Which New England State has the oldest bell maker? It’s our state, Connecticut and the company has been around since the early 1800’s. It was started in a garage by two brothers in the town of East Hampton where it continues today. At one time there were 30 bell makers in the town. The Bevin Brothers Manufacturing Company produced the first bicycle bell, souvenir bells and bells for political campaigns such as Calvin Coolidge and more recently Thomas Dewey. Even to this day the other name the town enjoys is Belltown, USA.

In 1832 the two brothers, Abner and William Bevin built the company offering a wide variety of bells shipping worldwide including tea bells, ice cream bells, door bells, naval bells and even replicas of the Liberty Bell. The company continued to grow with addition of two other brothers Chauncey and Philo. In a few years the company was known as an industry leader.

In operation for nearly 200 year, four years ago on May 27, 2012 a fire, due to a lighting strike, destroyed the facility. It didn’t stop the Bevin Brothers as they moved about a quarter of s mile away from the original location and restarted manufacturing, rehiring a large portion of the employees.

The next time you see a Salvation Army bell ringer the chances are that bell was made right here in Belltown, or East Hampton. If you drive to a rural area and the cows are wearing bells, or you hear bells in a nursing home chances are they are the product of the Bevin Brothers.

When I hosted a AM Radio Talk Show in Providence, RI, I had Maureen McGovern, the diva, as a guest. While enjoying a cup of coffee with her during a rehearsal I found out she was a bell collector. I said ”really?” She said yes and her friends called her a “dinger.” Not long after my wife and I visited her backstage following a Uconn performance. We gave her an unusual bell crafted from a coin silver spoon. She teared up. Her dog barked. I got a hug. I’m no dinger.

Mark Twain is credited with saying “everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.” So I thought I would give you a head’s up: Winters coming. I had company the other day and weather became a topic of discussion. We all recalled the blizzard of 2013 when the storm, that came in February, paralyzed us with up to three feet of snow recorded and hurricane strength winds. I checked records and found out that 40 inches was the most snow recorded. The town of Hamden was the hardest hit in this area.

Snowfall was not the only problem, the winds did heavy damage to coastal areas with Cape Ann in MA and Cape Cod getting the most damage. At this recent get-together I mentioned that some meteorologist had said that a shift in a weather pattern indicated that this winter was not good news for New England states. The word used was “harsh!”

Where were you during the 1978 storm? I was at a meeting in Hartford with a telecommunications company and no windows. The facilitator left for a break and saw what was happening and released us. It was around noontime and I got home to Putnam around 7 that night and had left my car in Pomfret at a restaurant and picked it up the following Wednesday. I think the storm day was a Friday. I was driven home by a pipefitter in a van with at least a ton or more of tools and piping. No sweat.

In the discussion we had we told stories about what our parents and grandparents said about how we had it easy compared to what they experienced. Here are a few that I’m sure you may have heard. They all started with “the snow was so deep we had to leave the house through a second story window.” “We were so poor we couldn’t afford a shovel we used a spatula.” “We walked to and from school, uphill, both ways.” “Snowfall was higher back then as it was always up to or over our knees.” Of course, they were two feet in height then.

Many like snow for Christmas. It adds to the feeling of the holiday if we have a few snowflakes. I have only two regrets about this: 1. It’s no fun waking up Christmas morning and being to old to go sledding because the knees won’t bend and power outages. It’s very difficult cooking a turkey over an open fire with snow drifts. Happy Holidays!

One never knows where new blog material will come from. For example, Roger, an acquaintance whom I’ve known for years, and I often run into each other at The Main Street Grille every Sunday after church and say hello. Often we discuss my blog subjects and he has offered me suggestions or ideas. What follows is one of them.

A small concrete blockhouse as well as several telephone poles are the remains of a once ultra secret radio-monitoring station on Chopmist Hill in Scituate, R.I. that is credited with helping to win WWII. Built in March of 1941 at a local farm, the station was so powerful it could pick up signals from South America and South Africa. It was part of a network of 13 similar stations nationwide.

Two of the most interesting reports are signals it picked up were about the Japanese attempt to bomb the US by using hot air balloons loaded with TNT. The info was passed on to authorities who had US fighter planes dispatched and the balloons were shot down. Another included interpreting coded messages of German movements in South Africa that led English Gen. Montgomery, to defeat German Gen. Rommel’s, The Desert Fox, Afrika Korps.

Another story that awed me involved the luxury liner The Queen Mary while she was being used as a troop ship. Docked in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil with over 10,000 allied troops ready to sail to Australia when details of an attempt to sink it by German U-Boats was picked up coming from Nazi spies in South America. They had learned the precise course the ship was to take and the German subs were lying in wait. By intercepting the radio transmissions the ship was able to change course and the pride of England’s fleet was saved along with 10,000 lives

One more. When actress Kay Francis on her way home from a USO tour in Europe aboard a plane that was lost off the Florida coast the Chopmist Station, hearing the pilots radio, was able to direct the plane home safely.

Lesser known but important, indeed!

In recent years we have seen our Christmas being attacked on several fronts. The manger scene has been banned from public places. We have the holiday tree and holiday sales in retail outlets. School children were not allowed to wear red and green colored clothing. And just this past week an effort was made to ban Santa Claus because he is considered offensive. To whom?

In researching the subject I found out that Christmas was forbidden to be observed in Massachusetts and a five shilling fine was levied if you did. Years later a violent riot in New York led to the institution of a professional police force. During these years Christmas became a time for hellish public behavior with men drinking rum, firing muskets, and dressing in animal pelts or wearing woman’s clothes. Puritans fought against this type of behavior as little was ever celebrated concerning Jesus’ Birth.

In 1822, thanks to Clement Moore, with his work of St. Nicholas, his book about Santa’s Christmas Eve visits swept across the nation and it became an extremely successful book that has become a family tradition of reading it t on Christmas Eve. The book turned St. Nicholas into Santa Claus.

Credit for what we accept as Santa’s image today should go to the Cocoa Cola Bottling Company who hired an artist to create advertising for their season’s products. That’s when the portly image became engraved on the minds of people. Shortly after that, around 1840, many of today’s Christmas carols were written.

“Rudolph” and “Santa Baby” are not to my liking. I’ll take the old standards such as “Silent Night.” O Come All Ye Faithful,” Night Before Christmas.” And when you add family, church service, food, gifting, and my wonderful grandchildren, that’s Christmas to me.

Dear reader, May The Blessings be.