Reflections on Christmas, 2018

Today is December 28^th and the house is again quiet this morning.  We said goodbye to our daughter, son-in-law, and their six children about three hours ago.  They are on their way home to Pennsylvania with a planned stop in North Carolina to visit John (or son) and his family.

The linens have been taken from their beds, the last sets of dishes are in the washer, and the oven is self-cleaning.  This was our first Christmas in this new home, and we were able to share the time with family for this most important of seasons.  It is precisely why we made the move from northwest Florida to this community.

There is something that is both rewarding and frustrating in the chaos that comes with six kids ranging from 12 to 2, but I can’t image not experiencing all the joy that comes with that experience.  While they were with us, and our son-in-law’s parents (also members of this community) we got to share a glimpse of the everyday life of herding them from waking until sleep. 

With our in-laws, we shared a traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner called a Wigilla.  For the Polish, the Wigilla is the most important family meal of the entire year.  With its essential components, it provided a true feast, with all its rich tastes, and when coupled with the love of family blended in – it helped remind us of what is most important in life and the Christmas season.

Christmas Eve also marked the transition of the guests from the other parent’s home to ours.  The arrangement worked will to share both the joys of the visit and reduce the stress on homes that are normally chaos free.

Christmas morning found us gathered around the Christmas tree as we exchanged gifts and noted that Santa was still able to find this place to leave some gifts for the kids.  All the excitement (or noise) of a family opening presents is something, I think, every Grandparent looks most forward to.  We were no exception.

In the afternoon as the youngest napped the oldest got to play with all the toys, Mimi has so carefully preserved so they would be here when the need arose.  While that was going on their Dad and I kept watch while Mimi and our daughter prepared a traditional English Christmas dinner for eight adults and six kids. 

At the table, the wine and friendship flowed liberally and I believe everyone had a great time. The house seemed to hold everyone and I haven’t noticed any seams that may have burst, although some belts were loosened. 

The next day we were off to SeaWorld.  The park and the weather cooperated to be a perfect outing, although we didn’t ride as many roller coasters as some would have wanted.  We left the park at about 7pm and not everyone was able to stay awake for the ride home, but when we left everyone agreed it was just a great day all around.  We got to see Orca whales, Dolphins, Manatees, Turtles, Sharks, Rays, Sea Lions, Seals, and all kinds of fish.  Oh yes, and every time we stopped for a couple of minutes the kids got to hunt for lizards or Geckos.  They caught one but he didn’t try to sell them insurance.

All-in-all I’ve got to say this was one the best Christmas’s we’ve had in a long, long time. 

I know not everyone can say that, but my New Year’s wish for all who read this is I hope this next year, and the next Christmas finds you as truly blessed as I feel right now.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

The Back Roads of Home.

I think one of the things I miss from my years of growing up in Hyde Park is the character of the back roads that connect the people of the township.  Each road had its own unique character, different from the others and each a challenge to confront and learn from.  Of course, the 16-year old me would say they were fun to drive with some speed as I imagined myself behind the wheel of a sports car.

For example, take the road course that began in East Park, at the intersection of Violet Avenue (9G) and Crum Elbow Road, proceed along Crum Elbow until you make a hard right on Cream Street, climbing up the hill past the farms, then a right onto Dutchess Hill Road headed to East Dorsey Lane, where you would make a hard right onto Creek Road heading back to Violet Avenue and East Park.

The scenery was ever-changing, the roads more often than not vacant, and the terrain challenging.  Oh, if I only had a British sports car like a Triumph or Austin Healy, and a tweed newsboy hat instead of this plain old Chevy Bel-Air and baseball cap!

9(ish) Gary Drive

I was reflecting this morning on my time in Hyde Park, and things I did as a young boy.  It got me to thinking about a massive tree we used to hang out under near my yard. I went to Google Map® and looked up my old home on Madison Avenue and then moved down the street until I could look in the direction of where the tree was.

It’s not there, but the spot remains, with young trees now filling in for what had once been a wonderful alcove to gather and plan the day's great adventures for a couple of 8-year old boys.

I wonder where today’s neighborhood kids hang out as they plan their days, or are those plans now made for them as parents fill their time with sports, dancing, and other organized group events?

Door to Door Salesmen

When I was young, there were salesmen who would come to the door offering the women of the house all sorts of wares.  The ones that seem most prominent in my memory are the Fuller Brush, and vacuum cleaner salesmen.  Kirby and Electrolux were the two brands I remember my family getting sold by some stranger who offered to vacuum the entire living room to show off their product, but they paled in comparison to one memorable evening at our neighbor’s house on Madison Avenue, in the Holt Development.

I think I must have been about seven or eight, but maybe a little older since the memory remains so vivid.  It was a warm spring night and we (my parents, sisters and I) along with several other families were invited over to the house next door, where a stranger in a bow tie introduced himself and said he was there to cook us dinner.

He then set out cooking dinner for probably a dozen people including the kids.  As he cooked, he explained the wonders of the revolutionary new stainless-steel cookware and how it brought out the amazing tastes of fresh vegetables and meat.  After some time of getting chased out of the kitchen and into the basement we kids were all shuffled up to the living room and sat at small tables to enjoy the fruits of the salesman’s efforts.

