Grandma

I was still three years old when my Grandma died in May 1941. I don't remember that. What I do remember was the Grandma and Aunt Marcella lived on the one side of our house and we had the other. Grandma was an old lady (80 years old) who was not very well and she spent a lot of time sitting in her rocking chair. My Aunt Marcella took care of grandma and really was like a second mother to me. When I wanted something that I couldn't get at home I would go over to their side of the house and ask Marcy. She would usually find a way to give me what I wanted. I remember asking her to read to me and she would. Or if I wanted coffee soup instead of what we were eating at home I could have it. That didn't always sit well with Mom.

I think it was in the spring of 1940, the year I turned three, that Aunt EmRose and Aunt Lois, who lived in Akron, Ohio, came for a visit. They were 57 and 58 years old at that time but to me they were really old. They were siting on the side porch along with Marcy and Grandma and of course I was out there with them. One of them got a banana washed it and laid it on the porch rail for me to find. I did find it and ask where it came from. They said that the Easter Bunny had laid it. Well I look it over and it was still wet because they had washed it. I wouldn't it because the Easter Bunny had laid it and it was still wet. They got a big kick out of that and that story got told over and over.

That same year Dad and Uncle Joe decide to have a wiener roast up on top of the hill behind the house. There was a kind of trail that went up to the top of the hill and Dad loaded Gandma, Marcy, Mom, and me in the old Buick and drove to the top. The other kids hd to walk.

After Grandma died in May of 1941, Marcy joined the St Joseph Sisters convent in Erie. She took the name St Emily Rose. Her sister Margaret , Sister Jane Francis, was all ready there, having joined in 1914 when she was 17years old.

1941

I was four years old in 1941, so a lot of my memories are fairly cloudy. One the that is clear though is that people were really upset when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Mom and Dad listen to the news every evening that they could get the battery radio working so that it would pick up KDKA from Pittsburgh.

One evening I went with Dad down to the barn when he went to milk the cows. I remember the light from the kerosene lantern was not very bright and it seemed to cast all kinds of shadows so it was a place where it was good to have Dad there. I was sitting up on the ledge behind the cows watching him milk and I was asking him questions about the war that President Roosevelt had declared. Why were we going to fight? Would they be fighting here? Where was Japan? Where was Pearl Harbor? He was trying to explain where Japan was and who the Japanese were. I guess I thought about that for a while and then I said, "If God hadn't made the Japs we wouldn't have to fight them." He readlly agreed with that and said I had that about right.

When I was 10 years old

When I was 10 years old we got electricity on the farm and in the house. Bill Clinger was the electrician who did the wiring in the evening after his main job and I helped by holding the flash light when he had to work in a dark area. It was a big deal for us to get electricity. For one thing it meant that we could have a radio that didn’t run on batteries. And we could have a real bathroom with water pumped to the commode, and sink and shower. No more house! We could have an electric washing machine rather than one that ran on a one cylinder gasoline engine. We got lights in the barn and didn’t have to carry a kerosine lantern. And we got an electric milking machine.

That was the year my sister Susie got married. The reception was at our house and there were a lot of people there. Mostly big people. No kids to play with. During the afternoon a big thunder storm came up, so everyone was inside.

Dad had drilled a water well close to the house and the rig was still sitting there. A bolt of lightening struck the drilling machine and shocked some of the people who were sitting on a metal daybed in side the window about 8 feet from the rig. No one was seriously hurt but it did cause a lot of excitement.

We learned later that the father of one of the people at the reception was killed by lightening that afternoon while he was working on a dragline at a stripmine. That was a sad thing.

I think Peggy started her senior year in highschool that year and Ed was a junior. That year I started 5th grade at Summerville. Helen Wesson was my teacher and she was a tough old girl. Helen and her sister Mary had been teaching 4th and 5 grade forever, or so it seemed.

Coming from out of town and being one of the 3 Catholics in the school I had to defend my rights for a while until the kids got use to me. Glenn Reed, Dick Garis, Don Getty and Tom Fitzsimons turned out to be pretty good friends. Later on Tom Eshelman (Mouse) and Jack Snyder got added to our group.

During April at the end of 5th grade. Roy Gourley’s parents bought a farm around the hill from us. Roy was one day younger than me and he thought that he had to prove how tough he was so he tried to bully me on the school bus. I took it for a while and then decide that I needed to do something, so I turned around to face his seat and hit him on the nose. I broke his nose and it bled like everything. We have been friends ever since.

Back on line

It has been nearly a month since my last posting. I guess I didn't have much to say, but I did have a lot to read since Christmas.
I have just finisned "The Island at the Center of the World" by Russel Shorto. This is a must read book for anyone who has an interest in American history. Shorto tells the story of the New Netherlands, starting in 1624 and ending in 1673 when it became an English colony named for the Duke of York. Much of the story is tied to a Dutch lawyer, Adriaen van der Donck. We have much that we aquire from the the work of van der Donck, including the basis for the 1st and 2nd amendment to the Constitution. Freedom of speech and feedom of religion were ideas that van der Donck worked hard to preserve in the Manhatten colony and these were preserved for us under the colony of New York.
I have also finshed "Mysteries of the Middle Ages - The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the cults of Catholic Europe" by Thomas Cahill. This is the fifth book in Cahill's "Hinges of History" series. The other four are: Sailing the Wine Dark Sea; Desire of the Everlasting Hills; The Gifts of the Jews; How the Irish saved Civilization. In my view all are worth reading. Mysteries ranges from Alexandria to Rome, Paris, and London. In it you meet Pluto, Philo, Clement, Constantine, Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, Augustine, GregoryII, Hildegard, Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aqino, Frances of Assisi, Roger Bacon, and Dante. It is an easy read but it will require a second time through to capture the relationships.
I have lined up on the shelfwaiting, "The Audacity of Hope" by Barack Obama; "On Being Christian" by Hans Kung; "Saveges" by Joe Kane; "One Christmas in Washington" by David Bercuson & Holger Herwig and 'Foreign Aid" by Carol Lancaster.

