Salter's Oyster Saloon

It appears this is on Main Street in Greenport and pre-prohibition...probably 1910ish as Mr. Salter's restaurant is in the 1910 phone book.  100 years ago or so will do.

It appears to be something of what we would now call a hard drinking establishment.  Oysters and strong drink. Trouble in River City.  100 years later a martini and a dozen oysters is pretty swanky and expensive - not that they served appletini's much back then.

We think of this coming hard up on New Year's Eve, glad that people are aware that it was a of walking home after a night out and not now where by chance or plan one gets in car and drives. We hope there is more common sense afoot tomorrow night.

We have also been considering that rather nice thought of walking to an evening out rather than just driving and parking. People would see you and you would see them. Say hello, move aside and smile perhaps, faces and glances remembered.  More important it reaffirms a presence and instead of people saying they haven't seen so and so in an age, they could say I saw him just last week coming out of Salter's Saloon.

So New Years at Salters might have been a raucous place but we aren't sure. The big clock would certainly tell you when midnight came but frankly the potential was more likely that Salters was full of solitary men sitting stiff legged and downcast with no real place to go.  We presume the women in their lives or those unattached were far from such a den of iniquity and the New Years of a 100 years ago continues to be a far cry from tomorrow night.

Gas lights, winter cold off the bay blowing up Main St. like a typhoon, brown lights through dirty windows and men bundled against the cold making their way to rooms barren and with no real human warmth.

Such was Salter's 100 years ago tomorrow night.

Makati IP Addresses

This blog is part and parcel of Greenport, NY's website (http://www.greenportvillage.com/) and it pretty much seeks to be that "neutral observer" one reads about but never can find.  As such, we try not to be either vain nor self-deprecating; just stay strictly middle of the road so to speak. When setting out on that course, we decided to admit total ignorance when we found it in our part and observe it for what it is and was.

The website receives a substantial number of visitors from the Philippines, almost as many as Canada and that catches our attention as almost all of our visitors from the Philippines have an "IP" in the Manila suburb of Makati, a city of roughly half a million souls. Now our ignorance and provincialism as Ben Franklin once said "springs forth fully growed".

One of our readers wrote to us from the Makati "IP"  address and we fairly assume that he is responsible to some extent for spreading the word about this blog and the village website.  When he wrote, he identified himself as having spent summers here in Greenport and retired to a suburb some distance from Manila - a good drive away - and our minds, void of any knowledge whatsoever, immediately assumed things.  We thought that this was a case of one rural area simply exploring another rural area - one set of country bumpkins gazing at another across about 8500 air miles.  Our ignorance rested in our (mis-)conception of the Philippines and Makati specifically and it really showed up here.

So what brought all this up?  We were reading back through our blog to an early post about Plum Island and the Spanish-American War (http://greenportvillage.blogspot.com/2011/12/over-edge-of-earth.html)  and that brought us to the Philippines and our "war" with them that came under our sphere as a result.  So what history we have of that Island Nation is a result - for many in our generation - of school books that still looked at it as a colonial "republic", which is was until after WWII.  As such, we had some blurred conception of the place - something between a National Geographic documentary and Douglas MacArthur vowing to return.

When Makati started turning up in our Google Analytics we knew that some of the hits were a result of the above mentioned former summer resident and we had visions of his surrounding area that were clearly erroneous and here we were in this idyllic seaside village to which they "must be looking at in wonderment and awe".  We apologize for our ignorance.

To be clear, Makati is a "big cheese" town in Asia, the financial capital of the 13th most populated country on the planet, highly cosmopolitan and decidedly "some pumpkins".  Tim Tebow, the NFL whiz, was born there by the way.  He wasn't born here - he was born there - to parents who were on religious mission in the 1980s. Hmmm let's see. Let's do missionary work in this Philippines version of Wall Street. But we are a neutral blog and won't go there - rampant colonial stereotyping and all that.

We do invite our Makati IP address readers to keep in contact and drop us a line now and then.  Just don't poke fun at our colonial mindsets and we promise to think some before we reach any more conclusions.

Chums and Buddies

We had an interesting visit on Christmas from a family and friends who we have either known for 30 years or just met and known for 30 years.

Two of the females went back as chums for - well - a far piece and clearly have stuck by one another like glue. Good hearts tend to do that.

