Remember

 

This was written in 2006, but I have not forgotten

Since September 11, 2001, when one of the planes that flew into the World Trade Center turned south just east of here over Amsterdam, it is hard not to notice the rattle of the kitchen windows when a jet passes by. I still stop to listen every single time I hear a plane. In the first days after the attacks it was estimated that more than five thousand people died in the assault. As bodies were counted and some of the missing found, authorities finally decided that only 2996 people actually died.

Only.

As if any single one of the souls who were lost that day, heroes and homebodies, doctors and stockbrokers, firemen, policemen, cooks and secretaries, could be encompassed by a word like only.

They were not only.

They were not some incomprehensible count of the dead and missing.

They were our friends and neighbors. People loved them. People wake still wake up today missing them and mourning them and go to bed each night bereft because they are gone.

One of those 2996 friends, neighbors and loved ones was 27 year-old Carl DiFranco.


This is to honor Carl on the fifth anniversary of the nightmare that took him from his loved ones. Raised in Huguenot, NY and a lifelong resident, Carl was assistant vice president of Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc., located in the World Trade Center. He graduated from Monsignor Farrell High School and cum laude from St. Johns University. He liked to bowl, play tennis and jog. Married a short time before the attacks he was widowed within months, when heart problems while awaiting a transplant took his longtime sweetheart, Loren Bosso.

Carl must have been a wonderful person. He supported his sister through the birth of his niece, then helped through the difficult weeks that followed. The day he died his mother’s car had a flat tire, so like the decent son he was, he offered her the use of his truck. This made him a little later than usual, but not late enough to be saved. He also took his mother on “dates” and surprise trips. He pitched in willingly to help her with projects around the house and yard. In a New York Times article she said, “I keep thinking I hear him coming in the door, that I'll have a chance to help him get through it," (referring to the loss of his beloved wife.)

From what I read in many tributes from people who knew him, his kindness and caring for his mom reflected the way he always was. Friends remember him as someone who was brave and confident, kind, generous and quick with a joke. There are many poignant references to him by the people who knew him to be found all over the Internet. They make hard reading, but they put a face on what our nation lost that terrible day.

I hope this small tribute will help to remind us of Carl and the many other special people who were taken from us on September 11. I will try to think of him and the good life he lived when I hear planes overhead, instead of reflecting on the terror of those days.

Coats on Coats off

 

Tis the season.

You wake up to a brisk fifties morning. The rising sun glints gently off fog rising off the river and drifting up toward the sky. The grass is thick with dew. The mosquitoes are still sleeping (if you're lucky and it's in the low fifties. Any warmer than that and they just plain love you.)

You could probably survive without a sweatshirt, or a flannel, or a hoodie, but it's a heckin' lot more comfy with one.

Then the sun muscles its orange way on up over the horizon, dragging a short return to summer in its wake.

Gradually your warm snuggly thing becomes cumbersome and de trop.

So you take it off.

If you are a certain farmer I could mention you dump it wherever you are.

BITD when we were farming and those warm-ups found us on a tractor or nailing up fence, that is where the shirt or coat came to rest. Many of them are probably still out there, fading away on a fencepost or tucked behind the seat of some tractor we sold years ago.

Nowadays they are dumped behind the seat of the car or the pickup, gathering there until there is no room in the backseat and someone drags them in for me to wash. 

Oh, well....

I love this time of year, the delightful mornings and the not-too-hot-but-just-cozy days.

Alas, I don't love what's to come, when you don't even want to take your coat off indoors!

It won't be long now. 

Happy Heavenly Anniversary

 

Mom and Dad

The Erie was a'Risin'

 

Sorry, no Gin.

I was 8 when we moved to the Mohawk Valley. Theretofore unknown to me, it became a talisman.

 From the old limestone abutment at the bottom of the driveway where we first discovered Painted Turtles to Molly's Hannibal, a beloved book about a canal mule, I have loved the canal most of my life.

We learned the canal songs in school. Rome Haul could be found on the shelves of the folks' bookstore. (I have only ever read part of it...guess I should try again.) Mom took us to swim under the Schoharie Crossing aqueduct back when that was possible. (You couldn't pay me now.,)

Nowadays, I bird the banks of the Schoharie, the area around the aqueduct, the surrounding fields and the edges of the Mohawk almost daily. I've submitted 880 checklists from there so far.

