A Shelter In The Woods

I've come across so many, many evocative stories my grandfather told about his 'shack in the woods' along the Nine Mile in Potter County. It was this piece, written in 1965 just after the camp had been sold, that sent me, again last week to that spot he so loved. And he sent me a couple of messengers to welcome my arrival on that sunny Sunday afternoon - two little chipmunks scampered in front of me as I made my way down the path, a special something tucked under my arm. (Read about his chipmunks here.)

Golly's Folly, aged 35 years, passed away Saturday. During its existence there were many joyous events, many happy gatherings of family and friends, some petty annoyances and one tragic conflagration that destroyed the original hideaway in the Nine Mile woodland, too the lives of two keen young men, and seriously burned two others. The fire occurred April 15, 1954.

Golly has striven for 11 years to erase that sad tragedy from his mind and Time has mercifully given its assistance.

The date of the lease of the land on which the original building was erected was April 23, 1930. That was a joyous day and every hour that could be spent away from duties of producing the Enterprise each week, was spent in clearing a spot in the woods, near a marvelous gushing spring of pure and almost ice-cold water, to erect a shelter.

Money was lacking to hire help and it was a case of do-it-yourself. There was the cutting of trees and the digging stumps with pickaxe, shovel and crowbar to clear a spot for the 16 x 24 camp.

A foundation was dug for a fireplace. When eventually a stone mason appeared to build the fireplace he hesitated about erecting one on a foundation he had not built, fearful it might not sustain the tons and tons of stone and brick. It stands today, true and level.

The brick for the chimney was from paving brick. It was at the time of Coudersport building a new bridge over the river on Second Street. The brick pavement was torn up 200 feet or more on either side of the new bridge and there was so much brick the borough did not know what to do with it. It was given away.

Golly paid only for hauling the brick to the cabin site and there it is still in service. It was surely a lucky break and it held down costs.

Lumber, much less expensive than at present, came from the mill of the Gray Chemical Company at Roulette. The late Monta C. Burt headed that industry. He was a good friend of Golly and made prices as low as possible. Cherry lumber was priced the same as hemlock.

Roofing and nails came from Taubert's Hardware, and the late James R. Taubert, another good friend, made prices reasonable as well as extending credit.

It was necessary to hire a carpenter to build door and window frames, but outside of this and mason work, it was amateur building all through.

How happy we were, before winter, to have the place enclosed and useable, and cheering flames heating and lighting it!

Having worked on a close budget, estimated at $500, we were again happy that we had exceeded that amount by only about $20. However for years there was the work of grading the grounds and seeding, planting evergreen trees – that deer destroyed – and scores of other jobs.

There were scores of parties – some mixed and some for men only – all happy gatherings.

Finally came a time when we envisioned a miniature lake. It was but a dream at first, but the dream eventually came true. It adds to the joy of living in the woods, to observc a wood duck or a beaver there, or a deer walking daintily to the small body of water for a drink, or to watch a kingfisher dive for a minnow or listen to a chorus of spring peepers trilling their mating song. The lake cost money and hours and hours of labor but is has been worth all of it.

When that sad day in April 1954 came, much was destroyed but the big chimney marked the spot, the lake was still there, and the wonderful spring was sending forth its ever-flowing cold water.

Golly pondered.

The small insurance was promptly paid but was only a pittance toward erecting a new building. The debris left was an awesome mess and building costs had doubled since 1930.

It was decided to rebuild, and with willing helpers of the family, the work was finally completed. It cost plenty but a much better building resulted.

But old relentless time has taken its toll and Golly is no longer able to spend time at Folly. It was decided to sell.

Saturday the deal was completed. There is no longer a Golly's Folly. Just as we had no further use for the sign, "Golly's Folly," it disappeared. A vandal evidently wanted it to add to his other tokens of thievery.

It was not easy to hand over the key in exchange for the good-sized check, but it was done. Now Golly must be content with the memories – wonderful memories – of 35 years of his folly in building a shelter in the woods.

It was the sign story that caught my eye for whether it was taken by a well-meaning family member or friend or indeed by a thief who had second thoughts about being such a scoundrel, I have no idea. I only know that it's in my possession now, given to me by my brother Tim who had been charged with its safekeeping. The paint's faded and chipping but I carried it with me to the Nine Mile on Sunday afternoon, and for just a brief moment, it rested there on the back porch, just below the spot where it hung for so many years.

And speaking of the sign, I have the story of the sign to tell in a future blog post.

