Monthly Archives: September 2020

A Walk in Sapsucker Woods

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Last Sunday after church… following the equinox, but still a beautiful summery day (albeit with bright autumn leaves)… we took a drive over to Ithaca, and visited Sapsucker Woods.

Sapsucker Woods is the wildlife sanctuary attached to the world-renowned Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Many bird watchers and bird students find it a very special place because of the association, although it’s not particularly a place for rare birds. It’s just a place to enjoy (and study) birds.

We first visited Ithaca 26 years ago, as my wife was awaiting open-heart surgery. Now she’s waiting for a pacemaker, and she wanted to make another trip.

All of the trails are good trails, level (mainly) and well-kept (with some roots here and there). They’re good to wander around on spotting birds, frogs, squirrels, and other small wildlife. They’re good to exercise on, if you want to stride out in pleasant settings. They’re very good of you have heart or balance problems. We set off on the three-quarter-mile Wilson Trail, and we started at the pond, right by the visitors center.

The center itself is closed “for the duration,” but there were a fair number of people at the pond and on the trails – all of them observing good mask discipline and distance discipline. We saw a group of two or three college-agers, a couple of separate families with young children, one three-generational family group, and several couples or individuals. It sounds like a lot, but for most of our walk we were alone in the woods.

The pond is shrunken and anemic just now, choked by lily pads and surrounded by mudflats, thanks to the drought or semi-drought we’ve been suffering. A couple of Canada geese were honking away anyhow, while nearby a small duck (maybe a black duck) ignored them on its never-ending quest for water bugs. On the island nearby, a pileated woodpecker puttered around in the leafy tops, while an immature red-headed woodpecker zipped in and out along the shore.

The pond was open to the blue sky, but a few steps away we were in a yellow wood under the forest canopy, enjoying quiet, in companionable shade. A few deer had dug their hooves in along our way, while squirrels vibrated themselves across the trail, up the trees, under dead logs, along the forest floor… sometimes all within the space of ten seconds.

The trees were still leafed out, and the colors were vibrant that weekend, but it was also the first week that leaves seemed to be falling with purpose. They were dappling the trail and the boardwalks – in a few days, they’d be covering them. Most of those that had fallen (or WERE falling) were yellow, but Joyce found some eye-catching specimens that were mostly yellow, but with green streaks along the veins.

Although the trail goes around the pond, for most of its way it loses the sight, until you come back almost to the shadow of the visitors center. The one duck and the two geese were still on the job, but now we also saw a great blue heron, perching its four-foot height on a high dead branch. Blue dragonflies zipped by, back, and away in the immemorial manner of their kind.

Milkweed had gone by, cattails were breaking open… down from both was caught in the corner cobwebs. Among the reeds and tall grasses, asters and thistles beamed out brightly in summer’s dying green. A pleasant walk. We opened the car, took a seat, and shared a peanut butter sandwich. The trail was just right, while we’re waiting for the pacemaker.

Comic Books — The Finger Lakes Connection

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I was intrigued, on September 17, to learn that it was the birthday of Jack Byrne (1902-1972). Not that I’d ever heard of him before, but he interested me because: he was a prominent figure in early comic books; he was born in Corning; and he was the brother of Olive Byrne, who also played a role in the “Golden Age” of comics.

Jack Byrne wrote action and adventure stories, largely for “pulp” magazines, and often for Fiction House. Fiction expanded into comic books in 1938, just months after Supermen first appeared in Action Comics # 1. They were never giants in the comics world, though they had a major hit with Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, and also brought out the first science fiction comic book. Jack became an editor, in charge of the comics line from 1945 until they gave it up nine years later.

Besides Sheena, women took the lead in a great many other Fiction House comics, which might tie in with the fact that Jack’s Corning-born mother (Edith Byrne) and aunt (Margaret Sanger) were two of the most prominent and aggressive feminists in the first half of the century.

So how about sister Olive, also born in Corning? She became the not-quite bigamous partner of Dr. William Moulton Marston, who would later create Wonder Woman. The two lived with Marston’s legal wife, all bringing up the children of both mothers, all writing for income. In place of a wedding ring, Olive wore two broad flat bracelets, which Marston worked into Wonder Woman’s appearance. He created the strong dynamic woman with inspiration from Edith, Olive, Sanger, and his own wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston. (He died young, by the way, in 1947, but the two women lived together until Olive’s death more than forty years later.)

The Finger Lakes have other comic book connections too. Dick Ayers lived in Pulteney and attended Hammondsport High School for a couple of years in the 1930s… film critic Charles Champlin remembered him as “a skinny kid with glasses, red hair, and a magic pencil.” Teacher Stan Smith got him his first paid commission, illustrating a menu for the Pied Piper Restaurant on Keuka Lake. After World War II Dick created tens of thousands of pages of comic book art, working on such characters as Sergeant Fury, Fantastic Four, the original Ghost Rider, and far too many cowboys to count.