12 days of Christmas

The twelve days of Christmas are the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany (January 6th), which is when the three wise men supposedly arrived on the scene

The day before the day before Christmas Eve

The cimamon rolls are baked, the groceries have been purchased, the breads been baked, and the BBQ has been prepared. All that is needed is people to surround the table tomorrow.

The wraping station has been stored and the gifts secured. Anticipation is great.

The longest night of the year

The precise moment of the 2006 winter solstice will be December 21, 2006 at 7:22 P.M. EST when the sun will be directly over the Tropic of Capricorn.

It seems to me that it would have been good if Pope Gregory had adjusted his calendar to make New Years day align with the winter solstice. Of course we would have had to move Christmas to New Years Day and then where would we be. Well, it might be that we would have moved Christmas to the fall equinox but that would really be confusing

Office Party

The CEO has decided that tonight would be a good night for the office party. I believe it will be at the Market Inn. Not a bad place to take the help. My guess is that the main course will be crab cakes.

Plans are well underway for the Christmas weekend. Especially with food and drink and things under the tree.

Santa comes to Singleton

It was a great evening when Santa arrived and the boy was only slightly afraid.
 

Half way thorugh Advent

The Christmas season is short this year and we are soon approaching Christmas Day. It will be a big year for our youngest grandson, really the first one where he will have a good idea about presents. He will have Christmas at his house, then come over to ours and the next day fly off to his western grandparents. What a big year for him.

This year the whole family will be together on Christmas. That will be fun.

Thanksgiving and Giving Thanks

Mom and I were visiting this evening about how much we have to be thankful for. Our family seems to be doing well. All are able to manage their own lives and they appear to enjoy what they do for a living. We are healthy, comfortable and secure. We have truly had several golden years. Our grand children are a joy to have. They are a blessing for us. Our son-in-law and our two daughters-in-law are amazing people and we love them as our own. They complete our family.

Orange cookies

It is fast coming to the holiday season and today we made orange cookies. There is something about them that just smells and tastes like Thanksgiving or Christmas. It almost takes 2 people working together to stay ahead of the process. Grate the orange skins, squeeze the juice, beat the batter, make the frosting, put batter on the cookie sheet, bake, put on the cooling rack, frost the cookies while warm, move the cookies from the rack to the table while the frosting sets up, and wash the bowls and pans and cookie sheets. Sample cookies

I called Debbie and told her to come over to sample them. I didn't have to work very hard to get her and the boy to come over for tea and a cookie. Seth chomped down two and seemed to think that more would be Ok with him. A few were sent home for Daddy but I'm not sure how many he will get.

Closet light, Sale flyer, Leaves and a conference call

Well mom I finished the sale flyer and then I installed a new closet light in the den. This afternoon will be a leaf moving day, it should be fairly dry by then.

We got to talk to M and J on a Skype conference call this morning. That was pretty cool with M in Istanbul and J in Baltimore and us in Virginia. I really like Skype it is clear and also cheap. No charge for Skype to Skype calls. I think a webcam might be on the list of things to acquire so we can communicate with M & J in Ecuador.

Pandas

 

A trip to the Zoo

 

Poll tracker

I've added charts to the footer on this page that track what the polls are saying about the upcoming election. If you click on one of the charts that will take you to a more complete analysis of the polls.

Sunday Parade in the Woods

The Sunday Parade

 

Trick or Treat

The Boy seemed to enjoy the event and we did also.


 

Seth's Birthday

Well the boy is 2 years old today. What a happy guy he is. His mom and dad have done a great job raising him.

School

I was thinking, this morning, about being a kid and going to school. My first school was a one room school about a tenth of a mile from my home on the farm. When I was in first grade there were 9 kids in the school, 3 of the 9 were my sister, my brother and me. Another family also had 3, another 2 and of course there was a single kid from one family to make up the 9.

Inside the school was the main school room, two cloak rooms , one for the boys and one for the girls, and an entry hall where there was a rope through the ceiling attached to the school bell. In the center of the main room was a big coal stove. An American flag with 48 stars stood in one corner and the State flag in the other. There were also pictures of Washington and Lincoln above the blackboard. Because we had no electricity, we had no lights in the school and on some dark winter days it almost got too dark inside to read. We didn't have a water well or spring at the school, so we had to take a bucket and walk to the neighbors spring to get water to fill the water crock. Every one drank out of the same dipper so when anyone got sick it went through the whole school pretty fast. One of the worst days I had in school was when my friend, Beaver, actually his name was Frank, barfed all over me at lunch time. I was really angry. The teacher sent me home to get cleaned up and I didn't go back to school that day. Funny thing though, I didn't get sick.

Outside the school was a coal house and the toilets. The toilets were outhouses, one for the boys and one for the girls. They each had 3 holes and the boys' had a trough.

The school ground was about 1 acre, which was enough room for a softball field. With 9 kids in the school we took turns coming up to bat and took turns at each base and in the field. You move from position to position as the batter changed.

Every morning we had to say the Lords prayer, do a reading from the bible and recite the Pledge to the Flag, which, at that time, did not contain the words "under God".

I spent a lot of time listening to the older kids reciting their reports and the poems that they had to memorize. They also had to read the "classics" out loud so I heard the "Tale of Two Cities" and the "Last of the Mohegans" plus a lot of poetry.