End of an era

Posted on 22 August 2011 by Bill Paine

My mother’s maternal family has deep roots in a small town on the Hudson River called Garrison.  When she was a child, almost all of her 21 first cousins lived within a mile or so of each other there, and throughout their lives the cousins have kept in touch with frequent family reunions.

Benjamin Reunion at Ienia 2010

I remember as a child myself traveling up to Garrison for a Thanksgiving dinner or some other family occasion.  My great-grandmother—we called her “Gongi”—ruled the family from her house Ienia, a huge late-Victorian house that once housed her nine children, governesses, guests, maids, cooks and the rest of the multitudes that large households of the day required.  Gathered for the meal would be the nine children, their spouses, the 22 grandchildren with their spouses, and way down at the end (out the door into the hallway at this point) were all of us great-grands with assorted babysitters and keepers.

Fifty people would be present, and everyone would shake their heads going, “Isn’t it too bad so few could make it this year!”

In time, as the older generations passed on, the big house was sold (today it belongs to a former Governor of New York), but a piece of the original property with what had been a guest cottage remained in the family, eventually becoming my Aunt Jan’s home.  My mother frequently went up to stay with her sister Jan, and over the years her house was the venue for many family events and reunions.

Now, sadly but inevitably, that is coming to an end.  Jan is finding the upkeep of her house and property increasingly difficult as she gets older, and so she made the decision to move closer to one of her kids—one’s in Alaska, the other is in Florida.  Alaska is a bit… chilly… so Florida got the nod.

So this is the end of an era in the family.  There will always be happy memories associated with the place in my mind, and of course I can continue to visit many of my ancestors in the churchyard of St. Philips Church, but there’s still a good deal of heaviness in my heart over the loss of tangible piece of my past.

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Willsboro with Aunt Molly

Posted on 8 July 2011 by Bill Paine

It’s been my Aunt Molly’s custom in recent years to go up to Willsboro in late June/early July and rent Flat Rock Camp for a week.  This year, that plan was upset when it became clear that the Camp couldn’t be cleaned up after the flooding damage in time for her scheduled stay—it was barely made ready in time for my Great-Aunt Frisky, the next scheduled occupant.  Since I wanted to go up to Willsboro anyway, I decided to be Molly’s chauffeur, driving to her place near Rochester and taking her from there to stay at Green Bay.

I left New York City on Thursday, June 23rd, and drove via Binghampton and Syracuse (NY-17, I-86, I-81, I-90) to Rochester.  I’ve never been to that part of the state before, so I was looking forward to getting a feel for the scenery—unfortunately, I was in and out of thick rain squalls until I was nearly in Syracuse.  The stretch along the Thruway was pretty boring, as you can imagine, except for a brief glimpse of some old Erie Canal ruins along the side of highway.

Molly lives in a fairly luxurious retirement complex called The Highlands at Pittsford (Pittsford is a suburb of Rochester), where she has a two bedroom apartment.  We had dinner at her daughter Pam’s house, located a short drive away, along with Pam’s husband and kids.  I spent the night in Molly’s guestroom, and then Friday morning we headed up to Willsboro via NY-8 at Utica.

Flat Rock porch south-east corner

The southeastern corner of the Flat Rock porch, June 25, 2011

Once up at Green Bay, I went over to Flat Rock Camp to survey the flooding damage, now that the water had receded somewhat.  As you can see from the picture nearby, the porch was badly chewed up on the eastern side and south-eastern corner.  The north side, surprisingly, was not so bad but will still require considerable patching in addition to rebuilding the railings.

The lake was still very high for this time of year, although thankfully it was below flood stage.  My cousin Peter, who manages the family property, told me that preparing the lake-side facilities for the summer was a full month behind the normal schedule—that fits with my observation that the water was about where I would normally expect it to be over the Memorial Day weekend, not July 4th.  The Beach House had no direct damage but it was quite evident that the banks in front of the house were eroded and will require some work to restore.  We may lose some of the bushes and small trees growing there.

After a very relaxing 9 days, I took Molly back to Rochester on July 4th.  Pam again fed us dinner (an absolutely delicious chicken dish that I’m hoping to get the recipe for!), and the next morning I took off for home, this time with beautifully clear weather all the way down.

