Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Winter, the color white and Kermit the Frog!


I know I am going to catch some flack from some of you but....I hate winter....

While wandering around the internet I found that there is a historical marker for Kermit the Frog and he (sort of) links in a strange sort of way back to the Leland family....as Jim Hanson his mentor is from Leland, Miss.  founded by Lelands. This is just what you would expect from a "History Junkie" right!

And altho winter in all it white is a drab part of our culture… I know so many of you like it… I know you sports enthusiasts love it…I know you can take pretty pictures…but really...not much color out there.

Some say it is a empty page for us to gather our thoughts and actions together on, write ourselves a note on what we want to do in the spring kind of a thing.  It is a long list for gardeners, yard keeping people, and those with swimming pools…but for me…nothing.

White is white…cold, without color except gray and dirty in places or mixed with dirt and muddy at thaw.  Some think winter brings a special solitude that only comes when the earth is sleeping beneath its white clean blanket…. poppycock…snow is cold, kills, threatens, and breaks the spirit of the poor, homeless, elderly and cold…snow is snow and it is white!

I know optimists will hate my feelings and spiritualists will poo poo this as white is “Pure & Holy”, but white is white …it is boring and snow is COLD!

So butt out of the happy thoughts and pray for a thaw and hope for a new color…GREEN… but then again...”its not easy being green!”













Saturday, January 18, 2014

January, Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt- No Ordinary Time, Doris Kearns Goodwin and a reason to read history!


doris
Springwood at Hyde Park 
The cold of winter and the lure of the “ole woodstove” bring on my study of history as usual.  I have finished from this fall until now... a number of books going from the Great Depression on to the Neal Deal and WWII - from 5 by Churchill, two by Eisenhower, 2 on Johnson, and the gem of them all “No Ordinary Time” by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

With January 30th coming this week – the Birthday of Franklin Delano Roosevelt,  I scheduled reading the book to coincide with it.  The book is a complete look at the Roosevelt years brought forth in an intimate way. It is the story of all the people surrounding the President and First Land as well as the story of a fight not only to end the “Depression” but also to end the world conflict.  Leaders like Winston Churchill, King, Hopkins, and Stalin come to life, as do all the characters involved both official and family life.  Doris uses a huge amount of research that weaves the story using the actual words via diaries, press articles, and personal interviews... as well as glimpses of the official record.

Seeing Eleanor as her true self is a stunning glimpse into a woman who drove herself and in part her husband to improve not on the United States but the world.  She often is called is eyes and legs in her travesl…but the book shows that she was also an antagonist that harped at him for causes he otherwise would have let go.

The title actually came from a speech Eleanor gave not the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  The speech came when Roosevelt ran for an unheard of third term.  He maneuvered to get the delegates to put his name up for nomination without actually declaring to run or going to the convention.  The conventioneers resented the fact that he did not come in person and when he wished to have Henry Wallace nominated for Vice President... the convention erupted trying to push a number of other candidates beccoming quite an unsettled and raucous scene. 

So in typical fashion he asked Eleanor to go and speak to them.  Up until that time no other First Lady had addressed a Democratic Convention.  With noise and “carryings-on” they put her to the podium after all the names had been placed in nomination to speak.  As she spoke the convention quieted and she appealed to them to give the President the man he wanted…with the world at war  “this was no ordinary time”.  When she finished, Wallace was unanimously selected.

The book is a New York Times Best Seller, the winner of a Pulitzer Prize and a worthy study that should be read by all… especially the baby boomers and younger folk so that they can get a true picture of those days in America. A time of poverty, strife, segregation, New Deals, rationing, the industrial War effort, women to work, and most of all the intimate story of the man that held it all together.

Quoting the New York Times _”Men will thank God on their knees a hundred years from now, that Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House. “

Even if you don’t agree with his policies reading the book will give you the ability to see that his Presidency was a gift to the people of not only America, but the world at war!  Read or listen to it.  A rare history book that will have you crying with the Nation at the end.

Below is my video of Springwood at Hyde Park where you can visit the Presidents home, Library, and Eleanor's cottage at Val-kill....a day trip visit from CNY a great place to visit with the family.








