Starting Over

Not caring to go into detail in this media, suffice it to say I thought it sagacious to discontinue my former blog.  Nearly all material that was ever published on that blog is yet available within my home computer.  I have it saved and am working on producing it in a yearly book form.

This blog will begin more or less in the same style as the former blog.  I hope that there will be good folks that will enjoy my sometimes rambling.  Much of it is for those who are mostly younger than I about events that transpired, sometimes in the distant past, to people that many of the readers will recognize as ancestors, or related to those.

Up there in the right hand top corner you will notice a music symbol and the word “Beginnings.”  (That means it’s a beginning for me as I have never previously sang in public, nor do I believe it is a particularly wise thing for me to do.)  Clicking on either, with your volume on (but not too high) will bring forth from your very own computer the melodious tones of myself with one verse of an old Hank Williams song entitled, “I Can’t Help It,” that I recorded this week.  The photo was taken December 20, 2008.  The guitar is a 1957 Gibson ES-125 Electric Spanish, originally purchased at Calipari’s Music Store in Potsdam, NY by my uncle John Suhockey, in 1957.  The store burned in August 1980.  My brother Ron bought the guitar from Uncle John, and in turn I bought it from Ron shortly before his death May 26, 1984.

I wish to give credit where credit is due.  The lady named Donna Lawton Royce, is my youngest daughter, and I am extremely proud to make that statement.  She is the unseen brains behind the inner workings of this site.  She designed it, set it up, and does all sorts of things to it, that I am unable to do for myself.  She never gets tired of me asking her to change a color slightly, or move some small detail a fraction of an inch.  Thank you kindly, daughter.

Snake Hunting

Give or take a year it was about the fall of 1972, or maybe ‘73.  Several of us had gotten together for a morning of rabbit chasin’.  I remember my brother Bob was along, also my brother-in-law Wendy, and two or three others.  Oh yes, my brother Fred was there too.

There are two sizes of beagles.  The larger are known as 15”, while the smaller are 13”, denoting their height.  I kept several of the latter.  After all the guys were gathered at my place, I turned the dogs loose from the pen.  This always got them excited as they realized a hunt was in store whenever that happened.  The next few minutes were taken up watching the fool dogs as they sniffed everything in sight, including each other, even though they had all been in the same pen.

After the newness wore off I started my ancient 1946 Jeep, we all climbed in it, or on it, and off to the woods we headed with hounds strung out behind.  After several minutes of traveling we reached our destination.  We broke out some coffee from thermos jugs as we stood around in the chilly early morning air awaiting our hounds to open up announcing they were hot on the trail of a moving-on bunny.

I don’t really recall how we did with our hunting on that given day, but I don’t think we were ever skunked, so we must have got at least one or two.  Finally it was time to say, “Enough for one day,” and gathering the dogs in we began to walk toward the Jeep.  By this time the sun had risen high enough in the morning sky to warm the day somewhat from its earlier crispness.  As we walked Fred spotted a snake crawling under a rock.

For lack of anything better to do, he latched onto the rock half frozen into the ground.  It was possibly a foot in diameter or so.  Fred was quite a powerful man and with seeming ease he rolled the rock up out of its hole in the ground to reveal a writhing mass of garter snakes all wrapped up in a moving ball.  There had to be at least 25 or 30 of them all in a hole under that rock.  They were apparently nested there for the winter season.  After the rock was moved, and the sun warmed them a bit, they began to crawl loose from the bundle.  They crawled off in various directions to whatever their fate may have been after having their nest disturbed.

I had seen this same sort of thing once before.  When I was a teenager, I was plowing a meadow one fall, and plowed a ball of snakes to the surface.  They too had been under a rock.  In slow motion they had all crawled back under a freshly plowed furrow, apparently to survive the winter there.

Oops!

Wendy and I decided to go for a snowmobile ride to Bert’s to see if they cared to go riding for the evening.  By the roads, and that was our chosen method, it was about ten miles or so.  When road traveling we usually kept a rather sedate pace adhering to speed limit rules, until nearing our destination that is.  The last short part of a journey was almost always a race to be the first one there.  This night was no different.

Bert lived on a dirt road with exceptionally little traffic.  Wendy and I were about ½ mile from his farm when Wendy gave his Johnson 440 full throttle.  Of course, I couldn’t let this challenge go unanswered so I did also with my SnoJet 440 SST.  We were side by side at about 70 mph with myself on the left.  With no warning of any sort Wendy’s sled began tossing end for end, a$$ over teakettle, down the road.  Wendy was thrown off, between our sleds, sliding on his belly.  To keep from running over him I climbed the left snowbank about 7’ high, and remained on top of it.

To my left only feet away was woods, while to my right was a wonderful tableau.  There was Wendy sliding along on his belly.  His speed had started out at about 70mph but was decreasing, as was mine, and his sled was still turning end for end and shedding parts each time it hit the road with a thud.

Staying atop that snowbank was about kin to tightrope walking but I managed, and after a while we all came to a halt.  After we backtracked with my sled picking up stray parts we once more returned to the crippled sled.  It seems the right ski had abandoned its moorings and flew the coop.  The stub ski shaft dug into the frozen road, and started the loop-the-loops of the flying sled.  Wendy packed the extra parts on his sled and we more sedately rode the short distance to Bert’s with Wendy holding his sled up on one ski.

A few minutes of repair work on the ski, throw away a few items like smashed windshield and such, and we were good to go for another wonderful evening of winter riding enjoyment.