Frank Kelly Freas was born in Hornell, but his art career was mostly in science fiction. He did do a few comic books, including one for Fiction House (I wonder if he and Jack Byrne ever knew they were both from Steuben?), plus four years at MAD magazine.

Then there’s Joe Simon… born (1913) and brought up in Rochester, schooled there, did artwork for newspapers both there and in Syracuse. He gravitated to New York City, doing art for newspapers, magazines, and… soon… the brand-new comic books. One day in 1940 he sketched a brand-new hero and, after experimenting with several unsatisfying names, called him – Captain America. He went on to many other comics firsts (often in partnership with Jack Kirby… their dads were both tailors), but “Cap” is perhaps his most enduring legacy.

Since Captain America is so closely tied to World War II, publishers continually struggle
for semi-plausible days to get him into our own time. In a 2011 “reboot,” the Captain finds himself a man out of time, having leapt from 1945 to the Obama era. In need of guidance, Captain America searches out the elderly “General Simon,” who had been present when weedy Steve Rogers drank the super-soldier serum to embark on his new life. After doing the best he could to help, General Simon passed away. Joe died the same year, at the age of 98.

Is It Fall Yet?

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So… Labor Day is over, and school has more or less begun. So… is it fall yet?

As far as meteorologists are concerned, fall started on September 1, and runs through November 30. OFFICIAL fall, as defined by astronomers, starts on the autumnal equinox (September 22), and runs through to the winter solstice (December 21).

For most of us, the dividing line comes when we break out of that oppressive August heat, and into much cooler, breezier air. For us in the northeast (I grew up in Rhode Island, now live in the Finger Lakes), that happens right around the first week of September. One of these mornings… quite possibly in September… we’ll actually wake up to frost.

Labor Day weekend is usually adequate for swimming, and maybe the next weekend too. In some years you might squeeze out short dips for even a week or two after that, but usually the holiday, or the weekend after, marks the limit.

In Rhode Island one sign of fall is a gang of men and boys… often including me, when I lived there… going from place to place around the pond, hauling in rafts and docks, and heaving their waterlogged bulk up onto the shore, out of the ice that would one day form.

The last monarchs flutter by, struggling toward a southern clime that only a few of them will reach. We won’t rejoice in their red-and-black flashes again until ever-returning spring.

The haunting clamor of the wild geese, passing over in their wedges, makes a mournful joy. If fall has a signature tune on the soundtrack, it’s the call of the Canada geese, with “summer sun upon their wings, winter in their cry.”

Many of our summer birds disappear, the juncos drift down from higher elevations, and our winter birds suddenly dominate the landscape. They’ve been inspecting our feeders for weeks, although here in bear country, I won’t fill them until November. Before too long our yards will be filled with juncos, blue jays, goldfinches, chickadees, nuthatches, mourning doves, sparrows, flickers, finches, and redbellies. Not to mention starlings and crows.

Our apple orchards and our cider mills, largely unnoticed much of the summer, become busy happy places. Pumpkins appear in the stores and stands, on the porches and windowsills. Pumpkin spice appears in coffee, cakes, and donuts, and in a remarkable list of other foodstuffs. Some farmers create maize mazes.

Acorns crunch beneath our feet, and horse chestnuts get kicked down the sidewalk. We finally stop mowing the lawn. Orion rises higher and higher in the night sky.

One annoying morning we’ll be rifling through closets and drawers, snapping out questions about where we put the gloves, mittens, and stocking caps. One day, without even noticing that we’ve crossed a dividing line, we’ll be putting on sweaters. We won’t realize it at the time, and we won’t think about it later, but one day will be the last day we wear shorts.

Sales of soda and lemonade will nose-dive, though it’s still a little early for hot chocolate. Cream of Wheat, on the other hand, will reappear on breakfast tables.

Halloween ecstacies will blanket the stores, followed by Thanksgiving floods.

And, of course, the leaves will change. They’re starting already, but as the month and the season wear on the colors will explode. For much of the world, and even much of the nation, the color change is rather subdued. For us in the northeast, Mother Nature flings her entire palette onto our forests. Pay attention when she does. And happy fall.

