New York State Archives - Page 3 of 5

Vacation 2016

yes, we get milk delivered

One of several posts.

The great thing about going on vacation is having plenty of things to blog about. The tough thing about being on the road is that there’s no time to write about it. Part of the problem is that the three of us are in one room, and I’m trying not to wake them up.

This first post will be about traveling, in broad strokes, from July 10-19. Vacation 2016 may be the first time I took off more than a week from work since 1998, save for my parents’ deaths. Later, I’ll be describing some of our various stops.

One of the rules of the road for our household is that we try to minimize announcing that we’ll be away, in this case, for over a week. Obviously, I had to take off from work. And one of my work folks engaged me to do a week’s worth of tunes on Facebook; I got ONE post done.

And we had our cat sitter. Given the quirkiness of our felines, it is a miracle we’ve found someone they would accept coming into our house without us. Maxine is also watering the plants, and bringing in the newspapers.

We canceled the milk delivery – yes, we get milk delivered – and the mail held, but keeping some semblance of the house appearing to be lived in is a big deal. I make no mention on social media, no “Hey, I’m in Cleveland!” I suppose this means that I’m old, but my (younger) wife insists on it, and I totally agree with her.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been involved with over 100 moves, including about 30 of my own, but I’m really good at packing the trunk of the car. This was a particularly tricky maneuver. Not only did we have clothing for five days, with the intention of washing them en route before we ran out of clean apparel, but we had the large bin with the accouterments for the Olin Family Reunion near Binghamton, NY.

For the last several years, the Olins, my mother-in-law’s people, who trace their roots to the 17th century or earlier had been meeting at Grippen Park in Endicott. But because of the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open, a PGA-sanctioned golf tournament which USED to be in August.

So, as the outgoing President of the NY-PA Olin reunion, I had to move the event to Roundtop Park. It’s a mere mile away as the crow flies, from Grippen, but you can’t get there by any direct route. Moreover, it’s hilly, and the demographics of reunion participants tend to be… grayer, let’s say. And the LAST time we had an event there, c. 2011, someone passed out from the heat and we had to call an ambulance. But it turned out fine, with me relinquishing my title as president.

After that we were on the road, W to Painted Post, NY near Corning (1 night), W to Salamanca, NY, on the way to Jamestown (1 night), W then south to Richfield, OH, between Canton and Cleveland (3 nights), NE to Austinburg, OH, near Ashtabula, OH (2 nights), NE to Geneseo, NY, near Letchworth State Park (1 night), E to Waterloo, NY, near Seneca Falls and Auburn (1 night) and WNW back to Albany. And except for 1300 miles over 10 days, 9 nights.

The Wife saw on some TV show that having breakfast included in the hotel package would be both a time and money-saving exercise, and all but the last place we stayed fit that model. The Salamanca Holiday Inn Express, which is near the casino, was the best breakfast. You can tell when the hostess, or whatever her title was, takes pride in her work. Some others were OK; one had a beleaguered woman one step behind the crowd, or maybe she was just overworked.

We came across some charming places to eat, such as The Jellybean: The Restaurant, in Painted Post, though the ice cream place around the corner was disappointing because of a peanut allergy warning for the whole menu.

On the other hand, avoid Burger King in Salamanca. It’s attached to a gas station but also a cigar shop, which the adjoining BK smells like.

THE most disappointing venue had to be the Ramada near Ashtabula. It is a very long two-story building with no elevator. The continental breakfast was sparse on day 1, and they hadn’t even replaced the butter for toast and bagels on day 2. The mold in the ice bucket was sufficiently icky.

I’m sure other details will creep in as I describe the various places we visited.

N is for New York State

Seneca Falls is the birthplace of the Women’s Rights Movement.

When people from far outside from here think of the state of New York, the idea of skyscrapers and concrete usually come to mind.

Surely, people all over tend to generalize a place by its most noted locale – it’s likely people from New York think that everyone in Iowa is a farmer. But I think New York suffers from it more. Not only is New York, New York the largest city in the country, the “it’s so nice they named it twice” phenomenon really locks it in.

Not only that, many of our favorite songs about New York from the ILoveNY website are about NYC, and they’re not even including songs from Frank Sinatra or Daryl Hall.