School brought them together and it got us all to talking about persons who are our oldest friends or generally who we have known the longest.  It is a fair topic for the season as Hanukkah and Christmas are all about tradition and intermixed into traditions are the friends one shares them with.
We concluded that school was just a circumstance, like a pup-tent in the backyard, an alley to play kick the can, or in the case of some recent granddaughter visits, a corner area off the front room where they could play with the new dolls and generally imagine who knows what.  What we concluded that it wasn't the friend so much as the event and we remember people by what links them to our memory.

One at the table, while growing up, had a "friend" of sorts named Lee - met some 60 years ago - and he lived 2 doors down the block. He turned up on a social network site and to our mutual amazement, remembered each other only by name or location. We remembered his house, is front room, his back yard and a high fence that kept errant basketballs out from the "hoop" in the alley. All crystal clear. All of it. We  couldn't  remember for the life of us what he looked like, what he liked - nothing but we remember the place. We could draw it.

It occurred to all that friends are just another chain link fence. The gaps between the links are "the rest" and the twists that make up the mesh are times and places - up to the point when you replace places with real "friend" associations. All the rest is air.

We noted that the links were powerfully strong and that coincided with our vision of memory, chums and buddies.  At that we concluded and after a long day of really wonderful links, we retired for the evening.

Tides...

We know right where this is and have walked along here any number of times.  We particularly like it now that the sun is low at 4pm, the water generally still and the sand giving us a hint as to the last of the tides.

The small amount of debris that washes up at this time of year should cause us to think about the season we are in (Advent for Christians - Hanukkah for Jews and the many others - if we try and name them all we will leave out one and that's not good).

At the start of winter, with short days and very very long cold nights, we get all "worked up" about the distant spring - nearly three full months away, as we know there is a bleak mid-winter ahead, snow and ice, and all kinds of physical misery. 

It would be something of a mistake to think this way and it is no coincidence that "northern hemisphere" religions grew up with a central aspect being this season of birth - a premature spring if you will.  For Christians, the winter of hope is over in a couple days. Hanukkah and the re dedication of the Temple. All rebirth.

Tides bring in what is adrift and they leave a nice mark so we  know where they are, have been and might be in the future.  We know that come spring the debris gets a lot thicker with all the stuff come to life.  This, however,  now - right now - is our tide.  Mark it well.

What gives? No snow for Christmas??

Say it isn't so. 

We have been keeping track of things weatherwise and aside from a flurry perhaps between now and Sunday, our chances are deemed to be slight.

As some of the other local blogs have run this game as a substitute for a white Christmas, it will have to do.  Play it here.

Listen to the Bingster. Put another log on the fire.

Over the edge of the earth

We have a reader - in fact a few dedicated readers who lives half a day from Manila in the Philippines.  He has obviously interested others in his area as our website (greenportvillage.com) records their visits and they read long and hard - this blog as well and it is appreciated.

The primary person there spent summers sometime back 4 decades here in our Village and indeed has been back to visit us.not only in person but through his reading.  Now we are visiting him as there has been a great typhoon there in the Philippines to his south with terrible damage and sadly, many many dead.

One of our fathers fought there in the second world war and was in Manila and was later asked by Gulf Oil to transfer there in the 1950s and almost went. It would have been his bridge too far and on that note, we stumbled upon a very interesting website to answer the question "how far is it?".  http://www.distancefromto.net/ told us and drew us a map as well.

As Greenport is a seafaring village (in history anyway), the idea of far away and far away in the South Pacific (whaling perhaps) brings us to sailing or traveling over the edge of the earth.  It seems odd that to get to Manila from here one heads almost over the north pole.  It seems to add to the distance when indeed it is the most direct route.....over the edge of the world. The northwest passage seems now more reasonable.

Actually, the most direct route to our friend in the Philippines is through writing.  He doesn't seem so far away from here as a map would imply but rather just over the edge of the keyboard..just over the asdfghjkl;.

We hope he and his friends are well and are surviving in the aftermath of one terrific blow...just over there...just over the edge of the earth.

Chance Reflections

We are pretty sure you figured out that the light in window on the 2nd floor of the building next to the Village Tree might come from the street light down the block..or at least we think so but things are deceptive in the night and reflections are one of them.

It would make sense if the images weren't so desperate - one bone clear, the other a puffball - so one's first impression might be clouded a bit by the obvious solution, the one which may be far from correct.

Mirrors and panes of glass have a lot in common - both being sheets of glass obviously.  When we judge character in others or simple give another person or situation a good long look we are looking through that window pane.  When we look at others as a way of looking at ourselves, then we are gazing in a mirror.  The building window, the one in the picture with the bright light, is acting as a mirror of sorts and has presented us with an illusion based on some perhaps faulty assumption.  Before this analogy gets completely out of hand, let's just take a minute and when we judge others we are judging ourselves.