I can still recall the moist pot roast, steamed potatoes and carrots, spinach (yuck), and a beef gravy. 

I can’t speak for the other families, but I know my Dad, always a sucker for door to door salesmen, came home with a full set of this revolutionary new cookware.  It was actually a great purchase as he and Mom used it until they passed away.

In these modern times of infomercials, and on-line shopping, I wonder how much we miss out on in our buying when everything is so impersonal?

Ghost Towns

Communities seem to have lives, just like the people who make them.  Some towns seem to rise up out of nowhere, flourish with a vibrancy and life that is both robust and exuberant, and then just as fast as they came into being they disappear.  The west is filled with these “ghost towns” that grew up from some industry, like mining, and when the industry died out so did the towns.

In reading the posts about Hyde Park I am struck by the similarities of the western mining towns to my hometown.  At its height it was filled with the rich and famous, growing from its farming roots, it became a summer playground for rich, then an international political center as the home, and summer residence, of the President. 

It saw Kings and Queens come for visits.  It had its own train stop on the tracks along the Hudson.  It was inevitable that would end at some point.  The President died, and his wife Eleanor retired to her cottage at Val-Kill, but because of her fame and influence, the town continued to thrive.

In the 1950s through probably 1990 the life of the town ebbed and flowed as farms flourished, and the county’s number one business, International Business Machines, grew to employ thousands of people in the towns surrounding its headquarters, plants, and research centers scattered around Dutchess and the adjacent counties.  The service industries like restaurants, drug stores, supermarkets, gas stations, and retail stores all flourished.  In the 1960s, the city center in Poughkeepsie was alive with shoppers going to the department stores and retail shops that made up the main street.

In the latter half of 60’s and early 70’s, we saw the advent of the shopping centers and malls, with most of that going to the lands south of Poughkeepsie, for that was where the big employer was located, and it made financial sense to be convenient to your customers.  It was then that Hyde Park seemed to begin its transition to the bedroom community it is today.  A place where people come to sleep, but work is somewhere else, perhaps somewhere far away like the New York City.

In the 90’s IBM began its fall from greatness.  Its failure to understand the radical shift in office automation, the changing landscape of computing, and the enormous management bureaucracy it had built, doomed its ability to respond quickly to the exploding advancement of circuit technology as foretold by Gordon Moore, and they gave way to the more agile companies of what is now known as Silicon Valley.

I left the town in the early 70s to join the Air Force.  So I wonder, what will change the Hyde Park of today to bring back the town it once was or is its continued decline to a shadow of glories past inevitable?

Drivers Education at FDR

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I think I took Drivers-Ed either the spring of my sophomore or fall of my junior year in high school; somewhere in 1967.  Along with typing and Humanities, it remains one of the three courses I took whose instruction has proven useful to me every day since high school.  

We were in a bright and shiny new school building and had bright and shiny new equipment.  We drove your basic 1967 Plymouth Fury, provided by the local dealership, whose name escapes me, but they where located on the corner of East Market and Rt 9.  We also had a driving simulator that kind of looked like a cross between a Ford and Plymouth with both a push button transmission and three on the tree (stick shift on the column).  I remember spending considerable time driving in the simulator, but more on that in just a bit.

The time in Drivers-Ed was interesting for a number of reasons; first and foremost it got me and two others out of school for an hour to drive around the roads of Hyde Park taking turns scaring the bejeezus out of the steely nerved instructor.  In my case I think it was usually Mr. King.  I don’t remember who my driving partners were because they were usually huddled on the floor in the back whimpering about wanting their mothers or something.  I’m not saying I was a bad driver, and I’m sure all four wheels were usually on the pavement.  I don’t recall ever being fully airborne, although I think I may have gone to zero G once or twice coming down South Cross Road trying to make it back at the end of the driving time.  In my defense, it couldn’t have been that bad, I don’t recall Mr. King actually using the extra brakes he had available, although I think I remember an armrest on the passenger door coming off.

Now about those driving simulators, I seem to remember the films we used were produced by Etna Insurance and were made in a suburban setting.  They had all kinds of hazards they were trying to teach you about without actually letting you kill anyone.  For example, I remember driving down the street and all the sudden a car door came open and you were supposed to swerve to avoid it and stop.  I think most of us in the class just took the door off, but obviously the film wouldn’t show that, just the clicking of the analogue computer in the back told you it was recording a failure.  We would stop the film and then discuss what had happened, what we were supposed to be looking for, and why it was poor form to take a parked car’s door off, even if the driver was stupid for opening it in front of you. 

One of the things that stuck with me about those films was how neat and tidy the neighborhoods were and how whitish the streets were.  In 1977 I discovered why.  That was when I reported to Hurlburt Field, (Eglin Auxiliary Field 9), Fort Walton Beach, FL for training on my new aircraft.  All the roads around here in NW Florida looked just like in the Drivers-Ed films.  Obviously the films were made in Florida where the streets where a mixture of asphalt and coral/sea shells that made them a whitish color and slicker than snot in the rain. Fortunately for me most of those roads have been replaced now with real asphalt or concrete, and drivers have lost that excuse for rear-ending other cars.