Sunday, January 12, 2014

Remembering the good times in Old Eaton!


Well I have been under the weather this week...really.  Thanks to some good people I have warm wood and have decided to rest.... So thought I would post this as my blog for the week. It was on another blog spot that I started and stopped and so a few of you have seen it..but still if you need a smile perhaps this will give it to you...its about my good friend Bernie. (A Remembrance)

Bernie was born and raised in Eaton and moved back to Eaton after his mother’s death.  Bernie became an experience and a friend and a person you could tell a hundred stories about.  As a matter of fact there are so many stories about Bernie and when he grew up in Eaton that they could fill a book on their own.  Bernie had a metal plate in his head and had an arm that had been deformed because of an injury. These injuries were caused by one of Bernie’s wild escapades as a boy. But his disabilities never held him down...in his day he soldered intricate silver scrolling on Oneida Silversmith pieces.

In the days of Bernie’s youth, Walt, his father, and many of the men in town worked for the Milk Plant up on one of the hills overlooking the village.  The hill, even to this day, is one of the steepest hills, with an unbelievably steep drop into town.  The Eaton Train Station was located on it, and when the first trains came to Eaton Village, it was said that they had made the longest steepest sustained grade ever built east of the Rocky Mountains.  The town’s parents forbade the children to ride their bikes down the hill, but, of course, that would not stop Bernie.

On this particular morning the boys set out with the lunch pails for the milk station as usual, but after delivering their cargo Bernie decided to take the breath-taking daredevil ride to town.  The boys gasped as they watch Bernie go swooshing down the hill.  Just then a car crossed the intersection at the foot of the hill, and Bernie slammed into it.  The terror that gripped the boys made them slip off and watch the goings on from the safety of some bushes.  The tears flowed and their little bodies shook as after a while, Bernie’s motionless body was put into a hearse that sped away.

I met one of the boys, now an elderly man, one day when I was working in town, and he said he had run home and hid in his bedroom.  He was terrified that his mother would find out he was with Bernie, and he knew for sure it would get him into trouble. He thought that the overwhelming sadness and shock of losing his good friend was too much for his young heart to take.

The story behind the story was that the town’s undertaker was playing cards in the gas station, once a pleasant pastime in that era.  The gas station was at the foot of the hill where the accident took place, and the men, seeing the horrible accident, removed a body from the hearse which the undertaker had parked to play cards, locked the body in the gas station bay, put Bernie into the hearse and beat a fast track to the Utica Hospital, a ride that saved Bernie’s life.

Another time Bernie and one of his friends crawled through the window of the old furniture shop on River Road that made coffins for the Madison County Poor House, which was located a short distance away.  They stole one of the coffin bottoms and took it for a ride on the old pond out behind the buildings, enjoying a sail and playing pirates! 

The stories go on forever, and one I can contribute myself.  When Bernie became ill and couldn’t drive, I would volunteer to take him to the doctor in Oneida. Nick-named “Back Roads Bernie” for a reason, he would make me take this road or that so he could show me this person’s farm, or where he did this or that, basically filling me in with history tidbits, I guess.  On the way back, he would ask me to stop at the Munnsville Legion.  Since his  appointments were early in the morning, our stop at the Legion would be at about 9:30 am.  This tradition of course was not unusual for a farm area, but was for most people like myself.  He would say, “This is Back Street Mary, the writer”, everyone would nod and tell me some history tidbit, I would have a beer on Bernie, and then everyone would buy me a beer, which I didn’t drink, so I was given wooden beer chips to use in the future.

One time I could not take Bernie to Oneida and asked my housemate Chris to do it.   She agreed to do it and asked Bernie what time she should pick him up.   Chris didn’t know better and so took him straight to Oneida.  He looked at her and said, “how come we’re so early; my appointment isn’t for another 45 minutes?” 

Later that night I saw Chris.  She told me what happened and asked if he had ever asked me to stop for a beer at 9 in the morning.  I replied “yes”.  I opened the drawer under the kitchen counter revealing a large number of wooden beer chips and said, “Where do you think all of these came from?”

Bernie was loved by all and regardless of what was wrong...he made me laugh!