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Memorial Day Weekend

Posted on 12 June 2011 by Bill Paine

Andrew and I went up to Willsboro over the Memorial Day weekend to support our friend John Rayburn in the annual Patch Sprint fundraising event.  The Patch Sprint is a ~12 mile cross-country race that includes four local mountain summits, with the finish line at the summit of Pok-o-Moonshine Mountain.  Proceeds to towards the Adirondack Scholarship Foundation which supports financial aid for campers at Pok-o-MacReady Camps, where Andrew, John and I spent many summers as campers, counselors, staff and volunteers.

I also had the opportunity to check out the flooding on Lake Champlain for myself, taking a tour of the shore-front structures.

At Flat Rock Camp, the water completely covered the rock right up to the north side of the building and halfway around the porch—some minor wave-action damage was visible at the north room, but plywood sheets and other temporary protection placed on the building sides seem to have absorbed most of the impact.  The porch, however, took significant damage—the entire lake-side stone perimeter was chewed up, destroying the railings and crumbling some of the concrete inboard of the stone perimeter.  Inside, I didn’t see any evidence of flooding, but as a precaution all the upholstered furnishings, rugs, etc., had been removed to the dining room and the kitchen wing, both of which are slightly higher in elevation.

The Beach House is high enough that the house itself was never threatened, but the water completely covered the rock “beach” and was lapping over the embankment in front of the house.  Although I imagine there’s been a lot of bank erosion, none of that will be visible until the water recedes.

Since Memorial Day, the north country has finally seen a sustained stretch of drier weather, so the lake is receding steadily (although still above flood level as of this posting).  You can check the current water level graph at the USGS Real-Time Water Data site.

PS (added 19 August 2011):  Since the USGS data site only shows up to 120 days history, I’ve added a fixed image of the chart as of today.  You can clearly see the high-water point in early May, just over 103 ft. elevation above sea level.

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Flooding in Willsboro

Posted on 11 May 2011 by Bill Paine

Flooding continues to be a major issue on Lake Champlain and is directly impacting the area where my family’s property is.  The local newspaper, the Press-Republican, published an article on local flooding that explains how serious the problem is and the impact on the local economy.

The towns of Willsboro and Essex are both very dependent on tourism and vacationing summer residents.  The impact of flooding extends not only to the physical damage and the cost of repairs, but also to the loss of business as tourists and summer residents either stay away or are coping with their own damaged property.

My immediate concern is for Flat Rock Camp.  With the water as high as it is, wave action could cause significant damage to the sections of the camp that are closest to the lake, especially the porch, the dining room and the kitchen wing.  I’m waiting for an update from family members who live there year-round and will report on the situation as soon as I know it.

Update:  According to my sources, the property did take some damage, but none of it is catastrophic.  The porch at Flat Rock got damaged with wave action and there are some issues with piping underneath sections of the camp, but thankfully the water did not get inside to any significant degree.  There’s a lot of bank erosion and downed trees along the shore, some of which impact areas like the Bouquet Farm Cottage and the old stone walls along the shore by Lea and Ian’s house.  The water is still very high, well above flood stage, so we’re not out of the woods yet, but it seems the worst is over.

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Lake Champlain Floods

Posted on 2 May 2011 by Bill Paine

While Lake Champlain usually floods every spring due to winter snow melt and spring rains, this year has been exceptionally bad—in fact, lake levels are the highest ever known since 1869 when records began to be kept.

Flooded Essex ferry dock

Flooded ferry dock, Essex NY, April 2011

The photograph at left (courtesy of Kathleen Wiley) shows the ferry dock at Essex, NY a few days ago.  The white structure with the stop sign is the ticket booth—cars normally line up on the far side of the booth before driving onto a docked ferry.  The parking area looks like it’s at least two or three feet underwater, and normally it sits a good six feet or so above the lake surface.

You can get real-time data on current lake levels at the USGS water level web site.

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Navy’s new mission: Missile Defense

Posted on 8 April 2011 by Bill Paine
A standard missile 3 is launched from USS Lake...

SM-3 Launch from USS Lake Erie (Image via Wikipedia)

Unheralded by all but the most observant of military buffs, the U. S. Navy has taken on the leading role in ballistic missile defense.  My old skipper from the USS Moinester, Capt. Keith Evans USN (ret.), invited my attention to a Forbes article on the Navy’s role in missile defense which gives an excellent overview of the history, development and future plans of the Aegis combat system and the Standard Missile 3 (SM-3).

