Old News

[fiona]

Speaking of Miss Miller, did you know Addison Miller pool was named after one of the cousins, Addison Miller? Now theyre's an interesting person. We should do a page or two on him. He was a Rennisance Man and one of the movers and shakers of early Utica. I looked him up on line last year. He was quite dapper and I don't think he ever married.

[dgriffin]

As it happens, I did know about Mr. Addison Miller, although only after coming across newspaper references in our recent research. When I swam there almost every day in the summers of '52-'56, I thought Addison Miller was a hyphenation of two persons' names. The first and oldest references I found to the pool and park called it Miller Park, so I wondered how Mr. Miller would have felt were he alive to see someone ... Mr. Addison ... added to his namesake. You know, I figured only in Utica would a city father think, "we need to memorialize Mr. Addison, but have plumb run out of public works projects, so we'll add him on to the pool up on York St. and Mr. Miller will never know ...." I don't know when public references began to include Mr. Miller's given name, but Addison Miller has a ring to it. As no doubt his mother would agree.

But I dislike memorial names. We should have learned proper naming conventions from the Indians ... descriptive labels. Big Water Under Mountain is admittedly quite a mouthful compared to Lake George, and in those bygone days of place naming the Typesetters Union would have asked for overtime, but shorter contractions would have eventually won out (Big Lake?) and all of us would have gotten less credit off for spelling mistakes in elementary school (Onyda Lake, Nelson Street, and my favorite, See More Street. I once convinced my little brother that many of Utica's street names were fancy spellings applied by turn-of-the-century rich folks when they gave unique spellings to common street names.) Seymour had been applied to the old See More Hill, Sure Man St wasn't named for the general, but was a farm owned by a circus strongman with a lane that led over to a hard place, now renamed Harding Place. And Civil War bombs that hadn't gone off were stored in the lee of duds on Cornhill, the latter a more decent spelling for a 14th century toss game that is now popular in the midwest. I did suspect my little brother might have been humoring me. This was years ago and we were at Wyandot's that afternoon. He seemed quite accepting of my theory as long as I was buying.

Fiona, your Obliston characters might become part of our story. Maybe we could do a Titantic sort of thing and begin in the present or recent past, somehow finding our way back to 1896. I'm reminded of some early thoughts I had about a plot which mimicked your experience of confronting the ghost. She could take the young woman protagonist and us back from say, 1959, to the morning of the fire. Multiple trips back, so to speak, could be interspersed with hallway or lobby conversations with these characters, some of whom we find are actual survivors! Real names aren't necessary. The little man with the mustache might be Billy Foley, for example. And one of the older ladies could be knitting a beer cozy!

[Clipper]

My grandfather Naegele was a pack rat. He kept absolutely everything he ever acquired and had it all cataloged and organized in cigar boxes in his garage... When he passed on, we made many interesting finds among the cigar boxes. There were campaign buttons dating back to WWI, Matchbooks and post cards that were quite valuable and brought a tidy sum to my grandmother when we moved her from the house in Whitesboro to the apartment on Eagle and Elm.

When dispersing all these little collections of trivial items, I rescued an entire box of stick pens of all sorts, made from every material under the sun. I also ended up with an entire set of calligraphy pens and tips that I experimented for a short time before putting away in storage. Many years later, a guy I worked with at the base took up calligraphy and was quite adept at the art. I told him about the pens and he was very interested in buyiing them. We researched them and found that the set of handcrafted pens in a hand crafted walnut, velvet lined box, was worth between 3 and 5 hundred dollars at auction. I sold them to him for $350, as I had no real use for them and I knew that he would treasure and enjoy them.

My grandfather Naegele was not overly educated. He had graduated from the eighth grade. He was however a very wise man, as he learned much over the years by his avid reading, curiosity, and avid reading habit. His hand writing was excellent, and when we lived in Arizona, I would watch the mailbox for his twice weekly letters to us grandkids, with dimes taped to a piece of cardboard. That was for us to buy ice cream cones from grandpa.

I have a couple of his journals along with some letters he wrote to my grandmother while he was serving in the army during WWI. I also have some post cards and letters he had written to my dad when my dad was in the Pacific during WWII. He was a prolific writer, and a great conversationalist. I guess that is where I get my long winded nature from. haha. I will never part with the journals and letters. I will pass them to my oldest son along with my Dad's letters and post cards and some correspondence between his mom and I when I was in Viet Nam.