Enchantment under the Tree

It is a pretty cold night even with the wind dying down some.  We were prompted to start a fire, make some espresso and just enjoy the indoors...even the cat, who makes a run for outside at first stirring, decided this was not a fit middle-night for man nor beast nor feline.  Well that was banal enough writing, but fires in the fireplace with a grey dawn pending, the room to ourselves and music does that to you - well does it to us.  We are often surprised that composers wanted silence around them as we think it is very difficult to work or thing great things without some background - not that we think great things - but unless we are incredibly into something difficult that takes every synapse - well some background makes us think more interesting things.

This little bonbon (down at the bottom) went by on the Internet radio just a bit ago and we was struck by what it is we hear other than the natural sounds and what others say or cause to happen.  Classical music - and hearing a piece, an unusual one - is an almost lifetime event; there being so much of it and only so many listening hours in the day.  It seems that last fall  (Sept. 7, 2010 in fact) someone must have heard this piece.  It is the Magical Snuff Box by the Russian composer Anatoli Liadov.  It is a miniature - and think about those Russian artists who write the Lord's Prayer on the side of a grain of rice. 

We all had those snowflake in a bottle things growing up - you know - the winter scene and you shook up this liquid filled container and it looked like snow inside. We had one for the longest time that had a little battery light in the log cabin and when you shook it and hit the switch light came out the windows and shown on the snow falling and the trees glued to the base. We can remember it clear as a bell and smell the cold in a Michigan winter night and hear my bedroom radiator click-clink as it cooled;  listening to WBCM when it switched over to classical music after 11p instead of simply going off the air.  The moonlight always is bright-on in these remembrances and I, depending on the music played, thought it out about the little cabin in my snowbubble thing - Geppetto probably lived there or some wood carver in the Black Forest - someone alone, practicing a craft where things were actually made and maybe sold but mostly made for the pure enjoyment of staying up late and doing something you could admire in the morning.

This little bonbon snuff box is like that snowball glass thing perhaps.  If my granddaughters lived 100+ years ago and had it they would have dreamed so many dreams and put themselves in the scene within - whirling to the music in a brightly lit salon, talking good talk and laughing innocent laughs.

We should be showing grand kids the snuffbox every tonight.  It doesn't move or whirl of clink-clank.  We are going to, instead, ask them to open the door to it and go inside while the music plays.  They will be too young to really be part of the party but will find a place, perhaps peeking out from behind the drapes or crawling under the sofa in the corner, and watching as the others swooped and swayed in the light, the music playing, the sounds of laughing and light talk; the smiles radiant.

For kids it is a time of making a spot in the world; the real one or the one that has much more in it, is never silent, and always finds something the leads to something more.

Things that go blink in the night

In the early evening our paths cross in a number of ways and everyone, signs included seeming to be crossing, from the light figures bound up by the "library this way" sign to our cars shooting on by down the street.  Even the little ped x'ing sign seems to be waiting for someone to show up.

Our attention is drawn to the Village Holiday tree, all decked in blue lighting and on the other side of the street, a rather wobbly set of street lights who have never heard of a straight line.  We have yellows, and reds, bright white and blue. Even the big rock seems to bask in it.

What fun it is to walk the village at early evening.  People have gone home only to come back out later. Traffic is nearly gone and the streets are pretty much wide open.  Our guess is that it is this time that the lights most enjoy as those of us moving around can see them in uninterrupted glory.  We aren't dodging cars  or cars dodging other cars...just we and thee.  It is as if we have this show to ourselves.

Signs

Our Fire Department has a new sign.  It appeared the other day as if dropped from space and frankly gives a little modernity to the Village for save some little blinky illuminated signs on the outskirts, there just aren't any.

This must have looked like some black magic if it had appeared a while back in our village history. We are pretty sure the early settlers would have come across it with the same curiosity, fear and awe that the ape men did in 2001 A Space Odyssey when they ran smack into the obelisk.  In taking a little tour today, we think that this sign is the only one in town that gives the time and temperature readable at a distance.

There is a bit of a howl in the Village regarding this sign. It was apparently donated but that somehow doesn't register - as in what part of donation isn't understood - but for better or worse there it is, and we know the time and temperature with a little holiday greeting tossed in to boot.  There is of course a neon sign ordinance floating around and some have assigned this sign "neon" status. We want to rush out and buy a copy of the periodic table but what would be the sense in that.  Just good money after bad.

