So Long School Year!

I tend to keep time time by the passing of the school bus on the Dingman Run Road during the 180-day school year.

On winter mornings you hear it climbing the hill in the cold, still air, lights cutting through the darkness as it lumbers past. 

The big yellow and black bus that collects students on this run is still marked with the number 1. Say "Bus 1" to my kids, and you'll hear the stories about the interminably long ride to and from school - one of the first ones on and one of the last ones off.

The one time I rode a school bus up the Dingman Run Road was the second grade end-of-school field trip and picnic to Mrs. Carley's chicken farm. I was so excited to wear shorts to school and had a new outfit from Carey's Dry Goods. 

Outside working in the flower beds early to avoid the heat, I heard the bus on this its final trip of the spring, right on time a little before 7:00 a.m. this morning. I waved cheerily at the bus driver on the return trip this afternoon - early dismissal on the last day of school. 

I share Golly's memories of his school days penned in 1964.

Six or eight big yellow school buses go by and they recall days of a long time ago when Golly was seven or eight years old.

The point is  – there were no school buses.

Our family lived in the country. The school house, a one-room temple of knowledge, was two miles distant. During the school year the road was a sea of mud much of the time. It was difficult to avoid the quagmire even trying to walk at the side of the wagon tracks.

Always there was the dinner pail to carry and some times the primer, a marvelous book that taught us to read and spell "cat," "rat" and "dog."

The cafeteria – a creation not even dreamed. 

The dinner pail toted along might contain a slice or two of bread with a sparing coat of buter, a hard boiled egg, a pickle and a piece of cake. The writer can recall some boys and girls who had only buckwheat pancakes.

The drinking fountain consisted of a tin pail and a tin dipper and they became rusty quick! The toilets were two back houses and what dirty messes they were!

The word "sanitation" was not used frequently in that day, probably not in the vocabulary of many of the parents of the students, and surely not of the youngsters. It is strange but true that many of us survived.

When school was dismissed at 4:00 o'clock there were those very long two miles to walk homeward. November days were short with perhaps a light fall of snow that retarded homeward progress around and through the mud holes. Next morning the routine was repeated.

If the youngster finally had learned to read and write, spell "Mississippi" and repeat the multiplication table, he or she was pretty well equipped to face the world.

Again the big yellow buses roll by, conveying youngsters to school buildings that cost millions of dollars, wonderfully equipped and staffed by scores of well qualified instructors.

But this is 1964, not 1884.

 

Decoration Day

"Golly" shared this poem nearly every May, often beginning with the words "It comes to mind  as Decoration Day approaches."

Month of bees and birds and song,
Summer soon be coming 'long.
If it comes on time we'd say
This is Decoration Day.

This is when we bring the flowers.
Fresh with heaven's dews and showers,
Monstrous big bouquets and grand,
Scatter them with loving hand.

Proper way to keep the day.
Proper, don't you think so, say?

Those lines and many more were written by Oliver Walcott Grimm who long ago went on to his reward. The man was a carpenter by trade who worked at times in Port Allegany, Galeton and Coudersport but he loved to write and he was fond of the smell of printer's ink.

We never did know that Longfellow man, and we missed out on Riley, the one-time itinerant Indiana sign painter, but we have a very pleasant memory of Oliver Walcott Grimm. Grimm would grind out verse as rapidly as Heinz could turn out pickles, and he was possessed of a quaint sense of humor.

"In the springtime, Gentle Annie
Trailing vines and flowers seeks.
Not so with Potter's Annie,
She goes searching after leeks."

Oliver Walcott Grimm was a character we are glad we knew. He was intelligent, sensitive, temperamental and his love of strong drink was probably the downfall which tended to shorten his life, causing death at an early middle age.  Regardless of his faults we admired him and we think of one teaching of the Elks – "The faults of our brother we write on the sands, their virtues on the tablets of love and memory."

If we knew where rested the remains of this one-time friend, it would please us very much to scatter a few flowers "with loving hand" on his resting place. We shall at least think of him, and most kindly, this Decoration Day.

I have accepted this challenge - all these years later - to know where rest the remains of Oliver Walcott Grimm so that I might be the one to remember with a scatter of flowers.

May Baskets

Do youngsters hang May Baskets nowadays?"

was the question my grandfather "Golly" asked in 1964.

Then he told this story:

"Away back about 1885 it was a custom for a lad to make a May basket. Scraps of wallpaper and a little paste, made with flour and water, were the materials used - even the bale of the basket being of paper.

