A time of American innocence, fun, music...is gone forever!

The past few weeks have certainly been an interesting if not sad time for America.  It started with the death of Annette Funicello who was a true piece of the culture and time that I grew up in.

It was an innocent time of growing up in an America reflected in TV by shows like Mickey Mouse Club, Lawrence Welk, Perry Como and all those family sit-coms like Leave it to Beaver, Dobie Gillis and so many more.  Fun was going to a school hop or a party at the beach in the summer.  Movies were simple stories for teens - love and loss, love found…and all time… music you could dance to.

Annette’s death did seem to haunt us as we sung Beach Boy songs and remembered Frankie Avalon, Fabian and the rest of American Bandstand’s crew.  I can still remember that my brother and friends started, with my dad’s help, a carrier current radio station.  We built it from scratch…I was the Sunday semi-classical hours host...they spun the rock and roll records and went to the hop Saturday nights playing records as what we would call disc jockeys today.

I think quite frankly it was a much more honorable and simple time when music was changing and “Rock and Roll” was at a peak.  Young hopefuls could get their music played on local stations and radio stations could enjoy finding new stars. 

In Syracuse for concerts we went to the old Three Rivers Inn for an inexpensive Saturday show to see some well-known young singer or group in person… hitching a ride with someone’s dad or mom.  Yes we didn’t have our own car!  Some of my best moments were walking home from school talking with friends along the way.  Yes we talked about our day in person - not on the cell phone or via the Internet.

I think many people my age were stunned and felt that that time in America had come to an unfortunate and very sad end.  Annette was dead...and worse yet… of a coma from Multiple Scleroses...a coma she had been in for years.

Obituaries popped up everywhere from the Beach Boys Website, Disney sites, News Sites, Radio, TV everything…why….I think because we wanted secretly to get that part of America and our much simpler and innocent life back!

These savored and simple remembrances came to a screeching halt when two young men bombed the Boston Marathon…

Enjoy this clip of American Bandstand!

Disasters and their history including one in CNY at Split Rock 100 years ago!!

We here in Central New York had a major industrial disaster at Split Rock, and just this week I was reviewing it for a friend who was interested in it, so here it is!

...On July 2, 1918, the Split Rock Quarry blew up. The shock waves and sound of this disaster rocked the area for miles and people who had no phones or radios would have to wait to find out what had happened or if the United States was being attacked. WW I, the “war to end all wars” would continue until November 11th of that year, yet the tragedy and uncertainty of those hours will live forever.

The plant was originally part of the Solvay Process Company and the overhead buckets that carried the limestone to the Solvay plant are gone as well. Today all that remains are a few remnants of the plant and an open space that many believe is haunted by the ghosts of the men that died there. The plant crusher is in part visible and there are natural limestone caves and man made underground rooms in ruin, but most haunting there is the quiet.

The cause of the blast was eventually stated to be a motor that overheated in a wooden building, which eventually made its way to the plant and a storage area. In fact some luck was with the area that night, since the other storage facility lay across the valley and did not detonate with the main blast.

In all 50 men died, but many others lost limbs, sight, hearing and certainly the trauma of the event remained for many years afterward. For those that thought they had found a good wartime job, the consequences proved enormous.
 Today visitors and ghost hunters alike tour historic site and look at the ruins, trying to picture what the place was like the night it blew up.

*A personal note is that my mother who was 5 year old at the time remembered hearing the blast and being frightened and screaming. Her mother, she said, gathered all of the children and went out under a tree and kept them close to her until word arrived as to what had happened. Her neighbors, the Hazel’s, received word that their son was alive but had lost limbs. A night remembered by all and a tale passed down from generation to generation..
For more on the Split Rock Disaster you can find a wonderful book by Janesa R. Foley titled “The Night the Rock Blew Up”.

For more CNY history articles and video go to my website at www.historystarproductions.com.

View video..some see faces in it....besure to have your sound on!

The very historic events of April 15th in our history!

Springwood at Hyde Park

Today we remember April 15th because of the movie Lincoln or for the sinking of the Titanic mostly because of movies in the mainstream, however April 15th was a more modern event of great importance for Americans of the WWII era...It was the day they buried their beloved Presidtent FDR. Last year on this week I took the time to visit FDR's home and grave!

Few alive today can remember the heart felt sorrow that accompanied the word that FDR was dead. Roosevelt had gone to his retreat at Warm Springs, Georgia and was enjoying a peaceful day trying to relieve the stress of World War II. He had been working and sitting for a portrait that was being done by artist Elizabeth Shoumatoff, who was a friend of Lucy Rutherford, Roosevelt’s longtime mistress. It was here at what was called the little White House”, on the day before Friday the 13th, FDR suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage and died.

Franklin’s body was taken in a copper lined casket to the rail station and sent to Washington, DC where 24 hours later a grief-stricken city waited for him. The President’s funeral took place in the White House on Saturday the 14th with only a limited number of people able to fit into the small area by invitation. Then taken to the train station for his last ride from Washington to Hyde Park, New York and the Roosevelt’s beloved estate Springwood.

