Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Tuesday morning

GARBAGE DAY!!!


It's 34.5 degrees, outside, and drizzly.




I checked Town of Webb "videocam" in Old Forge at a little after 5:00 A.M. - still too dark to see if it's raining or snowing, there.

I also killed time by reading a few newspapers online. The Syracuse Post-Standard has a great website. If you don't know exactly what link to click on, type "Waterville" - or Sangerfield or Deansboro or ?? - into the SEARCH space and Bingo! Magic will happen!




While such a lack of snow is of real economic concern, in the North Country, it is more a disappointment around Waterville: snowmobilers and young snowman-builders sit and stare out windows hoping for a sign of something white!



The Canada Geese are either thoroughly confused or are making the most of a good thing, going South for a day or two and then circling back for another day at Prior's Pond or the cornfield behind the Sullivan Apartments on Tower Street!

All of the villagers that I spoke with, yesterday, knew exactly - and happily! - just what they were doing and where they were going WHEN.

I had a really wonderful day, thanks to family and friends. I made a couple of trips to the Harding Nursing Home. First, to exchange a few little presents with Dick, and then returning at noontime for Christmas Dinner in the big diningroom.

He and I were seated with Mr. Al Wood and his son Doug, and - what a grand serendipity! - they are history buffs from Bridgewater! We had a wonderful conversation (over roast beef, mashed potatoes, squash, mixed vegetables in a light bechamel sauce and then coffee and pie!) about everything from farming in Madison County to the story of the "Forestport Break"
on the Black River Canal. (If you're having a liesure day and like history, you'll find those links interesting.)

At a few minutes before 2 o'clock, I met Alex Meszler and his father, Dale, at the Masonic Temple and we climbed the stairs (which seemed, at least to the writer, much steeper and longer than the last time we were there!) to the room where the console and levers are situated.

You have to remember to wait until the big bell strikes the hour: and you can hear and feel the mechanism gearing up for several seconds before it actually rings and, when it does, the whole tower shakes!



Alex led off. The levers have alot of built-in resistance, but they have to be pushed down rapidly and firmly with one hand to make a bell - 12 feet higher in the tower - sound. You can't actually wait to hear the bell ring because the mechanism makes so much noise and because there's also a split-second delay. You just have to get the next note struck with the OTHER hand while the first hand gets in position to push the next lever. (You don't realize how much energy and concentration it takes: pretty good exercise !) He's good at the hand-over-hand business: even playing the "Glo-o-o-ria. glo-o-o-ria" part of "Angels we have Heard on High" ---- he didn't end up with an arm stuck between what are, essentially, wheelbarrow handles, as another chimer once did!

We took turns, playing about eight familiar Christmas carols, before deciding that it was time to let the neighbors go back to watching television or dozing, or whatever. The Meszlers went home to their Christmas Dinner and I came back to Whiskey Hollow, talked by 'phone with Allison and Rick and eight-year-old Iain about their Christmas Day, ditto Dick's sister and some far-away friends and then sat back and watched "Sahara" --- a Clive Custler/Dirk Pitt novel: a thoroughly unbelieveable tale combining all the best adventurous elements of "007" James Bond and "Indiana Jones" movies.


A good, good day!