We stopped there today on the way home from one of Ralph's doctor consultations (IYKYK). It was late enough in the day that birding was not exactly scintillating, but it sure was an interesting visit.

I was peering through the binoculars at the cattails under the aqueduct, looking for herons or migrating shorebirds (I need several common species of the latter). To my considerable amazement, there on the little beach they made last year, sticking up through the foliage, was what appeared to be a horse's head.

Not a live horse, but a beautifully crafted fabric creature.

Color me intrigued.

Indigo Bunting photographed at the crossing
We'll just color him blue.

I slow-footed over, not wanting to intrude on anyone, to find a man taking photos of the coolest canoe you could imagine. I waited until he paused and asked if I could photograph it...I knew you would want to see it... 

He pointed to a pair of young women who were approaching, and said, "It's their canoe, you can talk to them."

And talk I did, for a heckin' long time. They actually interviewed me, a first in my sheltered life so far. 

I am normally about as introverted as a particularly shy bivalve, but they asked me about birds. You cannot shut me up about them once I get started.

Anyhow, they are doing a canoe trip up the Erie to Buffalo, interviewing people and visiting canal-related sites along the way. The horse is in fact a mule; the trip is called the Mule's Passage. From Waterford NY's Facebook page "The Mule’s Passage launches from Waterford, where artists Z Behl and Kim Moloney (Baloney Steel) will begin an extraordinary four-week, 350-mile canoe journey upstream to Buffalo. Along the way, they’ll meet people, collect stories, and create community-centered performances exploring the Erie Canal’s history, ecology, labor, and culture. "

They gave me a little bottle of bug repellent, which I promise I will try, as I am a well-known mosquito magnet, and a newspaper, describing their goals and philosophies. As an old Boomer, I do see the world a bit differently than they might. However, I loved reading of their experiences during some major events, such as 9-11 that touched them a lot closer than it did up here in the more northern bits of the state.

If you would like to see their extraordinary craft or perhaps get a chance to meet them, they will be stopping in Canajoharie tonight, and traveling to St. Johnsville tomorrow. You can find the rest of their itinerary on the Waterford NY Facebook page.  

I was glad we stopped at the boat launch today even though there were no herons.

Had a lovely chat with this nice
gentleman as well
but we talked fishing and my favorite lake

The Popsicles were right There

Come along with me for a quick bit of time travel back to the early nineteen-sixties. We Montgomery kids spent the summers and most of our weekends hanging out around the folks' two stores, Montgomery's Antiques and the Tryon County Book Store. We were downright feral in those days and went pretty much wherever we wanted to.

BITD kids had to get creative to acquire cash even in tiny amounts. We had been known to check out the alley behind the row of shops where ours were located for stray dimes and nickels lost from the pockets of the patrons of certain now long closed establishments. Sometimes there were even quarters.

We also sat in the bookstore while Mom and Dad worked in the antique store, and either sold books ourselves or called them to help when things got interesting. 10% commission folks, plus all the ancient books you could read. Tarzan, Hardy Boys, Roy Chapman Andrews anyone?

Despite these excellent sources of income, when the Newberry's Five and Dime up the street got in a little box of horses like the one above, I had a rough time finding enough cash to buy him. It took weeks.

After all, saving was hard for a kid. In those days Collins' Market was just two doors east (the dime store was around six stores west). 

Popsicles were right there! 

And only a nickel. Grape was my favorite.

That oh-so-desirable red horse was priced at 29 cents, a veritable fortune's worth of Nehi, or Royal Palm or Double Bubble (two for a penny.) Six Three Musketeers at a nickel each!

The store also had cheaper horses, mere dimes and nickels in price. I could have had several for the price of old red. 

Somehow though I turned my back on sugar and cheaper temptations and bought him, plus a black one and a white one that were posed a bit differently. The bay markings, blaze and stockings are courtesy of a paint by number set I cannibalized (he was born a chestnut) and there is the tiniest trace of modeling clay stuck to one leg. I used to make bridles and saddles of same for my many toy horses.

Today this little horse is the only one left. The rest of a cardboard boxful, which I carted wherever I went, was lost somewhere along the way. However, he still lives in the China closet in the dining room, along with antique fishing lures, rocks, minerals and actual China and stuff. 

I don't play with him any more, but I wouldn't trade him for a dozen grape popsicles or a case of Orange Crush either.

***we searched Google and eBay for similar toys and didn't find a single one. Wonder where they all went.