One expects “finance, insurance, and real estate” to “comprise New York’s most important service industry group and New York City is the prime driver in this area. New York City is the nation’s leading financial center, home to the New York Stock Exchange.”

One knows about the various art museums, the United Nations, the Empire State Building, Coney Island, and the like. (Here’s an NYC story about when pinball was illegal.)

However, New York has a lot of territory north of the Bronx. The Adirondack Mountains region, “encompassing one-third of the total land area of New York State,” has 46 rugged peaks, and is known for “extensive wild landscapes, which includes tracts of an old-growth forest; wildflowers abound, and hundreds of species of shrubs, herbs, and grasses may be encountered in a day’s outing.”

Letchworth State Park, “renowned as the ‘Grand Canyon of the East,’ is one of the most scenically magnificent areas in the eastern U.S.” I’m hoping to visit there this year for the very first time.

Seneca Falls is the birthplace of the Women’s Rights Movement.

Cooperstown not only has the Baseball Hall of Fame but two other museums, all of which I have visited more than once.

New York is also an agricultural state. Among the 50 states, our rankings:

* Apples – 2nd
* Wine and juice grapes – 3rd
* Fresh Market vegetables – 6th
* Processing vegetables -5th; leading crops are cabbage, sweet corn, and onions.
* Field Crops – “New York produces a variety of field crops largely in support of its dairy industry. Corn, oats, and wheat are most widely grown with soybeans steadily increasing importance. NY is 3rd in corn silage.
* Milk and dairy production – 4th. “Dairy Milk is New York’s leading agricultural product and is produced all across the state. Milk sales account for over one-half of total agricultural receipts.”
* Duck meat and duck – 5th
* Maple syrup – 2nd

ABC Wednesday – Round 18

Mario Cuomo; Ed Hermann

I voted for Mario M. Cuomo, the son of Italian immigrants who became three-term governor of New York, more often than any political candidate. As the New York Times article announcing his New Year’s Day death at the age of 82 noted: “He commanded the attention of the country with a compelling public presence [and] a forceful defense of liberalism.”

He was the Democratic party’s official nominee for lieutenant governor in 1974 but lost in a primary to Mary Anne Krupsak. I happened to have been living in New York City when he ran for mayor in 1977, and he lost again, this time to Ed Koch, who I did not much like.

Cuomo was elected lieutenant governor in 1978, and when Hugh Carey chose not to run for governor in 1982, Cuomo found himself in another primary with Ed Koch.

The mayor seemed to be destined to win until he said disparaging things about upstate New York. Cuomo won the gubernatorial primary and the general election.

Mario Cuomo became a national figure when he made the keynote address at the 1984 Democratic National Convention. “They asked only for a chance to work and to make the world better for their children, and they — they asked to be protected in those moments when they would not be able to protect themselves. This nation and this nation’s government did that for them.” Links to his 1984 and 1992 convention speeches can be found HERE.

I most appreciated his unpopular position against the death penalty, “which he blocked as governor in New York for 12 years, as a ‘stain on our conscience… The death penalty is wrong because it lowers us all,’ he wrote in The Daily News. ‘It is a surrender to the worst that is in us. (It) has never elevated a society, never brought back a life, never inspired anything but hate.'”

He was reelected governor in 1986 and 1990, then got the nickname “Hamlet on the Hudson” when he considered running for President in 1992. He opted against doing so, which was fine by me; Presidential politics were rough, even then.

I was sad, however, that he decided to decline a possible appointment to the US Supreme Court in 1993 by President Clinton. His contemplative style would have been great on the bench.

Moreover, a successful run for a fourth term as governor seemed less than promising to me, and sure enough, he was defeated in the general election in November 1994 by obscure state legislator George Pataki. Interesting that Cuomo died 20 years almost to the day that he ended his term as governor.

He was the father of five, including the current governor, Andrew, who was inaugurated earlier on New Years Day; and Chris, a reporter with CNN. He had been married to his wife Matilda (née Raffa) since 1954.
***
Edward Hermann did the patrician man better than almost anyone. He was best known as the well-to-do father and grandfather on Gilmore Girls. He played Franklin Roosevelt several times, and I think I saw them all, including in the 1982 movie Annie. I also saw him in the movies The Paper Chase, The Great Gatsby, Reds, Nixon, and others.

