Monthly Archives: October 2017

50 Years Ago — Our Life in 1967

Lyndon B. Johnson was president fifty years ago, in 1967. Nelson Rockefeller was our governor. Jake Javits and Robert F. Kennedy were our senators, and Bobby was in his last full year of life. The same was true for Martin Luther King, who in 1967 came out squarely against the war in Vietnam. This was the year that the tide started to turn, as the number of troops went up, but millions took to the streets in opposition. Muhammad Ali refused induction, and was stripped of his boxing titles. Eugene McCarthy challenged Johnson for the next year’s presidential nomination.

*Race riots in Buffalo, Newark, Minneapolis, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Washington made a counterpoint to the “Summer of Love,” with Be-Ins from coast to coast.

*The Supreme Court ruled that people could marry anyone they wanted, of whatever race. Thurgood Marshall became the first African American on the Supreme Court.

*Ronald Reagan became governor of California, and Lester Maddox became governor of Georgia. Che Guevara was killed in Bolivia. Biafra seceded from Nigeria, touching off a civil war. Israel made a pre-emptive strike against its neighbors, thrashing them in the Six-Day War.

*Charlie Chaplin and Spencer Tracy died, each one shortly after releasing his final film. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was formed, and Expo 67 opened in Canada. The Torrey Canyon oil spill was a grim herald of things to come. China set off its first h-bomb. Three Apollo astronauts died in a fire on the launching pad.

*America’s population hit 200 million, and the first successful heart transplant was made. Meg Cabot, Kurt Cobain, Neil Gorsuch, and Faith Hill were born. Deaths for the year included Jack Ruby, Henry Luce, Nelson Eddy, Alice B. Toklas, Konrad Adenauer, Langston Hughes, Jayne Mansfield, Carl Sandburg, Henry Kaiser, Hugo Gernsback, and Woody Guthrie.

*“Cadillac” Smith was a state senator. Steuben County had a Board of Supervisors, rather than a county legislature. The hospital in Corning opened a new building, and so did the congregational church, and so did Central Baptist Church. Pinnacle Country Club opened, overlooking Addison. Fire gutted the Wagner Hotel in Bath. Watson Homestead celebrated its tenth anniversary. Curtiss Museum and the Finger Lakes Trail were just starting to make their mark.

*If you shopped on Liberty Street in Bath you could get shoes at Orr’s, Castle’s or Triangle. You could shop at Western Auto, W. T. Grant, Grand Union, or Montgomery Ward, eat at the Chat-A-Whyle, take in a movie at Babcock Theater. On summer nights you might patronize Bath Drive-In, or the Starlite between Hornell and Arkport. Or you might just sit out in the yard with your transistor radio.

*Odds are that you (or your mother) collected S&H Green Stamps, or Plaid Stamps if you went to A&P. On TV you might have watched Captain Kangaroo, or Ironside, or Star Trek, or Laugh-In. On your record player you might have spun the new Beatles LP, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. The Monkees spent ten of the 52 weeks of 1967 at the top of the charts… compared to four for Bobbie Gentry, four for the Box Tops (who?), and just three for the Beatles!

Monarchs and Me

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Maybe the hard frost on the seventeenth put an end to it, but at least through Saturday the fourteenth I was seeing quite a few monarch butterflies… never as many as I’d like, but gratifyingly more than I’d expected.

*It’s late in the season, and probably late in their lives, and some are clearly struggling. The one that lit right in front of me on the Letchworth Trail last month had a corner of one wing missing. One that flew in front of my car in Canisteo seemed struggling to stay aloft, and so have some of those I’ve seen in Bath.

*But the one I saw at Mossy Bank Park appeared in fine fettle, and so did the ongoing stream that crossed Post Road in Hartsville every few minutes, bound for the south’ard.

*Monarchs are one of our most recognizable butterflies, rivaled in that respect only by the eastern tiger swallowtail, which is (usually) a bright yellow trimmed with black. The monarch is orange, veined and trimmed with black, and both butterflies are big. They’re probably the first butterflies most kids learn to recognize, and for many folks may be the only ones that they learn through their lives.

*Monarch life is one of nature’s greatest sagas. Those heading south now will, if they survive, make it (on paper-thin wings) across the ocean to Mexico, Cuba, or other warm climes to spend the winter. As bright-leaved spring comes on they will make their way back toward us… but in many cases, will never arrive. Along their way they lay eggs, mostly on milkweed. They hatch as larvae, pupate, and emerge as butterflies. Then they take up the journey, making their way north.

*A round trip may take four generations.

*Since thousands over overwinter in small concentrated areas, monarchs are in grave danger from habitat destruction. The loss of a few acres could mean a population collapse.