The President did not want a big ceremony only simple arrangements, but was followed by a huge entourage on the train made up of Congressmen, Senators and dignitaries. West Point Cadets arrived, as well as plain citizens and members of the Armed forces. Warplanes flew overhead and with a nation’s prayers, Roosevelt was laid to rest in the Rose Garden.

Franklin only wanted a plain slab of white marble as a monument, and today that monument in the rose Garden, is part of the Hyde Park National Historic Park that includes America’s first Presidential Library, started in 1941 before FDR’s death by FDR himself. Also within the park is Springwood Estate bequeathed to the United States by Roosevelt himself ,along with all of its original furnishings and its many out buildings.

Today you can visit this important site and walk the grounds where much history unfolded, and where a grateful nation laid its leader to rest on April 15th, 1945. Buried with him is his wife Anna Eleanor Roosevelt and his famous dog Fala.

If you do go to visit Springwood besure to visit Eleanor's place at Val-Kill ...on the grounds....video below.

Holocaust Rembrance Day, Fort Ontario, and Safe Haven Museum a place to visit!

With all of the hatred being spread daily on Facebook, via the airways, and beyond, I thought it was time to step back and review for a minute what hatred has wrought across the world.

Sunday April 7^th through the evening of April 8^th is Holocaust Remembrance Day.  It has a special message regardless of our faith … but because of our humanness as members of mankind.  We have celebrated the Emancipation Proclamation this year, and so we should take time to reflect on all oppression and all enslavement…faith based or otherwise… even including ignorance.

We receive daily messages on Facebook about hatred of gun control, abortion rights, Second Amendment rights… but none of it really brings home the story of mankind’s evil side.  That part of us that exudes hatred or extreme dislikes for anyone or anything that opposes our own view - whether it be religious or political.

We here in CNY seldom have an opportunity to revisit information on the Holocaust unless it is part of our family’s history, nor do we take the time to consider its implications in a way that perhaps could change how our children behave in adulthood.  We do however have a great resource if we wish to have a ‘hands-on” learning lesson… that resource is the Safe Haven Museum in Oswego.

The museum does not dwell on the horrors of the Holocaust…  though it is there, what it does is focus on is the USA and our response to the displacement of people as each of the WWII concentration camps were liberated by our troops.  The short 37-minute documentary actually allows children who lived through the Holocaust tell their story in a humanistic and sometimes humorous way…  they having been dropped from the horrors of war into a Displaced Person Camp at Fort Ontario.  It also gives us hope as they explain the kindness of the Oswego people and its children. 

I include here links that I hope you will follow to pieces I have written on the Safe Haven story, and a video of the museum from my History Stars Productions Company!

http://www.examiner.com/article/a-visit-to-safe-haven-museum-oswego-an-important-piece-of-our-history

Video and story below!  

http://historystarproductions.com/blog/safe-haven-at-oswegos-fort-ontario/

The holiday, Syracuse University, the snow, & the Beatles!

Well the holiday is over… thank heaven (no pun intended)…. instead of pink, yellow and white it was totally ORANGE! 

The one nice day lured us here in CNY into a springtime mood that crashed with snow and cold.  It was really quite an unusual few days.  To me what was strange is that all the people I talked with this weekend, and all those who “Facebooked” me about this or that…. would set me thinking and I would suddenly start silently singing the Beatles “Nowhere Man”.   Nowhere Man…me singing Beatles!

It occurred to me that everyone’s point of view depended on what reporter or news station they watched.  I could tell the Fox station listeners, I could tell the Rachel Maddow followers, the “right wingers”, the NRA followers…Christian Conservatives...people just posted and reposted or repeated news that was really someone else’s opinion.

He's a real nowhere man

Sitting in his nowhere land

Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

It seems that no one formed their own opinion… they just kept forwarding something that someone else posted or spoke and what turned out to be someone else’s opinions.

Doesn't have a point of view

Knows not where he's going to

Isn't he a bit like you and me?

I hunted down facts including going to the investigative sites like SNOPES, and in almost every case the information was just half truths made to look the way the writer’s or journalists…(few real journalists left) opinion was.

He's as blind as he can be

Just sees what he wants to see

Nowhere Man can you see me at all?

If the they were Republican friends it was all Obama’s fault, if the were Democratic friends it was Bush and Regan’s fault, if it was guns it was hateful NRA posts. But I could not solicit any thoughtful discussion...no give and take… just absolutes.  The FB posts were.... here is my picture with Thomas Jefferson’s words against your picture with Eisenhower’s words., and for the record did they actually say that!

I am not particularly political and I embrace all religions and admire peaceful solutions to problems and yet, I can never seem to find someone willing to take a thoughtful, quiet approach… a step to the middle ground.

One thing I have learned in my life so far, you can’t seem to change another’s opinion, and what has led to hatred and conflict in the past is that few people will leave the safety of their source of opinions, to investigate another’s opinions. 

Just think if people did it could lead to compromise rather than our daily confrontations. We need the “peacemakers”, I assume that is why many great thinkers retreated from society to reflect and become enlightened….

Nowhere Man, please listen

You don't know what you're missing

Nowhere Man, the world is at your command!

So really aren’t most of us the "Nowhere Man”.

Listen to the Beatles!