The Gulf War, the Iraq War, and the Af-Pak/War on Terror campaigns all focused public attention on ground forces, primarily Army.  The Navy, with the exception of aviation sorties, has been largely out of the public view.  And yet, the United States continues to enjoy the unique ability to project power almost anywhere in the world thanks to the Navy’s ability to dominate three quarters of the earth’s surface–the seas.  Without the Navy, none of these ground campaigns would have been possible.

Quietly, incrementally over time, the Navy’s leadership developed and refined an incredibly robust anti-missile capability.  While pundits point to marginal test results from ground-based anti-missile systems and declare it a useless waste of taxpayer money, the Navy actually has a working system, deployed and ready to use.  Read the article–it’s eye opening.

 

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Recipe: Cumin-Coriander Burgers

Posted on 25 March 2011 by Bill Paine

This is a wonderful summer grilling treat for adults—kids may or may not like it depending on how open they are to spicy food.  I usually make this with bison (American buffalo) meat.  The recipe linked below is from FreshDirect, an online food delivery company.

Cumin-Coriander Beef Patties

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Staffing May NWTA

Posted on 18 March 2011 by Bill Paine

I’ve been selected to join the staff for the May “New Warrior Training Adventure” (NWTA) offered by the ManKind Project’s NY Metro community.  As many of you know, I’ve been a member of the ManKind Project since I attended an NWTA in May of 2008—this will be my third staffing.

I’m really looking forward to this one.  In the past six months, I’ve been moving into more of an “elder” energy within the context of the Project (an Elder is anyone 50+ who wishes to acknowledge that energy within themselves), so I feel that my work on the staff this time will have a very different flavor from the two previous times.  For one thing, I won’t be a “rookie” staffer anymore!

No doubt I’ll have more to say after the NWTA weekend.  In the meantime, if you or a man you know would like more information on the ManKind Project and the New Warrior Training Adventure, just ask me, or look for the link to the Project’s web site in my People & Places page.

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Sunday Evensong

Posted on 4 March 2011 by Bill Paine

St. Luke’s Church in Forest Hills (my Episcopalian parish) is “burying the alleluias” this Sunday, March 6th, with a choral evensong service at 4:00pm.  I will be one of the scripture readers.

In many Christian liturgical traditions, all uses of the celebratory word “Alleluia” are removed from services during Lent.  This is an old custom, in keeping with the idea that Lent is a time of solemnity and denial.  “Burying the Alleluias,” therefore, is usually done just before Ash Wednesday, either on Shrove Tuesday or the Sunday before.  In some traditions, this is done literally in a ritual where banners or papers with “Alleluia” on them are solemnly locked in a chest and hidden away–even physically buried–until Easter.  In the Episcopal Church, burying the Alleluias is done figuratively by selecting as many hymns, anthems, prayers and other liturgical elements that contain the word “Alleluia” as possible.  “Alleluia” isn’t heard again until the Great Vigil of Easter.

If you’re interesting in coming, the church web site linked above has the address–it is reasonably convenient to the E/F trains (ten minute walk from the 71st-Continental Ave/Forest Hills station through a beautiful section of Forest Hills Gardens).

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A Bloody Nose

Posted on 21 February 2011 by Bill Paine

Thank you to everyone who contacted me concerned about my mother.  To reassure everyone that she’s fine, here’s a brief recap of the Bloody Nose Incident…

Two weeks ago, Mom went out to lunch with her friend Sally, and midway through the meal developed a bloody nose–she has occasionally had incidents like this before, especially in dry conditions.  Usually, she’s able to stop the bleeding in a few minutes, but this time it just didn’t want to stop.  This freaked her out a bit, so she and Sally went to the hospital emergency room.  There, the medical folks determined that she had unusually high blood pressure (probably from anxiety over the bleeding combined with a stressful week before).  The gave her a sedative and then packed her nose with an inflatable packing device.  By the time Andrew and I arrived at the hospital, she was doing great (although a bit loopy thanks to the sedative).  We took her home, and a couple days later she went to her ENT doctor to have the packing removed.

All is well that ends well, as the old saying goes.

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