Monthly Archives: October 2018

Just for Fun, in County Chemung

Life goes on (and on and on), and it’s easy to get into a rut, even if it’s a good rut. There’s always stuff that “we’re gonna do some day,” but never quite get to, especially if it’s local. (It seems like there’ll always be time to do that….)

*Then there’s the stuff that we never really notice, of hardly ever think about! But there’s fun, even if it’s low-key fun to be had, so this week let’s look at some fun things to do in Chemung County. Not necessarily spectacular… just fun.

*Play a giant game of chess on the carpet of Steele Memorial Library in Elmira.

*For that matter, just visit the library, which is the largest (out of 49) in the five-county region.

*Enjoy a walk around the pleasantly picuresque campus of Elmira College. (And enjoy the fact that the college is still downtown, and hasn’t fled for the suburbs.)

*While you’re on campus, stop in at Mark Twain’s octagonal study, which was originally just outside the city… it’s where he wrote Huckleberry Finn, A Connectcut Yankee, and other classics.

*Walk around the pond at Sperr Memorial Park, seeing what birds you spot and keeping an eye peeled for muskrats.

*The Big Flats Trail runs through the park and alongside the ponds. It’s a straight level rail trail that makes a great walk, and even encourages relucatant walkers.

*Explore the trails at Big Flats Community Park. If you have young kids, take them to the playground there. They’ll probably like the stegasaurus.

*Take a hike at Tanglewood Nature Center.

*Hike or bike on the Lackawanna Rail Trail, which runs right through the city and is now 8.7 miles long.

*Hike on the Catharine Valley Trail, another rail trail, which you can pick up near Pine Valley and follow all the way to Watkins Glen.

*Visit the lookout on Harris Hill, especially if it’s good weather for the sailplanes to be landing and taking off.

*Go on inside, and visit the National Soaring Museum.

*In season, play miniature golf at Harris Hill Amusement Park.

*Catch a show at the Clemens Center.

*In the right season, take in a Collegiate League baseball game with the Elmira Pioneers at Dunn Field, or a Federal League hockey game with the Elmira Enforcers at First Arena.

*Go shopping – not normally much of an attraction for me. But there are several opportunities that you may find fun.

*If you’re into crafts, the general Consumer Square area has Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, and Joanne Fabric (in three different shopping centers).

*Not far from Michael’s there’s also Barnes & Noble, where you’re bound to find at least one book you’d like. (Maybe including some of mine!)

*How many places still have a comic book store? Heroes Your Mom Threw Out is in Elmira Heights.

*Elmira Heights is also home to Hesselson’s, “where it’s fun to poke in the corners” – outdoor supplies, hunting goods, hot tubs, and who knows what else?

*While you’re thinking of outdoor supplies, the huge Field and Stream store in Consumer Square is fun just to wander through, though they’d no doubt be pleased as punch if you also bought something.

*The Christmas House in Elmira is open July through January!

*If you want to take in a movie on the big screen, you have the 10-screen multiplex Regal at Arnot Mall; the old-time downtown walk-in theater (The Heights) in Elmira Heights); and, in season, the Elmira Drive -In.

*Have fun!

Check Out the Clemens Center

We don’t visit the Clemens Center very often. And that’s a mistake on our part.

*What sparks this observation is our recent enjoyment of a performance the Platters, the Drifters, AND the Coasters… three singing groups whose dulcet tones inhabited the airways of the 1950s and 1960s with songs such as “Down by the Boardwalk,” “Do the Locomotion,” “Let’s Do the Twist,” “Sentimental Journey,” “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” and many, many more. They were rock and roll, with a touch of rhythm and blues.

*The crowd was overwhelmingly (ahem) our age, old enough to remember getting these performances first-time and first-hand on hi-fi’s and transistor radios. We saw only two very young people, and the place was packed. The last words of the performance were, “Rock and roll is here to stay!” Which seems a safe bet.

*Besides concerts, Clemens is also a venue for plays and musicals… “The Sound of Music” is coming up soon… by top-level professional touring companies. A few years ago they deepened and enlarged their stage, giving them the opportunity to book in shows such as “Les Miserables” or “The Phantom of the Opera,” where the huge, elaborate sets are half the show.

*There are also numerous school performances at various age interests, which is a real blessing for area students, giving them a chance to experience professional theater and music. We had a similar experience growing up in Rhode Island, where the school systems took advantage of Trinity Square Repertory Company and the American Shakespeare Theater. Those were life-changing opportunities.

*The Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes makes its home in the Clemens Center.