Th letters on "onion skin airmail paper" were all written with stick pens or fountain pens and are interesting to read. The penmanship is beautiful and the idea that they used onion skin paper to keep the weight of a letter down for airmail fascinates me. I remember writing letters on that thin paper up into the 60's, on tablets that always had a darkly ruled sheet to place under the onion skin in order to keep you lines of writing straight. I also remember buying "linen" writing paper because it absorbed and held ink from a fountain pen so well without smudging. Kids today probably don't even pay attention to the quality of the paper they use and most of it is probably printer paper and cheap 3 ring notebook paper.

[dgriffin]

Clip, your mention of airmail weight paper reminds me of a fellow I worked with who had friends in Germany and often wrote to them. This was probably 20 years ago, but he showed me special mailers he bought at the local post office. You wrote your letter on the sheet and folded it into a self sealing envelope. The paper was very thin to reduce weight, and it was imprinted with the postage, usable to send anywhere in the world, if I remember correctly. The price worked out to be a small fraction of what a regular letter in an envelope would cost.

[Clipper]

I found some of those in my mom's stuff, but they were not American. They were the same thing but they originated in Scotland, and were from a Scottish lady pen pal that my mom wrote to for years.

When we were in Arizona in the mid fifties, I used to write back to my grandfather on post cards. Not picture post cards, but just pre-posted blank cards that you could purchase at the post office for a penny or two cents. I remember at the time that a regular first class stamp was purple with the statue of liberty on it, and it was 3 cents to mail a regular letter.

[dgriffin]

You're right! Now that you jog my memory, the mailers were sent to my co-worker in a package. They were "international mailers" and could be sent from anywhere to anywhere, but USPS didn't sell them, probably because they lost money on them. So Paul would get a package and ask send money to his friends for more as he ran out. (It was international payment coupons he bought at the local post office to send money to pay for the mailers. Today, I think these have been replaced by international money orders.)

I still buy the pre-posted cards. I think they're 29 cents now, but I don't have any with me so I can't check. I got in the habit of using them when I began to receive them from other AAPA members who used them like emails, jotting a thought down and sending it off to a person they wanted to pat om the back or to converse with or just share a thought. It was fun using them, though I haven't in some months.

(AAPA = American Amateur Press Association, click here:
www.aapainfo.org/

[Clipper]

A NOTE TO MEMBERS. I removed some posts that were just the usual banter, where the girls were picking on me as they always do. It was not appropriate to this particular portion of the forum, which we have kept free of such drivel in favor of having a historic and informative atmosphere prevail.

It IS a public forum, with little restriction, but there are a few topics and areas that we try to keep more pristine and on point. They include the thread about the 50''s and 60's, and the threads surrounding the Olbiston, Genessee Hill, and this "Old News" area of the forum.

I have had folks threaten to quit posting if the topics go astray, but it would be better if one were to simply send a PM to me so I can correct it. To quit posting or delete their account rather than contact a moderator would be a little foolish and non productive. That is why we have moderators. Even if the Administrator is the offender that takes the subject astray.

[fiona]

Dave: I like your "Titanic" idea and I think we could work with it. Do you recall a while back I sent you a premise called "Bones In The Basement"? What did you think of that? I like Billy Foley and may use his father as a younger man in one of my upcoming scenes. The scene takes place in 1873, so let's say it was 15 years before Billy was born. In this way the characters can pass the torch of memory to each other. Do I have your permission to do this?
Second, I would like to begin organizing the workbook, moving in some more graphics, ect. After my story of Sarah is done would be a good time for me. I have about 3 - 4 more pages to go. After I post this next section, I will cyber to you and we can decide how to illustrate it. I myself would like the photo of Julia Conkling ( very necessary) as well as the photos of the house moved to the Sullivan. I am planning to begin postings on Annie in mid March or a little later. Thank you for posting the photo of Old main. Any other way that you or John or Clip would like to go with this? Last, I think the text is very readable, but there is an area I forgot to footnote. This concerns Sarah's Aunt, Helen Clarissa Lincklain. She and her husband owned an estate called" Lorenzo" on the shores of Cazenovia Lake. Helen Clarissa Seymour was the sister of Julia Seymour Conkling and Horatio Seymour. It is historic site now, open to the public and very beautiful. I took a virtual tour there I want to post the footnote and the web site, but I want to do it correctly. Thanks everyone for all there hard work and dedication to these characters ( persons) who have waited many long years to tell their story. It is a blessing and a gift that they have chosen to speak through us and they ask only that we, as authors and historians, be kind to them.