Adams Confectionery

 

Have you ever looked up at the three-story building in the middle of the Main Street block between Second and Third Streets? There in letters long faded by decades of sun and rain, you can read "Adams Confectionery."

A friend who has stood on Main Street in recent weeks holding signs for the various demonstrations against the atrocities being visited upon our nation by the Trump administration. asked me, a long time Couderean, if it had been a candy factory. And so began the quest.

The story begins with one John Adams who is listed here in this story from 1916 as being from the "Greek-American Store."

Here's more about Mr. Adams' Greek-American Store in an advertisement from 1917. And notice the location at the corner of Main and First Streets. I am thinking that would put it at the site of the present-day Coudersport Pharmacy.

Later in the same year, Mr. Adams was adding a metropolitan appearance to his Greek-American store.

In 1923, we're introduced to a new location for the Palace of Sweets.

And finally, here is Adams' Confectionery (late 1923)

Mr. Adams' success was short-lived, however as the following notice appeared in early 1924.

It didn't take long for someone else to re-open Candyland but after this article in 1924, the trail goes cold.

And as for Mr. Adams, here's a mention of him from 1936 though it seems the reporter was not sure if it was the same John P. Adams?

How Small We Are!

Miss Green was my fifth grade teacher. I cried on the summer afternoon my mother came home from work as a linotype operator at The Potter Enterprise with the news that my name appeared on the list of students assigned to Miss Green. I had been holding out hope that Mr. Anderson would be my teacher and that Debbie Beier and I would be in the same room. I was bitterly disappointed.

I settled in to Miss Green's classroom on the second floor of the downtown school that fall and learned her rhythms and also learned not to snicker at her singing voice for she made me stand in front of the class one fateful day. "Janie Heimel, if you think you can sing so well, come up here and sing a solo." It still brings a flush of shame.

my artist brother Steve doctored this
magazine cover to imply Shepard was
looking at a playboy model.

It was the miracle of space flight that captured Miss Green's attention that winter of 1962. She told us about Mercury program, with its lofty goals of manned spaceflight. She told us of the bravery of Alan Shepard as he rode into space in Freedom 7 the previous spring, setting the stage as excitement for John Glenn's trip around our planet built that winter.  Friendship 7, a fitting name for his spaceship, and I can still hear the inflection of excitement in her low-pitched voice as she shared that bug-eyed look that commanded our attention and captured my imagination. 

It was Miss Green who made sure we took our turns in the auditorium as the drama of John Glenn's daring trip around the earth played out on the lone television on the auditorium stage. Others may correct me, but I remember cheering as he was cleared for the third of three orbits and the splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean, all narrated by that most trusted of our generation's icons, Walter Cronkite of CBS News.

Who can forget those moments of silence as communications ceased when the capsule plummeted toward earth? And finally the voice of John Glenn, our All-American hero, "Boy, that was a real fireball!"

I was a teenager, watching the report on the console television in Susan Frederick's comfortable living room when the Apollo 1 rocket blew up in a fireball on the launch pad at Cape Kennedy, killing the three astronauts aboard. That was 1967.

It was 1969, just after I graduated from high school that the trio of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins set off for the moon. Cronkite's trusted voice told us of touchdown on that warm summer night. "Man on the moon, oh boy," he said as he moved the familiar glasses from his face to wipe his eyes, much like he had in announcing the death of JFK just five years earlier.

NASA's recent Artemis II mission to the moon unfolded for me mostly on the internet - something Miss Green likely never imagined. The old excitement - and apprehension - all came flooding back to this baby boomer. The delight of the four brave space travelers - Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen - the sharing of spectacular image after image, the seriousness of their mission and our collective breath-holding as they made their way back around from the dark side of the moon and then, finally to the splashdown, this one in the Pacific.

Since then, the Artemis II astronauts have been making the rounds of talk shows and podcasts telling their story - NASA's story. 

My fifth grade self could likely have been one of the children asking questions of the astronauts in this episode the The Daily by the New York Times.

Questions like: "Why did you go on this mission when it was super duper, duper, duper risky?" and "Can you drink soda in space?" and "What is it like to go to the bathroom in space?" and finally, "who farts the most in space?"

And then there was this: "My question for the Artemis crew is, how do you think people will look back at this mission in 50 years?" That's a question Miss Green might have posed, perhaps thinking of us eager fifth-graders who would still be on this planet 50 years hence.