We have a memory of a sign sitting at the far end of a downtown street when I was growing up. It replaced the clock or was added to the clock at the old Peoples National Bank building in Bay City. It seemed to always be snowing this time of year and a clock face was out of the question and the little thermometer that hung outside Twentieth Century Cleaners on Main Street was out of the way and we always thought it was colder than it register or hotter depending on the season. It was a reassurance driving into town during a heavy snow to see that bank sign emerge from the flakes - a beacon as sure as the lighthouses that surround us. 

There seems to be something uplifting about all this and in a year it will be hard to imagine the Village won't find it a centerpiece - a crown jewel of the new age.

Crowds will gather -  no doubt about it.

Moonlight

We had a terrific storm last night when a cold front came through.  Some of us happened to be out this evening when the sun went down and things had calmed down a bit. It is pretty cold and just a little past the "comfortable brisk" stage so we hussled back inside, found a fireplace and a hot dinner.

We did notice the full moon in the east - rising from the direction of Orient and darting some with the last of the clouds. It is the last one this year, this full moon. Take one peek before calling it a night.

We put Mr. Moon's picture up just in case you don't want to venture out but just a word to the wise, its real and its fabulous.

Toys

This is the second Sunday in Advent and generally a prelude to the holiday season to come.

We are just pointing that out because - well because - we were at a store this morning and outside wasn't the Salvation Army but a food truck asking for cans of food for those in need.  We see this all time and like everything familiar, we tend to just let it slide off our of sight.

We think about a couple things now, in this season, regardless of religion or not, social values or not, politics or not.  We think about kids.  Obviously we all think about kids. We should never stop thinking about them.
We have two weeks to go through Advent. During this time we are going through all the holiday periods, the end of the year, and most importantly "have and have nots".   If you are a have, then give to a have not. It is pretty simple. 

In the next week or two, just judge your position.  If you have a toy to give, then give it. If you have something to regive or regift, then do it.  There is simple no reason whatsoever for doing something so simple that might mean a lot to some who has so little.

This blog isn't to right the world or the universe or the block on which you live.  It does have a mission just to say things, simply, and just to bring things to your attention as the need should arise.

Arabesque

An arabesque is a pattern on tapestry for instance that is intricate and interwoven.  Here is one perhaps seminal expression of the pattern and reading about it some this morning I found out that it s a. an Islamic form or from that heritage and there is a "western" form of it that probably is more Moorish and turned up in the Mediterranean costal European societes; Spain, south France, Italy which is even more intricate.

 

While we are thinking of the holidays, and dance - swirls and twirls..well we couldn't resist coming to this.

Debussy, the French composer, wrote a couple pieces called Arabesques in about 1888. We know this because some among us was something of a Debussy studier- a  dissertation area - and his early works, this one below for instance, appealed to us and still does to this day.  Debussy was from  a region in France that had this Moorish influence and he was also taken by Spain and all things Spanish - including of course these so it is no wonderment that he would evoke and invoke a tapestry.

Enjoy.

Gradus ad Parnassum

We have a friend who came here as a youngster and has now moved literally halfway across the world from our Village. He has come back on occasion and graced us with a picture of his wife climbing these 67 steps.

Now that winter is approaching and the north wind off the Sound will be howling, it may be a good thing to venture out to these steps before they get too icy and just take a look.

Finding them is half the trick but if you go north out of the Village on Main Street and follow some of those roads that run north off the highway, we venture you will find the top. It is up to you to climb down and then totally up to you to make your way back.

Ulmer Beer Mystery Solved - sorta

A short while back, we published this picture and talked about Ulmer Beer - noting that Ulmer seemed to be the only beer in town and in research found that The Sterling Bottling Co., bottled the beer that came out here in barrels on the Long Island Rail Road.  We felt like Sherlock Holmes incarnate.

Now we find that there is more to the story and we really missed the obvious....that is if we can ever make the deduction that the Ulmer's of brewery fame had something to do with our village other than shipping it beer.

We looked at the 1910 phone book to see if there was truly an Ulmer living in our midst and couldn't find one.  Mr. Petty, who owned the above pictured wagon to deliver his bottled brews was there but no Ulmer. So when this picture from about the same time popped up, our brain wheels actually started to move a bit.

It seems that we not only had an Ulmer Building but an Ulmer Block; beverage store on the corner, the fashion store in the middle and the A&P Grocery on the end.   The photo is clearly labeled the Ulmer Block, Greenport, NY.