 The flowers to fill the basket were the wild flowers of the woods nearby.

Then on the first night of the month, the young swain would, under cover of darkness, approach stealthily the home of his young girl friend and hang the basket with its hidden endearing message and flowers on the door.

Lucille, blond and pretty, usually got the Golly guy's basket. The sad part of the story was that Lucille was so popular that Golly was not the only admirer who quietly approached the home, hung the basket on the door knob, gave a timid rap and beat a hasty retreat to a safe distance and watched to see who found the basket. The whole experience was dangerous(?) and it was surely thrilling. 

Golly was a bit afraid of blonde Lucille's father. He was Dempster Partello, known as "Demp" to his friends. We thought at the time he was an ogre. 

Only a few years ago Golly had the pleasure of greeting Lucille, now Mrs. Everett Knapp, Corning, N.Y. Her blond hair has turned to silver but her smile was still pleasing."

the fair Lucille?

 

Spring Ephemerals

My mother gave me this slim volume when I was a teenager, perhaps when my Biology teacher, Mr. Garvelli, assigned a flower collection project in the tenth grade. It's small - only five inches by three inches, likely designed to fit into a  pack or pocket. It was her mother's, she explained, and I should appreciate it. 

Already losing some of its pages due to its worn, deteriorating binding, I dismissed the gift with a teen's disdain though I was wise enough to understand I should keep it.

It disappeared for many years, and turning up recently in the bottom of a liquor store box with papers from the 1970s. It had long since been replaced with newer wildflower guides as my children completed their flower projects in Biology class. But in the 21st Century, we've come to rely on a smart phone app to give us the answers.

On an unseasonably warm Sunday afternoon last week, the woods beckoned and we set off on a familiar path - the Commissioner Trail at the foot of Denton Hill. 

Spring Beauties at first caught my eye close to the path.  But on the rocky hillside, their new green sprouts pushed through last year's leaves and the leaves of the years before, their delicate flowers a pale pink blush in all that brown and gray. And far above, the promise of this year's leaves in the trees.

Then I remembered, Spring Beauties were the first  flower I identified from my grandmother's little wildflower book.  That page is one that has been lost from her book. But the page with this flower is still there.

Ill Scented Wake Robin?

Dog-Toothed Violet
Yellow Adder's Tongue
Trout Lily
Fawn Lilly

Perhaps the Downy Yellow Violet
"prefers for its habitat dry, hilly woods, often by the side of rushing brooks,
but not usually where the soil is moist."

Common Dandelion
"Although an immigrant to our land, it has extended its range from
the Atlantic to the Pacific and is as well, or better known,
as any other wild flower that we have. As everyone knows, its green,
jagged leaves form a staple article of food and can be purchased in
markets in spring at so much per peck. "

And here is more food from the forest floor - wild leeks!

"the various species belong to this genus (allium)
are very strongly scented, pungent herbs
growing from a coated bulb."

Though my mother isn't up to a hike on the Commissioner just now, I shared with her my delight of the spring woods as we drove along a country road so she could enjoy the coming of spring from the car.

"Do you still have the wildflower book that was Mother's?" she asked.

"I do ... and I even know where it is," I answered.

"Good, that was precious to her," she said after a moment. 

Silver Carols

My grandfather often wrote of his childhood, especially in his later years. Here's one from 1960.

"When I was a school youngster we used to sing a skating song. The words of the chorus come to mind:

"Off, off to the ice we go, on, on with our skates so bright. 

Off, off to the ice we go, so merry, so happy and light."

There was a song, too, for the springtime and it started with the words:

"Spring is on the mountain, Verdure on the hill;

Springing from the fountain, runs the silver rill.

Modest flowers are blooming on the velvet mead'

All the air perfuming – brother, sow the seed."

The tunes come to mind. Maybe it is good I cannot vocalize through these words.

Well one good result of those songs was learning of two new words – verdure and mead!

For summer there was a seasonal ditty that went:

"Our boat is trimmed with sail and oar, and all prepared to leave the shore;

How pleasantly we'll sail along and listen to the boatman's song.

There may have been an autumn song but if so my memory is faulty and it does not come to mind. We do remember song book title was "Silver Carols.

Kinda wish we had a copy of that old song book. I would take it to Golly's Folly and when alone in the wilds, I might turn loose my vocal organs to make the welkin ring in the picturesque Nine Mile Valley, with only chipmunks to make up the audience."