This one, the red-faced solo singer, writes here, 64 years later,  looking back, looking forward, still marveling, still in awe of all things space.

Gleamite

Living in the same town (such a small town!) where I grew up, nearly every day a long-forgotten memory surfaces and demands I give it attention. Such it was with Gleamite.

My childhood chum - still a chum today - lived on North West Street in a big foursquare that was shingled in the palest shade of pink - perhaps it was salmon. And her father owned a rambling building that was tucked up against the hillside just a couple of houses down on First Street. The Gleamite building she called it.

I stored that word away in the back of my brain until Monday when, after thumbing through the 1981 Potter Enterprise newspapers upstairs at the Potter County Historical Society, I wandered over to take a look at the old post office boxes. And there it was!

And next to that jug, this advertising piece was propped.

Old newspapers tell me "Gleamite Sold Now in 41 States" according to the 1931 headline.
"The demand for Gleamite is rapidly growing. It is a floor cleaner and more, and more big concerns are learning its value. It is now sold in 41 states and has the endorsement of five of the leading floor manufacturers... the growth of this industry leads the Enterprise to the opinion that a few smaller businesses might be developed right here in Coudersport, rather than to bring in larger industries. Every man can make his own opportunities at his own door step."

Gleamite ads like this one began to appear in the local newspaper in the 1940s.

 

And this one, also from 1940.

There was a fire at the Gleamite plant in 1946.

And as the newspaper reports, Gleamite soon was back in business.

from the Cleveland Plain Dealer

Gleamite was sold to Howard Lincoln & A.R. Thompson in 1951 and was listed in Mr. Lincoln's obituary in 1973 as one of the companies he owned.

My chum doesn't recall when her father purchased the building. "The building was empty and out of commission. Dad stored appliances and stuff in there." She goes on, "I loved climbing around on the crumbling porch and deck in the back. I don't think I ever went inside."

From there the trail goes cold. How did yesterday's housewives ever give up their friendship with Gleamite?

Spring Ritual

 

Nine Mile Leeks

The leeks were calling this afternoon as the skies cleared. Leeks - known as ramps in West Virginia - grow in the wet areas of Potter County's woods.

It's a bit of a family tradition, gathering leeks in the spring. They are plentiful adjacent to the camp that my family owned through the early 1960s and that's where we harvested enough to make a leek dip to share with friends this evening. (I wrote here about Potter County leeks a couple of years ago.) 

Harvesting leeks was a tradition in Arthur's family too. Often we took trips to the Knox Lot, the family's woodlot on Fishing Creek Road where they grow in hollows where rivulets spring up in the spring. 

The Metzgers were among those stalwarts that served hundreds of folks for leek dinners at the nearby Hebron Grange Hall in the 1950s, continuing through the early 1960s.

Here's how my grandfather told the tale in his weekly "Golly" column.

Almost time once more for leek dinners but –

The old original event of the kind, the one that started the whole leek dinner idea, will not be peddling leeks this year.

The project was started by Hebron Grange a dozen or more years ago to augment the bank account of the organization. It went over to the public with such success that each year more and more came to dine on the odoriferous greens, plus other splendid foods, and the project became a burden.

A dozen or more Grange families might be assigned the duty of combing the woods, each digging a bushel of leeks, cleaning and washing them. It was not a small task. Each year the crowds increased.

Finally the Grangers decided to resign from leek gathering. Other organizations and public eating establishments went into the business and there are plenty of places where a leek supper may be enjoyed but –

Not served by the famous Hebron Grange.

Here's a post about the Hebron Leek Dinners that I wrote for our farm blog. 

Hippiedom

Sixteen-year-old Rowan posed the question, "Grandma, were you a hippie?" This was after he accepted my offer to put a patch on his dungarees, and after I had kidded his little sister about the long tear in her baggy blue jeans. "They're torn jeans," she told me. "They came that way." 

I heard my mother's voice in my head, "who would buy jeans with holes in them" as I took those same jeans out of the dryer and folded them.

I've always been a little uneasy about wearing the hippie badge but when Rowan asked, I said yes without a pause. My daughter was there for this exchange and I wondered exactly how she processed that answer. Our firstborn whose diapers I proudly hung on the backyard clothesline to dry in the cold Potter County sunshine, the little girl whose homemade whole wheat teething biscuits were stored in a canister labeled "Kate's cookies." That still brings a chuckle from my friend and fellow hippie, Louise. Those days of "grow your own," and homesteading and food co-ops.