[dgriffin]

Fiona, I copied your post, above, to the OGH Questions and Comments thread, where I also answered it.

[Clipper]

As far as any "direction" that I would like to see it go Fiona, I have no preference other than for the three of you to keep doing what you are doing. I simply am enjoying reading it, and I think that we have three very capable people handling the project. I am sure that Dave and Jon can handle the formatting, and illustrating and make the pages look professional in the finished product. What a combination of researchers, writers and simple teamwork in gathering and assembling the story that we see unfolding.

[dgriffin]

There's no question the word below in the first sentence is "beach," and it is repeated in the second sentence. I checked the Air Crash Database, and there is no log of a crash for this incident. Just another "rough landing," I guess.

Not a good copy, so tough to read, but ....


Utica Daily Press, May 2, 1934


American Airlines Plane Forced Down

New York (AP) -- One of 15 passengers was slightly hurt Wednesday night as an American Airlines plane bound from Buffalo to Newark, N.J. made a forced landing on the beach at Staten Island in a New York Harbor fog.

The ship, piloted by Bernard(?) Basham, cirlcled over the metropolitan area for hour before gas ran out and xxx xxxx dropping flares, brought his ship down safely on the beach.

Perry Wurst of the M&T Trust Company, Buffalo, N.Y., was treated for slight cuts on the forehead by an ambulance emergency xxxx when the plane landed and cut his forehead on the seat in front of him.

xxxxxxxxxxxx a pilot on the American Airlines, xxxx xxxxx, Utica, xxx about three yearas ago, was forced down by bad weather in similar fashion at Utica Airport, before the flood lights had been installed. He was forced to drop a flare to locate the field. (Another sentence unreadable.) Doctors and nurses rushed to the airport from the State Hospital, thinking a plane had crashed and found Basham calmly tying his plane to a fence and wondering what all the xxxx was about.

[stoney]

Feb 6, 2010 22:45:05 GMT -5 Clipper said:

A NOTE TO MEMBERS. I removed some posts that were just the usual banter, where the girls were picking on me as they always do. It was not appropriate to this particular portion of the forum, which we have kept free of such drivel in favor of having a historic and informative atmosphere prevail.

It IS a public forum, with little restriction, but there are a few topics and areas that we try to keep more pristine and on point. They include the thread about the 50''s and 60's, and the threads surrounding the Olbiston, Genessee Hill, and this "Old News" area of the forum.

I have had folks threaten to quit posting if the topics go astray, but it would be better if one were to simply send a PM to me so I can correct it. To quit posting or delete their account rather than contact a moderator would be a little foolish and non productive. That is why we have moderators. Even if the Administrator is the offender that takes the subject astray.

Oh my God, are you serious? Even the largest forums have threads that go astray, but everybody enjoys them anyway. You actually had members who threatened to quit because of that? Wussies...

[dgriffin]

I'm sure ClarenceBunsen could better handle the math, but I'm willing to bet that from a statistical point of view, on a forum of over 200 members there surely will be 25 Scrabble enthusiasts, 11 ex-Catholics, 5 elementary school students, one wuss and 0.00063 geniuses.

[Clipper]

Yes Stoney, we have a few serious minded individuals and they are the ones that offer us the opportunity to read those historic threads. To be defensive of their work, and to want to keep it clean and relatively on point is quite understandable. Nobody should be labeled a wussie for taking the amount of work that they have put in seriously. Name calling is not necessary.

Maybe the largest forum has threads that go astray, but obviously on this particular forum, not EVERYBODY enjoys it anyway. Some larger forums become a free for all too, but that won't happen here as long as I have any say in the matter.

There are plenty of daily threads and news items that we can take astray or joke around with. The threads in question here WILL be held to the subject and moderated as needed should we wander as Sunshine, you and myself did here earlier on.

[dgriffin]

I wasn't aware that someone threatened to quit over threads gone astray. I am sometimes annoyed by it and more often guilty of it, but after all this is the Internet.