Though it's 63 years too late and the old man has been gone for nearly 54 of those years, I found a copy of Silver Carols in its entirety in a place he could never imagine in his wildest dreams - this man who began life shortly after the Civil War and lived to see man land on the moon.

Fishing Season

Long ago trout haul
for my father

Fishing fever is in the air, regardless of snowbanks and low temperatures and all who have ever suffered from the malady are subject to its attack. There is one cure and only one cure for this peculiar disease - fishing.

The season is early this year  and more than one fisherman enthusiast is wondering if the snow will be gone and the flood waters down to something like normal when that glorious day arrives - the first day of the fishing season.

Many an old timer, who has whipped some of the more than 700 miles of uncontaminated trout streams within the borders of Potter County has had the fever for weeks. Rods have been taken from winter quarters, joined up and tested, taken apart, rewound and varnished and again put together and tested. Baskets have been cleaned up and reels oiled. The book book of flies has been inspected and admired in fact.

Potter County streams are calling - the finest and purest streams on earth. In a short time the festive leek, famous as a Potter County vegetable, will soon complicate fishing fever and many a party will take to the woods and the streams and luscious leek patches, going back to nature. They will enjoy the health-giving outdoor life and the trout and leeks and be better men - and women for it. -- The Potter Enterprise, 1926

... from 1941

From Golly Column, 1936

Trout fishing season will open before the next issue of this paper.

What a lot of lies will be told!

What a lot of big ones will get away!

Sometimes we wonder at that saying, "Once a fisherman, always a liar.:" We really do not believe it holds good.

We have known Lynn Soper to promise trout for a supper for eight or ten people. He made good, too, with all the crowd could eat. He didn't lie about the trout or where he caught them. As a matter of fact, he did not tell where he found such good fishing, but months later it leaked out that he fished in hatchery ponds near Port Allegany. Lynn's word is good 100%.

Teddy Kiehle, never to our knowledge, told a lie about the fish he caught or the big ones that got away. Teddy was famous as a builder of split bamboo fly rods until age dimmed his vision.

But Teddy almost failed to make good with a deal he made with us some years ago. It was our first fishing trip with Teddy. We were frank enough to admit we couldn't do much with a rod, but we could cook and serve up the pancakes and hash and leeks and coffee. 

We remember well Teddy's reply: "That's fine you do the cooking and I'll catch the trout!"

By golly, we were on the stream – Cross Fork – three days and Teddy caught two trout. Then we declared that we could cook better than Teddy could fish or we would have starved.

Regardless of the fish caught, few or many - there was never a better pal along the trout streams or in the tent pitched under the trees or seated about the evening campfire, than Teddy. We have fond memories of his interesting tales, his droll humor and his wilderness wisdom.

The Old Road

Once we went to the camp in winter. It was after the state had started to build the ski lodge because my dad parked car in the new parking lot. It was before they fixed the main road and changed access to the camp, because then we could have parked on the side of the road and just slid down the driveway on the sled.

It was very cold that day. It must have been late in the winter for the snow was crusty on top and granular underneath. It must have been a Sunday because my dad worked at the store six days a week.
Access to our camp was by the "old road" that ran parallel to the highway, just down over the bank. It served as a driveway to the camps back several hundred yards from the road. on state-owned land. Now I think it must have been a railroad grade during the time when the campsite was a lumber camp.
My mother had made chili to take with us and had used ground venison instead of ground beef. My dad put the pot of chili on the sled, along with some other supplies we'd need to have our meal and we set off on the old road.

It was quiet and still in the woods that day, the only sound came from our footfalls through the snow. With each step, you could anticipate the crust giving way and then the yielding of the softer snow underneath.
Our trip down the old road seemed to take forever. In summer, my dad let Chris or Tim practice driving on the old road. "Watch for the ruts," he'd say. Tim and Chris didn't come on this winter trip. Just Mom and Dad and Paul and me.
I was surprised to see the outhouse out in the open on its pathway as we moved toward our target. In the summer, it was hidden from view by leaves on the trees. The cold was creeping through my soggy mittens but we were almost there.
Turning off at the pathway that led to camp, the pot slipped off the sled, tipped and chili spread across the snow like red lava. My father was annoyed but mother said there was still plenty to go around.
The thought of the deer coming upon the bonus of chili on top of the snow worried me. Somehow it was wrong for the deer to feast on chili without knowing they were eating their brothers or sisters.

It's like when I make chili with TVP granules instead of ground meat and I don't tell.