We searched Ancestry.com for leads and found none.  The Ulmers of Brooklyn fame are in the middle of countless Ulmers in that neck of the woods so we are at a loss. But that is something we enjoy. Everyone loves a mystery.

Our journey this morning takes us to the Ulmer Block on other business and we are going to nose around some...see what is up...magnifying glass to the ready, cap on, cloak, no pipe....here here my dear Watson.

We'll report to you later.

Leftovers

We would like to report that this is easy.  Actually, after you have been through the drill one time, it is.

For you readers who want to do this over the holidays coming up, well, I can't tell you every cook's secret but:

1.  use a big turkey and just debone the ribs etc....leave the legs and thighs where they are..otherwise you get a football rather than a bird.

2. just buy chicken breasts and thighs - SKINLESS...no one will every every know.

3.  If you can get duck breasts, well they are unbelievable in this...but to do the entire duck thing, you have to render the fat in the skin otherwise you get rubber skins, and that is too much fat by 10x's.

4.  Because all the fat is out of this to start with, any dressing you put in...and you should layer it, needs to be on the moist side.

OK so far?  Bone the turkey.  Put it on its skin side down. don't worry...it will be a mess so just get plenty of room. FLASH: "pre-lay" the butcher's twine underneath as you will but binding this together at the end and it gets heavy....

Last...butterfly the breasts...that thins them out and makes for more even cooking.

Steps:

1. turkey skin down...season it liberally...then spread a fairly thin layer o dressing over all the breast meat.
2. butterfly the chicken and duck breasts so they are thinner...or you can just buy chicken that is already presliced breasts into scallopini like cuts.  layer this out.
3. cover with a thin layer of dressing
4. roll the whole thing up and use the butcher's twine to  kinda make it work.  you can use some skewers to get it to look like  a turkey if you want....for heaven's sake...don't get crazy.
5. We recommend, like all turkey, the low and slow method.  breast side down for 3 hours at 250. Breast side up for 9 more hours at 250 (it will flip easy and not fall apart). total 12 hours at low heat.
6. The inner temp should be in the 160 range as this will cook like crazy on its own after it is out. It stays steaming hot for an hour plus.  Just measure the temp in the dark meat of the turkey...when that is done it is all done.

Also it helps if you have a dog and a cat, 2-4 grand kids under age 4, no counter room, and a few other distractions .... that makes this a piece of cake.

Shop Local - Just One Thing

We just want you to think about one thing while you pile around this holiday gathering up the presents and well planned out gifts for gifting.

It is unrealistic to think that you can or expect you to find your holiday list within the confines of the Village and certainly you will venture to Riverhead and outlets or the big box stores and we, quite frankly go there too.  But get out that "to buy" list and go through it and see if there is just one thing - more is welcome of course - but just one thing that you can buy here in town at a local store. 

While we are on the subject, Thanksgiving is about giving - thanks of course - but more about being grateful. Our parents always recalled harder times, less forgiving times, and when we sulked as kids under the burdens of curfews or "to your room with no TV", they were quick to mention that if we were having a hard time now - well just you wait buster. In our less addled moments, we found something good to do - raking a neighbor's leaves, shoveling a sidewalk, opening a door or just plain saying hello and meaning it. Visiting a local store for that just one thing is a terrific gift in itself.

So let's make a deal.

Visit a local merchant and find just one thing on your many lists and find it here. Drop in somewhere for coffee or a cupcake, a sandwich or some hot soup, say hello, open a door. Smile a little bit.

Let's be friends....after all it is Thanksgiving.

Just some thoughts on our first chilly morning

Some of us old timers remember our parents talking about the winters when Long Island Sound froze over all the way to Connecticut. Even we remember the Shelter Island Ferry lanes being choked with ice and specifically on a New Year's Eve 20 or so years ago actually getting stuck in the ice and the other ferry nudging us through.

We guess that the LIRR's snow-train-engine-plow, that still sits near the railroad museum off 4th Street, fell into some non-use about the time the railroad turnabout ceased to be used otherwise we think that this plow would do absolutely no good running backwards all the way to Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn. We have to think that perhaps our grandparents were telling the truth when they had to walk barefoot to school, 5 miles each was uphill and in snow up to their fannies.
Frankly, we miss the idea of things being that cold and perhaps snowy so that this "Big Bertha" would have to lumber out and clear the tracks.  You know those mornings; so cold the snow crunches underfoot, the cat won't go out, fireplace smoke all grey and rope straight against that robin's egg blue sky...you know the ones?

I guess we can miss it when we don't have it and decry it when it shows up.....but that's pretty universal and isn't limited to snow and that first cold wind.