*Clemens Center (originally Keeney’s Theater) goes back almost a hundred years, and from time to time they book in a silent movie. Today it’s often forgotten that the studios commissioned scores for those films, and the sheet music accompanied the film cans. Theater orchestras accompanied the films.

*Or sometimes the music was a solo tour de force by a single musician. When Clemens Center has a silent movie, the theater organ rises up from beneath the stage. The organist performs the entire score, without a break, through the whole movie, in full view of the audience. The organist gets a standing ovation at the end, and the organist deserves it.

*Once a venue for vaudeville and silent movies, the theater was ravaged by floods in 1946 and 1972, then condemned for highway expansion. Local agitators and fund-raisers saved it and reopened as a non-profit in 1977 with a perfomance by Ella Fitzgerald.

*Even with a large crowd and a downtown setting in the heart of Elmira, we found it very simple to get into the dedicated parking garage ($3 for the evening), then to get out again and be on our way afterward. It’s only a few steps from garage to theater and back, though we will note that the elevator was out of order, AND that some floors were missing an out-of-order sign, which created some frustrations and some slow-downs. On the other hand, some people kept pressing the button even WITH an out-of-order sign right there. So you never can tell.

*The rest of the ’18-’19 Broadway Series includes Cinderella, Chicago, Jersey Boys, Something Rotten, and The King and I. Seasonal performances for the next two months include Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Musical; Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes Holiday Concert; The Nutcracker in Motion; Common Time Choral Group – a Holiday Celebration; and the Annual Arctic League Broadcast. Plus there are school performances, comedy clubs, and more. Really, you should check it out.

Grab Bag — Steuben County in (and out of) the World

We’ve earlier reported on places named for Steuben County; naval vessels with Steuben County names; and Curtiss airplanes on U.S. postage stamps. But there’s a “grab bag” of other worldwide recognitions – stamps and otherwise — of Steuben County.
CURTISS IN THE WORLD
*Wow, are Curtiss airplanes popular on world stamps! Here’s a listing as I’ve been able to find them – and it’s no doubt short!
*The June Bug: San Marino. Curtiss Museum has a flying reproduction of this 1908 airplane.
*The Silver Dart: Canada (two stamp designs).
*Curtiss Jenny: Micronesia (with a portrait of Glenn), Vietnam, Anguilla (the inverted Jenny), Equatorial Guinea, Guyana, Paraguay (inverted Jenny), Canada (the Canadian “Canuck” model), Bermuda (Jenny on floats), Liberia (two stamps). You can see an original Jenny at Curtiss Museum.
*Navy-Curtiss NC-4 (first aircraft to fly across the Atlantic): Hungary, Grenada, Portugal, Marshall Islands, Antigua-Barbuda.
* Model MF “Seagull” flying boat: Papua New Guinea There’s an original Seagull at Curtiss Museum.
*Model HS-2L flying boat: Canada.
*Hydroaeroplane (float plane): Cuba (three stamps, all featuring pioneer pilot Agustin Parla). Curtiss Museum has a flying reproduction.
*Curtiss Condor II airliner: Honduras.
*F8C Helldiver: Marshall Islands.
*The June Bug, the Silver Dart, most of the hydroaeroplanes, and some of the Jennys were made in Hammondsport. After Glenn’s death the Curtiss Buffalo plant made 14,000 P-40 “Warhawk” fighter planes (with components from Mercury Aircraft, in Hammondsport). The P-40 is an excitingly visual aircraft, bursting from stamps made for Cuba, Mozambique, Fiji, Liberia (three stamp designs), Guyana, Guinea-Bissau, Marshall Islands (three stamp designs), New Zealand, Palau, Central African Republic, Norfolk Island, Congo, Tuvalu, Canada, Papua New Guinea, Somaliland, Taiwan. Curtiss Museum has two original P-40s.
*Two more World War II airplanes made the stamps: the SOC3 Seagull (Kiribati), and the SB2C Helldiver (Vanuatu, Marshall Islands), also with components from Mercury Aircraft.
*MORE STEUBEN STAMPS
*Curtiss is not the only Steuben figure who has helped to move the mails.
*A Micronesian stamp shows Thomas J. Watson of Campbell in the famous “Think” photograph. (Palau and the Marshall Islands each have stamps honoring Thomas J. Watson, Jr. but as far as we know he never lived in Steuben.)
*The first non-Curtiss stamp with a Steuben connection came in 1948, when the Mount Palomar Observatory opened. A 3-cent U.S. stamp shows the dome of the observatory, and a glimpse of the Hale Telescope with its 200-inch reflector made at Corning Glass Works.
*The Hale Telescope has also been commemorated in stamps from Ascension, Hungary, and Nicaragua.
*A 1999 four-stamp U.S. set of commemorative “Glassmaking in America” U.S. stamps had its first day of issue at Corning Museum of Glass. Each stamp displays a different type of glass, in each case with four representative objects.
*The objects on the Art Glass stamp and on the Free Glass stamp all came from Corning Museum of Glass. Jane Shadel Spillman guided the selection process, and Nicholas Williams handled photography.
*And one of the objects (on the Art Glass stamp) was made in Steuben County: a Steuben Glass Aurene vase, made by Frederick Carder about 1917.
*AT SEA
*A staggering accomplishment of American industry was the Liberty Ship – 2710 World War II cargo ships, all based on a single design, and all made within four years.
*With nearly 3000 units at sea, the Liberty Ships were voracious for names. Hull 547, S.S. Marcus Whitman, honored the explorer/doctor/missionary who practiced in the Wheeler/Prattsburgh area. Launched in 1942, it was torpedoed and sunk off Brazil that same year.
*Hull 2293, S.S. Alanson B. Houghton (launched 1944, scrapped 1972), honored the glassmaking industrialist from Corning. Hull 2574, S.S. Narcissa Prentiss (launched 1943, scrapped 1961) memorialized Marcus Whitman’s Prattsburgh-born wife and colleague.
*HEAVENS ABOVE
*Minor Planet 34419, “Corning,” honors the city where the 200-inch mirror for the Hale Telescope at Mount Palomar was crafted. And while there’s a crater “Sanger” on the planet Venus, we imagine that “Corning” is generally the most distant use of a Steuben name… and we imagine it’s likely to stay that way!