*A few months ago, stopping at the I-390 rest area near Mount Morris, I noticed a sign pointing to a monarch butterfly garden. I strolled over in that direction, and the result might have been choreographed by a movie director… “All right, action, enter, walking walking walking – cue the monarch!” Just as I reached the garden a monarch flew straight up to eye level, directly in front of me.

*This garden is part of a joint project between Seneca Park Zoo and the state Department of Transportation. The Zoo has a “Butterfly Beltway” program helping people maintain their gardens so as to encourage butterflies. The highway project leads to planting and mowing being done in such a way as to make a safe flyway for the fall migration.

*Monarchs are one of the finest creatures on God’s earth. They do no one the slightest bit of harm – their larvae even eat plant species such as milkweed, which are generally rated as pests. Sighting a monarch always creates a moment of beauty and joy. My wife and I are still awe-struck by the singular time, some years ago, when 800 monarchs passed over us, heading south, along Mitchellsville Road near Bath.

*As a young boy in Rhode Island I caught butterflies in our back yard, using a net made by my uncle with mesh sewn by my aunt. I put them into jars (lent by my mother) with some grasses, and covered the jars with aluminum foil in which I poked air holes with a fork. I looked to see if I could find them in “The First Book of Butterflies,” given to me by my parents. And very very soon, I set them free. Some of them were monarchs, perhaps the ancestors of those I see here and now, 220 generations removed. Good for you, D.O.T. Good for you, Seneca Park Zoo. A monarch is a little flash of glory. There’s nothing like it in the world.

A Good Trip to Fenimore Art Museum

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We visited Fenimore Art Museum, in Cooperstown, over Labor Day weekend, and had lunch on the lovely terrace overlooking the even-more-lovely Otsego Lake. Depending on the day, you might now be a little late for that. But the museum itself is worth the trip.

*The driving idea of the museum is American art, American Indian art, and American folk art.

*Special exhibits come and go, and some of those that we saw have already “went.” But through December 31 you can see a delightful collection of art concerning ice skating… a collection made even more delightful by the fact that it’s on loan from Dick Button (two Olympic gold medals, five world championships, one European championship, three North American championships).

*Mr. Button has assembled an eclectic collection including Hudson River School paintings, turn-of-the-century posters, archaeological skates, trade signs, and more. The whole thing is just a delight, though perhaps those who don’t skate wouldn’t be that excited.

*Also running through December is an exhibition of Edward Curtis photos, taken among the Kwakiutl of the Pacific Northwest. While fascinating, Curtis’s “Vanishing Race” photos have also been controversial from the time they were first shown. First of all, the Native people of America are not vanishing – they’re still here. There are also questions about how much he arranged or posed his compositions, and how much they represent a truly Native culture, as opposed to creating a curated view (or even creation) of a culture.

*Still, he recognized the value and validity of Native culture in a time when other Anglos dismissed or despised it, and photographically preserved much that would otherwise have been lost.

*The Curtis exhibit complements, but is dwarfed by, the Thaw Gallery, a staggering exhibition of Native American art from cultures all across North America. Many of these artworks appear in the museum web site, but that’s nothing compared to the in-person, naked-eye experience. The Thaw Gallery is what raises the Fenimore from nice medium-sized museum to outstanding destination.

*We also spent time in the folk art gallery, “American Memories: Recalling the Past in Folk Art.” Much of this is art whose creators are unknown, or at least uncertain. They were made without much studio technique, close to ordinary people: cigar store Indians, signs for country inns, weather vanes, calligraphied baptismal certificates, carvings, primitive paintings.

*A bursting star in this gallery is the shoe shine set of Giovanni Indelicato, who also went by the name of Joe Milone. After a severe injury limited his mobility in the 1930s, Joe Milone eked out a living shining shoes at a makeshift stand on Broadway. But by night he spent years crafting a shoe shine set as it might have been if translated to glory, “Festive as a Christmas tree, jubilant as a circus wagon,” according to the director of the Museum of Modern Art.

*The several pieces, including a high stool, are festooned with “found” items, brass tacks, hammered copper sheets, ornaments bought from dime stores and push carts… sometimes covered in spray paint. It’s the work of a man tackling his limitations and transcending them… embracing the shadow and turning it into unending sparkles.

*While special exhibits and traveling exhibits rotate in and out, there are several other permanent galleries, including the Cooper Gallery, dedicated to the Coopers (and the Fenimores) of Cooperstown. James Fenimore Cooper, of course, ensures that their name is ever remembered in America.

*Fenimore Art Museum is directly across the road from The Farmer’s Museum, which is also definitely worth visiting. We’d suggest doing them on separate days, though.