Shelter Island and 1600 pounds of sugar

Well, its misty out this morning, mild and fall damp; wet leaves damp.   Shelter Island rests just to the south of where we are  looking and across a harbor area that turns the lights to little puff balls - almost like cotton candy. I'll give it til noon.

This is a strange little land, this island.  It rests between the north and south forks of the far eastern part of Long Island and connected only by ferry. At certain times during the late night you are there and better like it because there is no getting off of it except to swim.  Perlman, the violinist, has his music camp just across the way.  Homes perched high on the heights, a few hundred feet up probably have a few souls looking back at us in middle nights as  there is very little else to do there at this hour except to look for early morning fireplaces coming alive and coffee brewing here and there. At 3am it doesn't really matter.

A while back it was part of the original Plymouth Land Grant (1620 or so if memory serves) and eventually found its way to some sugar merchants - one in particular, a fellow named Sylvester, settled there. Signs dot the roadside all over the place and his original home or what remains still exists. We remember him a bit (not in person but from the historical markers) because he married a young lady (16 years of age) named Grissel Brinley - what a name!

About 15 years ago we went to a yard sale just up the street from the original Sylvester home.  It was a farmhouse that due to a recent death was being emptied and was under contract for sale.  The 1,600 pounds of sugar (about $5,000 at the local IGA store now)would buy about 1/100th of one of the 6 acres remaining at this homestead.  Shelter Island isn't for the faint of pocketbook. 

Anyway, in one of the out buildings that was used as a canning shed, was a wall full of canning jars (seemed to make sense). Hundreds of jars. Some were very rare and dated back 120 years....1870s actually.  On investigation this was one of the original "farms" on the island, blocked off into a substantial parcel from the nearly 12,000 acres.  The original farmhouse was rebuilt after the War of 1812 when the British invaded and burned a lot of the buildings. If walls could talk.

We keep the jar and it is now found in the kitchen where it stores brown sugar and generally decorates the counter top. We keep Shelter Island in sight out of our windows. Sometimes thinking that Shakespeare died about 4 years before this Island was the target of settlers and we think of the opening of Twelfth Night and Viola and her not being bound for Virginia but to Plymouth (and not all lost at sea save one) and finding her way to Shelter Island and her great great great great grand kids owning a farm and having a canning shed.....and of course owning our jar.

Notes from our far flung correspondents

We received a very nice note from Rick Boutcher who lives in Asingan in the Philippines.  He reports that it is about a 7 hour drive north of Manila and one of the few places left on earth where one can see the Milky Way. 
Rick is a retired physics professor and during his early years used to spend summers in Greenport.  He comes back on occasion and always visits. This is his wife, Priny, on a visit to the 67 steps on the sound.  He remembers when Main and the North Road's intersection was a round-about and I'm banking that he has a lot of other memories of the village from 60 years back and I've asked him to write to us on occasion and share them.

We were discussing memories just the other day. Events, days, gatherings etc., that took a long time to unfold are just snippets now, at best a glimpse but full of smells and sounds, the air on the skin so to speak but distilled or rendered down to an essence; a sauce in a pan reduced by 1/2.

We are of course pleased that he found us at http://www.greenportvillage.com/ and that he is writing us now and then.  We wish others would as well because it is a pleasant thought that when we scatter to the winds and find ourselves at nearly the other side of the world, the village will have a mystical draw on our senses.

Rick reports that his grandparents are buried in Stirling Cemetery having passed in the middle 60s. They lived on Carpenter Street, and we presume it was from there that he launched his summer adventures.  I'm certain we will hear more about all of this as he has promised to write and send pictures.

We will eagerly await them.

Yesterday - Armistice Day

We actually watched the second hand on a digital clock today at 11:11.11 noting that this is the last time this century that 12 x's 1 will appear.

Vetern's Day came about in 1919, a year after the Armistice ending the first world war.  Certainly if there was a horrible example of what nations do to their populations and what war grinds out, this was it...and that isn't in the least to discount the 92 years of wars that follow.

Sometimes we adopt World Wars as our own and project ourselves into the center of things and that is only natural and to some extent right.  Armistice Day should be about nothing if not about war being the last alternative and it is doubly sad if it isn't.  You can't wish back the dead.

Ravel, the French composer drove amublances during WWI.  That must have been a grisly task at best and a nightmare for decades at least. Ravel, as was the case with most of the French population, lost some if not many friends and family.  Ravel was a national treasure in France - a composer/artist of international fame perhaps not up for the trenches but a patriot and ready to do his part. 

