly broken window which got blamed on my cousin later and broke up around 1:00 AM..  I can still hear those voices today. From Gene Shepard to high school whats their names. But I can honestly say I and we needed that weekend......sort out the cobwebs and prepare for June and some supposed new destiny that adults kept telling us about. We were a fairly subdued group that night. Seem to fit the psychology of the week.Coming to the end of an era in ones life can sometimes make you that way.
 Next day I opened every window in the house......cleaned up the place , dumped the empties with Kunicki who disposed of them. Showered , shaved , looked presentable , Mom arrived after noon. Did an inspection and off to home again. Another week at MHHS awaited  and I had a planning meeting for a new day called Earth Day we were acting on.

Cigarette Smoking Archive

 I have not written much lately but I have been doing some collecting. My 87 yr old Aunts out barn , a musty old basement in Schenectady N.Y.  Discovered a milk bottle from the H Wilson Crounse Dairy in Altamont N.Y. probably from the 1930's or 40's. That was my brother in laws Christmas present cause he collects as well. My wife was a Crounse as is he. So a piece of family history was discovered. Anyway , what I ended up discovering was alot of old cigarette stuff. Mainly in my Aunts old out barn/storage area.

1. A pack of Kent from the 1950's. It had an atomic mushroom cloud on it. Back then I discovered they were marketed  as the atomic age cigarette. The filters had a slight blueish tint. So , I attempted to discover if what I heard was true. Asbestos , was contained in that generation of Kents. I took out my old scalpel from high school biology class and  cut one filter open. put it under my mini microscope. Yes indeed it appeared that those were asbestos fibers I observed. Nicotine , tars and carbon monoxide on top of asbestos. Wow , were those deadly.

2. A crumpled up empty pack of Chesterfield 101's. You can Google their 60's commercials. When Benson and Hedges came up with the concept of 100mm cigarettes  to keep up sales post Surgeon Generals Report Chesterfield  launched their new filter cigarette as a 101mm. Sales Gimmick......but it apparently was not very successful as that brand did not last long. Lets face it 1 mm was like a tenth of a puff.

3. Found in the back of a cupboard in my Aunts  a full pack of Benson & Hedges Deluxe. Green in color , long box with a wood paneled look. Purple writing on the cigarettes. Unopened. My departed uncle used to smoke them after he switched from Lucky's. I smoked a few in my youth. Many ladies smoked them as well as the extra long box fit in a purse much better than a shirt pocket. Well......to be honest as an experiment mind you I rehydrated this pack using refrigeration and a heavy humidity container for over 10 days. Even though my smoking days are supposed to be behind me I tried a couple. Though this exact package and blend has not been in stock for probably over 25 yrs , it was a  taste from the past that was familiar and rather good , despite the age.

4. Finally an in person event. So I can continue my rehab and keep getting back in shape  post heart attack and cancer I belong to  the Ciccotti Family Recreation Center. A retired professor  and folk singer who once taught at Skidmore College and I struck up a couple of conversation over time in the weight room. Turns out she was the singer who sang the background song for Benson & Hedges TV commercials. She used the money for Post Graduate education. You can Google the commercials  and hear her lilting tones. So before she moved to South Carolina to be closer to her daughter she gave me a present. A Benson & Hedges ashtray shaped like a bent 100mm cigarette which was sort of one of their logo's.

 So ,  a couple of  finds I bring to you and will now dispose of. Probably , sell the ashtray on e-bay.