Besides being the voiceover guy for programs on the History Channel, he was on several TV shows I watched, including Beacon Hill, The Practice, Grey’s Anatomy, The Good Wife, and especially the haughty priest in flashbacks on St. Elsewhere, and the arrogant surgeon in an episode of MASH.

Ed Hermann died on December 31, 2014, at the age of 71 from brain cancer.
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I found this list from 2009 of the top 100 rated TV shows in the US. There are lots of final episodes of series, Super Bowl football games, the miniseries Roots, the first broadcast of Gone With the Wind, special episodes (how shot JR on Dallas, Beatles on Ed Sullivan). And sprinkled on the list are thirteen regular-season episodes of the Beverly Hillbillies, which was the #1 show on American TV in 1962-63, and 1963-64. I watched it, but, hey, I was 10 or so. (Only a handful of shows since 2009 have entered the list, mostly Super Bowls.)

Noting the passing of Donna Douglas, who played goddess of the cee-ment pond, Elly May Clampett, on the program, at the age of 81 or 82.

Lee and TJ get married

Lee had expressed his desire to get married in the church of which he’s been a member for decades to the person he’s been with for nearly a quarter century.

I was going to write about how that in 24 states, or 30, maybe 35 states plus the District of Columbia, same-sex couples can get married. No wait, there’s a stay by the Supreme Court justice in Idaho, or not anymore. I do think that the SCOTUS should just DECIDE this issue once and for all and that there are dangers in dawdling. But the heck with all that.

On Friday, October 10, 2014, for the first time in the 251-year history of my church, a same-gender couple was able to marry there. This was a function not just of the New York State law passed in June 2011, but the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voting to allow pastors to marry same-sex couples in states where it is legal just this past June.

Lee had spoken at the local presbytery (regional body) meeting this past January, expressing his desire to get married in the church of which he’s been a member for decades to the person he’s been with for nearly a quarter-century. Lee had spent time in the hospital this summer, but he’s better now, so it was an extra special celebration. Both pastors officiated, and the house was quite full, with family, friends, and many members of the congregation.

The Wife noted that it was difficult to find a greeting card appropriate for same-gender couples at the local drug store; I totally get that.

The odd thing for me is that the biggest piece of conversation at the reception, besides the happy couple, was the fact that I wore a TIE with my bright red shirt. There are people there who’ve known me for a decade who’d never seen me wear one. Don’t get used to it, people; it was a very special occasion.

Governor Teachout? Governor Hawkins?

There have been no public polls of a head-to-head contest between Cuomo and Teachout.

Wu and Teachout in June 2014 (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

Professor Alan Chartock correctly notes that Governor Andrew Cuomo should have left Zephyr Teachout alone, rather than trying to get her thrown off the September 9 primary ballot in the Democrats’ race for governor. I’m not so sure that she “knows” that she cannot win, as Chartock suggests. She seems to be running a vigorous campaign, even though most people STILL don’t know who she is.

But they know who HE is, and it isn’t all pretty.” Corporatist” and “bully” and possibly “corrupt”, some suggest, and I think that gives her a fighting chance.

That is why I’m frustrated that there have been no public polls of a head-to-head contest between Cuomo and Teachout. I wish that they be out there asking the question, if only because it would inform people that there actually IS a primary on September 9. Voting is from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. in New York City, but only from noon to 9 p.m. upstate.

Moreover, a race for lieutenant governor as well, between Kathy Hochul and Tim Wu is emerging. I can’t imagine Hochul, Cuomo’s pick has such great name recognition that she couldn’t be knocked off by Teachout’s running mate Wu; moreover, from clips from the Teachout-Wu campaign, Hochul is far more conservative than most Democrats in this state. The insurgent ticket of Teachout and Wu is picking some endorsements, maybe not enough to knock off the governor, but certainly his pick for the second spot.

The pollsters keep asking about the Cuomo-Rob Astorino race but usually leave Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins off the ballot. I suspect, if Teachout loses, a lot of disaffected Democrats, irritated by Cuomo’s Working Families Party endorsement, the Moreland Commission debacle, and general irritation with the governor is a bully, will vote for Hawkins, especially if they feel it won’t cause Astorino to win.

But if Teachout wins the primary, Cuomo COULD remain governor, since he’s still on the Working Families Party line, and Teachout and Hawkins could split the progressive vote.