I don’t know how Drivers-Ed is handled in Hyde Park these days, but here in NW Florida I was amazed when my kids went through to see they never left the parking lot during the class.  They drive around some kind of maze knocking over cones just like Officer Laverne Hooks in Police Academy.  Only 10 percent of the students have to take road tests, so it is conceivable that the remaining neophytes get their license without ever leaving the parking lot, which should explain most of what you see if you drive around Florida.  Between the people who look through the steering wheel, and the kids being set loose on the public, defensive driving takes on a whole new meaning.

Stay safe, it’s a jungle out there!

Memories of the Asylum

It seemed my entire family worked at the Hudson River State Hospital when I was a young boy.  My mother was a nurse and my father, grandmother, and grandfather were all attendants.  In High School and College I spent two summers working there as well.

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, the hospital had already passed its prime, and was beginning a decline that has reached its nadir.

I remember hearing stories of the farm system that was.  A place where patients worked to grow the foodstuffs, milk and dairy products the hospital needed.  The fields were located off East Dorsey Lane, and incorporated the locations of the fire training facility and up along to where Fallkill County Park is located.

My father spoke of "The Cottages" located off Creek Road.  I believe that today they would be considered half-way homes where patients getting ready for release, or patients that needed only minimum supervision and care were provided skills within a more normal social environment.

This was a area, below the Ross Pavilion where Dutchess County built an emergency management center.  I wonder does it still exist?

Climbing the hills to the Ross Pavilion, where my grandmother worked, we would pass the homes for many of the senior medical staff.  I was told at its opening Ross had been built as a treatment site for the TB patients the hospital had. The children’s unit was also up the hill, and when I was a student in college I spent one summer working as a summer hire with the autistic and emotionally disturbed youngsters that lived in Hillcrest.

The hospitial grounds were expansive and included a ball field, a golf course and a marina.  I was told the NY Yankees had on at least one occasion held walk-on tryouts at the ball field.  I remember attending a few parties at the marina.  Many of the roads still carry the names of the principle building they went to or went past.  For example, paint shop road, or Inwood Avenue both take their names from the facilities.

At one time I believe there were a number of apartments made available to employees and although I can’t recall the names I can still picture them in my minds eye.  Of course as you entered the grounds from Violet Avenue you drove past the homes of the Administrator and Chief of Medicine.

My grandfather and grandmother had moved down to Poughkeepsie sometime in the early 1950’s and took jobs at the hospital.  They came from Lew Beach, in Sullivan County and often talked about the lack of jobs in that area of the state. My grandfather was a versatile wood worker and ran the carpentry shop, located behind the main building.  He and the patients would make Adirondack chairs all winter long. He knew it was time to retire when they decided it was non-therapeutic to run a wood shop and put him to work on a locked ward with geriatric men sedated with thorazine.

My mother, and her twin, graduated from the nursing school at HRSH in 1949.  While in school they lived on the hospital grounds.  This was the only place my mother worked except for a brief period at the end of her career.  I can recall visiting her at Cheney Hall were she moved from ward nurse, to shift nurse.  That was my introduction to the locked wards of the institution and the huge ring of keys almost everyone seemed to carry.

Later in her career she rose to be second in charge of nursing, working for Mrs. Quinlan, who was head nurse.  Mrs. Quinlan’s husband was the county sheriff. 

From time to time it strikes me that all the facility was, and was capable of being, has come to what sits there today -- a mass of perhaps historically important buildings filled with ghosts of progress past.  But the hospital was more than land and buildings -- it was people, both good and bad, sane and insane.  Progressive psychiatric treatments like lobotomies were performed there.  Padded rooms and straight jackets were used, and in the end psychotropic drugs replaced physical activities and pacified the geriatric patients so they could be easily controlled by a diminishing staff of overworked attendants.  Towards the end thorazine became the drug of choice to restrain the humanity.

I took from my experience an insight into the problems of autism and behavioral psychology (my college major), as well as three silver dollars given me by a wonderful attendant I worked for in the clothing department one summer.  To this day I can’t listen to the Zager and Evans song, in the year 2525, without picturing myself driving along Cottage Road past the golf course on my way to pick up one of my family after work the spring of my senior year at FDR, wondering what the place would look like in the future.

Unfortunately, today is the future and we know what it looks like and it isn't pretty.

Quiet Time

I must admit I find a certain satisfaction in reflecting on the weekend.  To move at a speed that suits me, and see small things accomplished.  I envy those who find comfort in large groups and noisy venues, but as I move though this life I think I am forever shaped by the solitude of my youth, where I was never the core of the group, but always an observer, invited to be or not be in the mix.

As phantoms, slipping quietly past in the night, memories of good times will flash on my consciousness.  I can close my eyes and return there to see the brilliance of a day, or the smell of the mountains in springtime.  Other times I close my eyes and see a party on a cold NY winter’s night.  I see only shadows of others, but I vividly recall a group of classmates playing the song of the day, a little number by the Royal Guardsman, called “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron.”  I know I've posted this before, but I do like the song.