Curtiss Planes on Postage Stamps — Again, and Again, and Again!

The 2018 issue of two postage stamps marks the 14th and 15th times that Curtiss aircraft have appeared on U.S. stamps.

*The first appearance was exactly a hundred years before, when the first Airmail stamp portrayed a Curtiss Jenny, the type on which the first scheduled air mail was flown. (Early Curtiss Jennys were made in Hammondsport, but later models… such as those used for the mail… were made in Buffalo and elsewhere.)

*A few sheets of this 24-cent stamp erroneously depicted the Jenny upside down. The extremely rare “inverted Jenny” stamps command high prices from collectors!

*Stamps 2 and 3 came the same year and used the same design, with differences in color shade. These were 16-cent stamps and 6-cent stamps, issued as the cost of Airmail plummeted.

*The fourth stamp didn’t come until 1961, and marked the golden anniversary of naval aviation. It shows the Curtiss float plane that became US Navy aircraft A-1.

*Seven years later came the golden anniversary of Airmail, leading to a 10-cent air mail stamp that copied the same Jenny from the original 1918 issues.

*Then things were quiet until 1980, when a 35-cent Airmail stamp honored Glenn Curtiss, and a 28-cent Airmail stamp honored Blanche Stuart Scott, America’s first woman pilot. Each stamp shows an early Curtiss “pusher” of the type with the full front elevator gear… the type with which they each flew to glory. The Curtiss stamp had its first day of issue in Hammondsport post office, and as far as I can tell these two are the only U.S. Stamps showing Steuben residents.

*In 1985 came a 39-cent Airmail stamp honoring aviation pioneers Lawrence and Elmer Sperry. The stamp shows the Curtiss Model F flying boat on which Lawrence did many of his experiments and demonstrations to create the autopilot.

*A 1988 Airmail stamp honors pioneer aviation experimenter Samuel P. Langley. Langley had nothing to do with Steuben County, but the stamp shows his 1903 “aerodrome.” Curtiss rebuilt it long after Langley’s death; he and some colleagues flew it repeatedly from Keuka Lake in 1914… the only times the aircraft ever flew.

*A 1989 first class stamp (25 cents) honors the 20th Universal Postal Congress, and shows a Jenny with the original Airmail service.

*In 1997 a flying Jenny appeared on a 32-cent first class stamp, as part of a set on vintage aircraft.

*A two-dollar stamp in 2013 deliberately copied the erroneous “inverted Jenny.” After it was on the market the Postal Service announced that, for the enjoyment of collectors, they had slipped in a few sheets that deliberately inverted the inversion, making the Jenny fly correctly… in a set that deliberately shows it incorrectly! Anyway, that counts as two stamps, getting us up to numbers 12 and 13. This set honored not Airmail or airplanes, but stamp collecting! Since the original inverted Jenny is probably the most prized U.S. stamp, that makes sense.