Death moves a lot of people and he was no exception and between 1914-17 he wrote these various movements in a suite or collection of pieces called Le Tombeau de Couperin - the Tomb of Couperin (Couperin was an 18th century composer - very French and very much admired for his skill).  These pieces aren't to the memory of Couperin but to the individual deaths of spirits living in his friends.

The movements are:

• I. Prélude

"To the memory of Lieutenant Jacques Charlot" (who transcribed Ravel's four-hand piece Ma mère l'oye for solo piano)

• II. Fugue

"To the memory of Jean Cruppi" (to whose mother Ravel dedicated his opera L'heure espagnole)

• III. Forlane

"To the memory of Lieutenant Gabriel Deluc" (a Basque painter from Saint-Jean-de-Luz)

• IV. Rigaudon

"To the memory of Pierre and Pascal Gaudin" (brothers killed by the same shell)

• V. Menuet

"To the memory of Jean Dreyfus" (at whose home Ravel recuperated after he was demobilized)

• VI. Toccata

"To the memory of Captain Joseph de Marliave" (killed in action in August 1914)

We don't own sadness or sacrifice, nationalism or loss. We are just part of all of those who do.

Le Verrier's planet - Neptune - El Mistico

We are very blessed in our little Village as we can wander out into the night and see a dazzling set of stars and planets without a lot of city-type lights to hurt the view. Venus is very easy to spot as is Mars and Jupiter - Saturn a bit rarer and the twins of Uranus and Neptune - well we can't see them or if we could we probably wouldn't know it.

 

About the time Greenport came into being in some sort of first-formal way - and a hundred years before we really organized in 1838, a math guy named Le Verrier figured that there was a planet Neptune.  He calculated that it had some gravity to it and it made the other planets wobble a bit and then figured out where to look. Amazing.

 

We could only read about Neptune when we were kids. What pictures there were showed a fuzzy little ball of light spinning somewhere out there and it never rose or set like Venus or Mars or imposed with a red spot like Jupiter or was ringed like Saturn.

Now we find that this is a wonderous object of regard in our solar system with a dark spot of storms like Jupiters red spot and a faint set of rings like Saturn. It must be an amazing place - one that we will never visit except in our mind's eye.

We just wonder about it some and having something out there that we know about in some scientific way and yet we will never lay eyes on it without some lens or camera.  I suppose those who visited Atlantis and described it before it sank into the sea carried much the same type of message - describing the wonders of the city - but then telling the listener that "unfortunately you can't see it...".   Neptune is such a teaser.  One for the bucket list.

Morning Fog

We wandered downtown yesterday and were greeted by dense fog that, in a miracle of physics and sunlight, evaporated before my eyes - literally in minutes if not seconds.

Back in the 1950s there was a television show that had, as part of the opening sequence, a scene along the docks in San Francisco - famous for its fog. Of course the TV was black and white so all things were basically shades of grey but the image is pretty vivid still, half a century plus later.  The show was after Paladin and Gunsmoke and Broderick Crawford in Highway Patrol....stuck in there somewhere.
When down at the docks yesterday with the sun finally burning off the fog, a man and his son were standing, fishing poles in hand ready to get into that little boat and venture out a bit in search of whatever is passing through the bay at this time of year. They had to wait until they could see for reasons of safety alone but all of us, at one time or another, have been out in the clear and had the fog descend or rise - whatever the case - and cut us off from our surroundings.  The father did a great job of explaining fog but to an eight year old, the science was lost in the misery of not being able to fish as he was sure they were there and lunkers to boot.

Looking for a point here when there is none of course just drops us back to the obvious. Things fog up and then they clear and if you have something to do or want to do you can't fight nature - just wait it out. Just wait it out. Things often clear up on their own.

A puzzler

http://www.jigzone.com/puzzles/33157617995?z=0&m=4D25042DF3BD

Something really nice for an early Friday morning...

...or anytime for that matter. Grab a couple minutes. Sip some coffee. Have a knosh - but quietly of course. The household is never so quiet as these moments before dawn.  Pet your cat. Think noble and gentle thoughts.  Start the day with peace and serenity. Work can wait a minute or two...it really can.

Verticals and Blurs

Dock areas are something pretty linear in the morning light and calm water.  After too many episodes of Joy of Painting, one tends to note the pure vertical lines that reflect out to a soft blur, sometimes it being hard to find the spot where reality ends and reflection begins. Long time back in an art history class we talked about this and someone had to give a paper on the musical equals to the painted picture. We remember noting a couple things, not the least was that painters could easily compose a painting that went from one to the other and in essence use multiple techniques in one work; if this photo were a painting it wouldn't be considered bad technique to go from the clarity to the blurr - its just the way it is when it is seen - and that the overall is the work; not the technique.