Snowmobiling

A group of around twenty went to the Massawepie Lake area of the Adirondack Mountains, which is off NY Rte #3 between Cranberry Lake and Tupper Lake.  This would have been about the mid-1970s.

I owned a 440 SnoJet.  My brother Bert had a Skidoo TNT of unknown engine size.  My brother-in-law Wendy had a Johnson 440. Each of the three of us kinda thought we had the fastest machine of the group.

It was a beautiful, warmish, sun-brightened, remarkably nice, coming on springtime sort of a day, late in the season.  A bunch of us climbed Mount Arab with our sleds, and then climbed the fire tower atop to look over the surrounding area.  As the shadows lengthened we proceeded back to the vehicles parked near Lake Massawepie.

As we neared the lake Bert, Wendy, and myself steered down onto its frozen surface.  We had about a mile of flat, frozen, level surface ahead so, of course, we cut ‘em loose.  We were traveling at full throttle nearly neck and neck along our self-proclaimed race track.  Suddenly we, all at about the same moment, spotted open water ahead.  Mind you we were traveling at least 70 mph.  The water seemed to be an opening coming in from the left.  I was in the center with Bert to my left, and Wendy to my right.  Bert headed toward the bank on his left.  Wendy, headed to his right toward mid-lake.  I followed Wendy.

Wendy and I continued on a few hundred feet to the end of the lake and stopped just past the water’s edge.  Bert was nowhere to be seen.  Wendy climbed a lifegaurd tower remaining from much warmer weather, looked around, and told me he couldn’t see any sign of Bert.  I hollered as loud as I could, “Bert, where are you?”

A faint voice came from somewhere, “Over here in the water.”

Wendell and I raced back to the open water, but could see nothing.  As we looked at each other, not knowing what to think, Bert’s voice spoke again, “I’m over here on shore, in a creek.”

Bert had made it to shore, but was traveling at such a high rate of speed he could not stop when he came to the creek that was creating the open water where it fed into the lake.  His sled had went into the creek, and only the tail end was above water.  The three of us hauled it out, and, believe it or not, that fool thing restarted and the three of us, much chagrined, rode slowly back to the vehicles.

The Sky Is Falling

Harold Egbert Camping is a self-proclaimed prophet.  You never heard of him?  Well, I never did either until today.  However as he has proclaimed that May 21, 2011 is the end of the earth due to mankind’s sins, and only Christian believers will ascend to Heaven.  I suppose he will be big in the news May 22, 2011, one way or the other.  Its merely a question of where you will be when you read the news.

As his July 19^th birthday coincides with mine I thought I ought to take special note, but then I found out he is 17 years older than me, and I’m getting addle-brained with senility, so I wondered where that leaves him.

Before you get too worried about your sudden demise or unending trip, depending on your viewpoint and whatever moral issues you may have, you should be aware that he also predicted the very same outcome back on September 6, 1994.  He doesn’t mention that much any more.

I’m guessing you might better buy a lottery ticket than worry.  If he’s only going to predict a date every 17 years or so, my guess is the lottery odds can’t be any worse than his odds of being right.  Besides, if I have a choice in the matter, I’ll go for a winning lottery ticket any day, versus Armageddon.

Statistics

My daddy told me once that figures don’t lie, but liars do figure.  I’ve no idea what he meant by that, but surely it must have some bearing on something.

A counter on this blog tells me that pages have been loaded a total of 7,929 times during the year 2010, or an average of 22 times a day.

It also records that 4,554 people visited during the year, for an average of 12 a day.  In keeping with the first statement though, those figures do not tell the entire truth.  It is possible that 4,554 separate individuals visited the site one time.  It is also just as possible that one individual visited the site 4,554 times.  Neither is likely correct.

Over the past 2 weeks an average of 24 people a day visited.  That means a lot of days earlier in the year lesser numbers must have come to this fountain of lore and knowledge, if the year’s average was 12 daily.

During the calendar year I wrote 303 pieces of trivial nonsense.  One would guess that left 62 days with nothing new, but that is not necessarily true either.  Each time I presented more than one blog in a day, that would seem be one other day I presented nothing.  That too, is not quite a factual statement.  I think I recall placing three articles one day.  Some more statiscal nonsense.

I took a statistics course in college about ten years ago.  Sorry Mrs. Beggs, I didn’t learn too pretty good.

Dixie Rose Lawton



February 25, 1940—January 2, 1942.

I’m starting to write this about 1:30 in the afternoon, January 2, 2010.  It was approximately this same time of the day, 68 years ago, that a short series of events began that led to the death of my younger sister Dixie.  Although it is with special reverence I think of her on this date, there are few days in a year that I don’t dwell on her presence for at least a few moments.

I was but three and a half years old, and she hadn’t welcomed her second birthday yet, so memories are dim after all these many years, but fate stepped in and she left this earth.  The photo shows she was a beautiful child, and deserved a longer stay before succumbing to the fate we all have in store, but it was not to be. 

The photo was originally taken some time in 1941.  It was black and white, taken with a Kodak Box Camera.  Our parents had it colorized and turned into a much larger picture which always hung on the wall in a very prominent spot on our living room wall.  It was surrounded by an oval gilded frame.

Our father died in 1975, and mother traded her home some time later to my brother Fred and his wife Susan for their mobile home which was in the same yard.  Mother asked that the picture remain hanging in its accustomed spot.  Fred stated from time to time, although he never knew her, her death being before his birth, it was his sister, and the rightful place for her remembrance was on that wall.  Fred died in 2002, but the picture remained there after his death, and remains there still.

Dixie, I’ve always missed you.