On the Letchworth Trail

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Well, I finally finished hiking the Letchworth Trail. Took me from June 2015 to September 2017 to manage 25.2 miles. On the other hand, since I did it in sections – hiking from my car, then retracing my steps – I actually hiked it twice.

*Letchworth Trail is a major branch of the Finger Lakes Trail system, and in fact it reaches the Main F.L.T. a little bit south of Portageville, in Wyoming County. This is the southern terminus of the Letchworth Trail, and the northern terminus lies in Mount Morris… 25.2 miles away. Except for a very short stretch at each end, the entire trail lies in Letchworth State Park.

*Wonderful!, I hear you say. This means incredible vistas in the “Grand Canyon of the East!”

*Well, not so much. Except right near the “dam site,” most of the trail is in the woods, set back from the gorge and actually closer to River Road. There are several spur trails that hikers can take to scenic overlooks. Access spurs in the other direction reach out to River Road.

*By the time I started the Letchworth Trail I had already finished the entire F.L.T. In Steuben County, plus the Bristol Hills Trail, the Crystal Hills Trail, the Interlaken Trail, and loop trails in Montour Falls and in Queen Catharine Marsh.

*But getting to Letchworth involved a lot of wheel-spinning. My wife experienced repeated severe health problems, and we suffered several out-of-state family deaths. With the trail an hour’s drive from our home in Bath, it just seemed like a slope too steep to climb. Inertia did its dirty work.

*Until a hot June Sunday when things were going pretty well, and our younger son was at home, and after church we all agreed that this would be a great day for it. I drove up to Mount Morris, parked at the access off Route 36 where Letchworth Trail terminates at the Genesee Valley Greenway, and plunged into the wilds of the Livingston County Campus. Then into Al Lorenz County Park, a pleasing setting shaded by tall old trees. Then into Letchworth Park, past the F.L.T. office, and across the parking lot to the dam. That was my goal for the day, and I’d completed 1.9 miles of the trail.

*I admired the gorge for a while, used the rest room, poked around the dam’s visitor center, and headed back (reversing 1.9 miles) for my car. I got there a little later than I might have, as I spent some time in a field watching a red fox.

*On my next trip I started at the visitor center and spent some time watching the soaring vultures before I struck out for the south. After that, from time to time, I did the trail piecemeal, from various points, though working generally north to south. I met chipmunks, and squirrels red and gray. I met vultures and blue jays, chickadees and pileated woodpeckers. I met hikers and cyclists and hunters, and monarch butterflies. I knew the park in summer, spring, and fall, and it was good.

*All in all, except in Portageville and at the dam/Mount Morris end, these were supremely quiet hikes. Most days I met nobody else at all. To all intents and purposes, I had Letchworth Park all to myself as my own private domain.

*What’s the hiking like? First of all, the trail is excellently blazed – kudos to the volunteers who work at that. The trail itself is clear and easy to see at all seasons, and very well maintained, nice and solid underfoot. Most of the route is over pleasant, gently rolling terrain, with very few long slogs upward.

*But there are, unsurprisingly, ravines. Of course water runs downhill to the Genesee river at the bottom of the gorge, and on the way it collects into streams and watercourses that cut right athwart the trail. Most of these are dry for most of the year, but it’s still a matter of down into the ravine, across the (probably dry) streambed, and up the other side, maybe three to five times in a given walk… and then, if you’re hiking the way I did, back again.

*Getting there, although a bit of a drive from Bath, is half the fun. The country between the park and I-390 is farm-and-forest land, with barns and hamlets and miles-long vistas, and occasional hay wagons on the road. Closer to the park some of the roads are dirt, and you meet the Genesee Valley Greenway again. In fall the roaring combines devour the cornfields. Amish and Old-Order Mennonites make their quiet homes here. You can get gas, or something to eat, in Mount Morris, Portageville, or Nunda.

*The on-again, off-again opportunities to hike made the Letchworth Trail take on symbolic significance: when I could carve out time to go there, it meant that things were going well. Even when my wife was wheelchair-bound in late winter, we set this as the year that I’d finish the trail. I made a couple of trips, and then I was down to the last five miles – ten miles, by the time I’d done my round trip. Two hikes to go, and now we set September as the MONTH I’d finish.

*Saturday the sixteenth went well, despite the heavy fog, but the following Saturday the heat went well up into the eighties, and I wisely skipped it. A week later rain fell off and on, but I forged ahead, wearing my L. L. Bean duck shoes. After doubling back I followed a doe that was also using the trail, maybe twenty yards ahead and seemingly unaware of me. And on September 30, I finally finished the Letchworth Trail.