The view of hippies from this generation - Gen Whatever - has none of the nuance of that time we lived. It seems there's a narrow definition of the word that marks hippies of this generation - the kids who adopt the fashions of the 60s - bell bottoms, tie dye and Indian cotton.

I was reminded as I watched to a documentary about the "The Farm" in Tennessee, hippie comes the word hip - up to date and in the know. Much like woke today, it means different things to different people.

I thought for a time during my late teenage years that I wanted to live communally - that is in a commune, much like the legendary "Farm. " Introduced to everything hippie by my elder brother and his wife, we once took refuge in a commune where I unrolled my sleeping bag on a splintery wooden floor in a second-story bedroom in an old farmhouse with no plumbing. We ate food prepared in a kitchen of sorts, an outbuilding with a giant woodstove in the middle. It was on that trip, I had my first taste of yogurt - Dutch Apple from Dannon, purchased in a food co-op in the village Woodstock, New York.

And it felt idyllic, the countryside, the garden with its whimsical artistic touches amid the long rows of  beans and kale and okra, the easels of the artists in the backyard. It was a quick visit, just overnight, and it was a long time ago.Those memories are misty, colored by the retelling from that time and that place. A stone from the driveway where Bob Dylan lived and chocolate ice cream with the clear, sweet orzata syrup.

Later on that same trip, my sister-in-law took me shopping for clothing to accompany me to college. And I bought a long, green trench coat that dragged on the ground and a very short plaid dress with a long pointed color, paired with brightly colored tights. Neither choice fit in with the starched white world of the nursing school I had chosen. And from that environment I fled back home for a time and put in motion the steps that brought me today to my daughter's home in the mountains of Arizona with the tall Ponderosa pines in the backyard and that tall young man facing his own future, asking me about hippies.

And so, yes, I was - we were, Arthur and me - hippies of a sort. And we still are I guess, my hair long and gray, and Arthur with his pony tail. We still grow a big vegetable garden and our bookshelves still hold those hippie tomes - The Owner Built House, The Tassajara Bread Book, the original hand lettered Moosewood Cookbook.

And you know, Rowan, your grandmother did go to Woodstock. 

A Few Words About Fishing

A delight this morning to look out my attic office window and see a fat-breasted robin in the scraggly white birch tree, lately populated by chickadees, juncos and starlings. Spring! Not so delightful is the thought that he/she might be eyeing the porch as a nesting site. 

Seems like I'm channeling my grandfather's writing style this morning, the first day of fishing season in Pennsylvania. Fishing season was celebrated annually in his Golly column as he enticed newspaper readers to return to the streams and rivers of his beloved Potter County.

My angler grandfather, likely in the early 1900s.
That dog, whose name is lost in history, appears in several old photographs.

From 1950:

Now that fishin' season is nearing and the question of trout limits during the years often arises, Golly may tell you that previous to 1901 there was no limit on trout in Pennsylvania – except one's ability to catch them.

In 1901 the limit was set at 50.

That was the law until 1909 when a cut to 40 was made. In 1917 another reduction was made and 25 was the legal take.

This lasted until 1933 when it was made 20, and two years later the limit was reduced to 15.

It was 11 years ago – 1939 – that the limit was dropped to 10 and there it remains at the present time.

And Golly might remark that ten six-inch trout will overfeed a large family.

FYI: Fast forward to 2026,  anglers are allowed to keep up to five fish daily as long as they are seven inches or longer.

 From 1954 – 

Opening day of fishing season will see hundreds – yes, thousands – of fishermen along the trout streams of Penn's Woods, and the 700 miles of uncontaminated brooks, creeks and rivers of Potter County will have their full share.

Woodland camps, at remote locations away back in the wilds, will be occupied once more, having been deserted since the close of the hunting season or even longer. Smoke will pour forth from many chimneys and in some instances tents will indicate that fishermen are along the streams of the vicinity.

If your sense of smell is at all acute, the olfactory cell will tell you at a distance that coffee is brewing and bacon is sizzling in the pan over the open fire.

Life can be grand.

Life can be wonderful.

And this from 1959 

Betcha all the fishermen have their rods limbered up and ready for trout fishing next week!

Fine!

Betcha there are a lot of big fat speckled trout lurking in sequestered pools, just aching to grab a lure, worm or fly or other bait – and eventually squirm in a well buttered frying pan just to make you happy.

Great sport is trout fishing.

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