*The 2018 issues show a Jenny head-on, in a sort of art-deco styling. They’re said to be the model JN-4H on which the first Airmail was flown, but the radiator shape suggests that the airplane is a Model D, rather than a Model H. These stamps say Airmail, but the U.S. doesn’t have designated Airmail stamps any more. The blue stamp honors Airmail pilots, while the red (but otherwise identical) stamp commemorates the centennial of those first schedued flights.

*Other than the Langley aircraft and the late-model Jennys, Curtiss made all the airplanes on these stamps in Hammondsport.

*There are DOZENS of foreign stamps with Curtiss airplanes, especially when you throw in the World War II models such as the P-40. If I ever get a reasonably comprehensive list together, I’ll share that.

*But we should mention two foreign stamps that picture Glenn Curtiss himself. A 1993 Micronesian issue has a very nice picture of “Glenn H. Curtiss Pioneer of Flight,” along with a Curtiss Jenny. And a 4-lire San Marino stamp “Glenn Curtiss 1908” shows Glenn (in tiny silhouette) in his “June Bug.” The stamp doesn’t show anything of the setting, but we know that Glenn is soaring over Pleasant Valley on the Fourth of July… a Steuben person, a Steuben-made aircraft, and even a Steuben event. Well done, Republic of San Marino!

“Over Here:” History Awareness Week Revisits Two World Wars

In scarcely a month the First World War will be more than a hundred years agone, and even the SECOND World War has almost slipped from living memory. They were gigantic events in the life of the world, and they were gigantic events right here in our ordinary towns and villages.

*Personal and community memories are coming together in a remarkable exhibit assembled and presented by individuals and agencies from across the county – from Corning to Greenwood, from Dansville to Addison. This exhibit is open free of charge on a walk-in basis at the Veterans of Foreign Wars (V.F.W.) post in Bath, on Route 54.

*It’s not surprising that the Curtiss company was a major war supplier, rolling out engines and airframes in Buffalo and Hammondsport. Photos, buttons and badges (security police) tell the Curtiss story, along with a model engine. At first glance it might seem surprising to see that Gunlocke in Wayland was also a major manufacturer… but after all, the military needed acres and acres of chairs.

*Much of the exhibit focuses on local contributions to the war effort. The girls at Davenport orphanage collected fat to sell to a butcher, and donated the funds. (One thoroughly reprehensible man went to jail for 120 days, for stealing fat from the orphans.)

*You might like to see the scarf, socks, and blanket knitted to Red Cross instructions for donation to soldiers. You’ll also find peach pits and walnut shells (200 of them crushed up would filter a gas mask) and milkweed pods (two bagsfull of the silk would stuff a life jacket). Kids gathered these up, even as they saved up pennies to buy government bonds.

*Neither the tragedy nor the controversy are hidden. Over the war years hundreds of Conscientious Objectors served in a camp at Big Flats, mostly put to agricultural work. Army nurse Eunice Young of Arkport endured three years in a Japanese prison camp. The exhibit includes the Red Cross armband she was wearing when she was captured, while assisting at surgery. Carlton Nipher died four days AFTER World War II ended, when his airplane blew up. His last letter home is in fragments, sections having been cut out by the censor, and lost forever.

*A century-old photographic “Roll of Honor” collage from Centenary Methodist Church includes a picture of Charles Westcott, the first Bath man killed in World War I. The local American Legion post is named for him.

*St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Bath lent training items for air-raid spotting – civilians staffed designated posts to keep track of air traffic, and sound the alert in case of enemy attack. Kanestio Historical Society’s exhibit includes an air raid warden’s helmet and accoutrements.

*All of this is part of the first Steuben County History Awareness Week, co-ordinated by County Historian Emily Simms. At least 14 agencies have created exhibits, though others are pitching in as well to ake the whole week happen. The exhibit’s open Tuesday through Friday from 2:00 to 6:00, and then Saturday from 9:00 to 2:00. Seven-hundred students, mostly from Bath or from Campbell-Savona, are coming through in class groups.

*Then on Sunday October 7 I’ll be giving a 3:00 presentation at Haverling High School auditorium, “Over Here: The Great War in our Small Towns.” This will be followed at 4:30 by a “gala U.S.O. show finale!”, complete with a live big band. We hope you’ll be able to taake in some part of the week’s activities. It’s the way of the world that memories fade, but they shouldn’t disappear.