Just Passin’ Through… Hornell

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Communities often celebrate Native Sons and Native Daughters – residents who have achieved fame. Hammondsport is justly proud of Glenn Curtiss, Elmira of Ernie Davis, Wayland of Bill T. Jones, Rochester of Susan B. Anthony. Even when living memory fades, the tales are still told with affection and awe, passed down from generation to generation.
It’s also not unusual for people to have only a fleeting contact with a community – living there a few months, perhaps, and then moving on. In some cases that’s just as well. Joseph D’Angelo, recently convicted as the “Golden State” serial killer, was born in Bath, but the family moved to the West Coast when he was still very small.
A number of very interesting people have touched briefly on Hornell… just passin’ through.
TV star Bob Crane – most famous for playing the lead in the sitcom Hogan’s Heroes – started his broadcasting career with a short stint at radio WLEA. He then went on to the New York City and Los Angeles markets before crossing over to television, first as a regular on the Donna Reed Show.
Don Zimmer spent the summer of 1950 playing baseball for the Hornell Dodgers. He later played or managed on six World Series championship teams, besides being named an All-Star and National League Manager of the Year. A Hornell teammate was Charlie Neal — later Gold Glove winner, three times an All-Star, and key player on the 1959 World Series championship team.
Neal and Zimmer were on their way up in 1950, but Hornell must have looked pretty bleak to John Joseph Fox sixty years earlier. He had ALREADY been in the majors, and by 1890 was on his way down. He’d recently spent two years banned from baseball for “general dissipation and insubordination.” We shudder to think what “general dissipation” amounted to in the 1880s.
Frank Kelly Freas was born in Hornell, where his parents were professional photographers, but grew up in Canada. His magazine art won 11 Hugo Awards for best artist of the year from the World Science Fiction Society. He was also a renowned artist for MAD magazine, painting elaborate layouts in full color. Freas further created some 50 MAD covers, every one including Alfred E. Neuman, until he made the mistake of asking for more money.
Dr. Marc Edwards, who was also born in Hornell, was a 2007 Macarthur Fellow (the so-called “Genius” grant). He played a key role in alerting the public to the Flint water crisis in 2015.
In 1867 Carl Myers opened a photo studio in Hornell (then Hornellsville), where he met and married Mary Hawley. In 1875 they started their “Balloon Farm” in Herkimer County and plunged into lighter-than-air aviation, including their pedal-powered “sky cycle,” billing themselves as Carl and Carlotta Myers. They were probably America’s most famous aviators until the Wright brothers came along, and Carlotta the Lady Aeronaut could always draw a crowd.
Charles H. Day was born in Salamanca, and graduated from Hornell High School around 1906. By 1909 he and Glenn Martin were building their first airplane together. He designed the Standard Model J biplane, one of which is in Curtiss Museum. His aviation career… including building up the Chinese industry as the Japanese invaded… lasted until his death in 1955. He’s buried in Dansville (Livingston County).

The 1950s Were a Time of Change

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I’m reading a book about the 1920s, and all the changes that that period wrought in American life. In particular, it was a decade in which electricity, motorcars, farm tractors, and indoor plumbing became much more widespread.

And THAT got me thinking about another great period of change – the 1950s.

Right around here, rural electrification finally became complete by the early ‘fifties. At last, just about everybody in our area had power. The kerosene lamps went into barns sheds, and cellars, but they’d still be hauled out from time to time as needed.

With electricity came TV, but service was still very sparse and sketchy in our area. But you could take in movies at drive-ins, and at downtown walk-in theaters.

Quite a few folk were still using outhouses in the ’50s, and even into the ’60s, but the number would shrink each year.

A fair number of folks still didn’t have telephones. Those who did were often on party lines, with maybe four or six numbers served by a single circuit. The pattern of rings (two short, one long, for instance) told you whether the phone was for you. If somebody else was on the line, you couldn’t get a call in or out. (On the other hand, if you picked up the headset carefully and quietly, you could eavesdrop undetected on your neighbor’s conversations.)

You had to turn a dial, of course, for each numeral of the number you were calling. You might have needed the operator’s intervention if you wanted to call outside your exchange. Long distance calls were expensive and rare, requiring multiple operators and sometimes a couple of hours to put through.

Many women, and many older people, did not drive. Quite a few families still didn’t have cars, and families that DID almost always had only one. During the day it was probably at work with Dad, so Mom did her shopping on foot, buying only what she could lug home herself, often with a kid or two in tow. Malls did it exist. Shopping centers were just starting to appear, along with large supermarkets.

The Baby Boom brought in a school-construction boom. The remaining one-room schools nearly all closed their doors (in part because of a state mandate to install flush toilets). Large new districts opened large bright modern schools for 20th-century children in the dawning Age of Space. Corning Community College opened its doors. So did Watson Homestead and the Corning Museum of Glass.

The only thing in Steuben County that could pass for a modern library was the one in Hornell, gifted by Andrew Carnegie half a century earlier.

It was the last full decade of widespread agriculture, with 300 dairies in the Town of Bath alone.

The tuberculosis sanitarium shut down, and so did the Davenport orphanage for girls. A polio vaccine thrilled the world.

More women were working than had worked in World War II, though they were working different kinds of jobs, and often part-time while the kids were in school.

Industrial jobs, unskilled at the entry level, dominated the workplace thanks to Corning Glass, Ingersoll Rand, Mercury Aircraft, Babcock Ladder, Erie Railroad. With many industrial workers on the job, unions were strong.

Before the 1950s we had never heard of Captain Kangaroo, Romper Room, Supergirl. McDonald’s, Elvis Presley, or Annette Funicello. Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, and Rocky the Flying Squirrel came to life in fifties, and so did Frosty the Snowman, Tom Swift Junior, and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.

So did the Bic pen. Which was good because you couldn’t use a keyboard or a voice recorder to take down your messages. And you didn’t have a calculator, or even an adding machine. American life ran on pen-and-paper, and mostly through the post office!