Saturday morning

9.1 degrees.

Today's forecast from WKTV:

Saturday: Partly sunny with scattered snow showers. High 25


Decisions; decisions!
I know two things I'd like to be doing, today

standing at the top of a run at Snow Ridge

or going snowmobiling on a deep-woods trail, or

going to Ilion, this afternoon!

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It's a big day for the WCS Girls' Varsity Basketball Team: the Lady Indians meet West Canada in the Class C-2 Semifinals at the Ilion Highschool at 4:00 P.M.

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The last item in the current issue of "Library Lines" caught my attention: " March 23, 2007, 7:00 p.m. for the first of our Brothertown libraries’ concert series (with the Clark Memorial Library)—presenting, free of charge, saxophonist/clarinetist Al Gallodoro and his quartet in Waterville Public Library’s new program room." Not just because I think the idea is great, but that Mr. Reynolds makes reference to the "Brothertown Libraries."

It made me wonder if the directors of the "Brothertown Libraries" or the many WCS students and fans who attend games at "Brothertown Field" and cheer the "Indians" really know the story of Samson Occom and "Brothertown" - how it came to be, and why it is no more?

Samson Occom 1723 - 1792

Many of the descendants of the Brothertowns who once lived here now live in Wisconsin. Their story continues, here.

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Among the several inqueries that I received, yesterday, when both the blog and I were "down," were letters from two people whom I've never met! Paul Fleischmann wondered what was wrong, as did Shirley Eisenhut (or Bynum) Smith, Heddy Eisenhut's daughter. She also talked about books to read (whether or not you're laid up) and I think I want to read them all - right after I finish one that my husband just got for me: "Mistress of the Art of Death" - described as CSI meets Canterbury Tales - by Ariana Franklin, the pen name of a well-known author of historical novels.)

Shirley suggests - "I've just finished a couple of mysteries by Julia Spencer-Fleming (the main character is a female Episcopal priest in the Adirondacks). Next is Sebastian Faulks' new book, Human Traces (he's the author of Birdsong, a gut-wrenching novel about World War I, and one of my favorite books), and at the same time I will begin Daniel Trammet's Born on a Blue Day (he's the autistic savant who lives in England; just heard him on NPR last night and read about him in the New York Times last week). I'll surely have to read another mystery at the same time, to break up the heavier stuff."

And to add to your choices of what to do on a Wintery Saturday, consider stopping in at St. James Episcopal Church on Williams Street in Clinton, sometime between 10:00 and 4:00 to hear - or even join in! -the New York State Regional Midwinter "Sacred Harp Singing." Sacred Harp - or Shaped Note - singing is "an obscure and distinctive form of a cappella gospel music that dates back 200 years." And it's become hugely popular in major cities, over the past ten or fifteen years.

If you've never heard "Sacred Harp," be prepared to be "blown away!" "It's like nothing you've ever heard before!"

The music is polyphonic and singers sit in a square, the four traditional "parts" facing each other. Different people take turns leading. The leader, besides directing the tempo or speed also sets the pitch - which is relative, and has nothing to do with A440.


It's always the first "verse" that leaves listeners open-mouthed with astoundment: it's not a verse of the hymn - they're singing the "shapes" of the notes! "Fa, sol, la, etc."

And here's what a song called "Ballstown" sounds like.... first the shapes, then verse 1.

Just go and listen for a while, or take one of the "loaner" books and follow along; make all the noise you want to ---- that's the joy of it! Sacred Harp is, in more ways than one, "Glorious!"

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My husband, just reading the blog, has remembered a equally glorious occassion when, five or six years ago, fifty or so "Brothertown Indians" came to visit Old Brothertown. At a special church service in Deansboro, several Sacred Harp singers performed a group of shaped-note hymns, two or three of which had been written by Presbyterian minister and Brothertown leader, Samson Occom.