In music - in composition of music - it is that fight to keep your compositional technique "pure" to one style or stylistic method that is the trick. At the turn of the last century there was a battle in technique between those who wrote music of reflections and those who composed like the docks - all vertical and clearly etched.

Two French composers, Ravel and Debussy wrote in both styles but the most successful pieces from each are clearly shoreline and reflection figurative speaking. See if you can spot which is which.

Sailing sailing....

This lad's father, Mr. H. Cook, ran a fish store here in Greenport and this is his son, H. Cook Jr. or so the photo is labeled. We are guessing  1910 or so but who would know.  Not a water skier in sight.

We are trying to figure out exactly where this picture is set - obviously Shelter Island is in the background and the boathouse and loading docks to the right don't give much of a clue as we found in looking at other pictures of the area; we can't quite place it although one hunch is near where the Ferry lands now. Just not enough clues but we are betting that is Derring Harbor back there.

The model boat is pretty amazing and hardly a toy but a labor of love that took weeks if not months to produce.

Next Memorial Day, Greenport Harbor might be visited by some Tall Ships - the real deals and they will be available for "play" but perhaps not as much boyish fun as Mr. Cook Jr. might be enjoying.  The end, however, will be the same...adults looking at magical wind driven ships and instant flashes of imagination with pictures of wind blowing over rushing waves, foam, snapping sails and the creak and groan of taught lines.

Who's on first?

We are willing to lay some sort of odds that these fellas who made up the Greenport Baseball Club in 1907 didn't make a whole lot of money.  Currently there is a World  Series that is, by the way, producing drama by the inning, with payrolls that more and likely eclipsed the gross product of the North Fork in 1907 many times over, and the Cards and Texas guys are from what are called secondary markets. 

So this ten member club with a 'manager' (top middle - how fitting) showed up probably because it was a fun thing to do and maybe they passed the hat in the stands.  Maybe Sterling Bottling gave them a beer afterwards.  We don't know but club baseball, something of a rarity now, lives and thrives elsewhere and it is really something.

Some of us have lived elsewhere where businesses and factories, groups like the Elks or Masons, and towns like Greenport in 1907, field teams, put them in uniforms and devoted summer nights or weekend days to the pursuit of the ground ball.  One of us played third base for Willman's Furniture in the Cincinnati 10-12 league years ago (many years we might add) and we played 3 games a week and lost in the city championship 8-6.  We very much remember it like any of these fellas, non-living we are pretty sure, would remember their season, their key game, who was on first......
Speaking of which, one of us has to cut the lawn one last time and rake the latest batch of leaves, but be assured that poor fella will have to do so remembering Cincinnati 50+ years ago, the crisp baselines, a dugout with a water 'bubbler', and a real deal, paid umpire yelling "play ball".

Ulmer revisited, Old Bottles and Jaromír Vejvoda

D.C. Petty popped up in a picture driving his Ulmer Cabinet beer wagon and after we noted the Ulmer Beer sign over the old Claudio's building in the prior post, we figured there was something more to the tale so we went looking.  Again, we figure this picture to be about 1910 or a bit earlier and its taken outside Preston's at the foot of Main St. in Greenport.  Most of the buildings are recognizable including the Reeves building (the tall, square-topped on 1 in on the far left).  This would all seem logical in time, particularly if we put on our Sherlock Holmes thinking hats and noticed that Mr. Petty was delivering cases of bottled beer and not big kegs.  Aha!

It seems our Mr. Petty was affiliated with the Sterling Bottling Works here in Greenport. Ulmer shipped in barrels and Mr. Petty bottled the beer. In fact Mr. Petty bottled a lot of stuff and his bottles, which if you rake for chowder clams in the area, you occasionally turn up. Some of them fetch a pretty penny now and his "blob top" bottles are pretty scarce all cleaned up.

There are a couple stories deeper in this.  One is how bottles were made back then and the other is Sterling v. Stirling.  Lord Stirling was the subject of a prior entry so let us look at the other.

If you look at bottles from about 1910 or so, you can actually see that they were made in halves and fused together. The molds were of wood and one of us actually has a Ruppert Beer bottle "clamed' from the bay that shows the wood grain that was often left in the glass surface as something of a fingerprint.  The other method is the modern method that made the bottle 'proper' out of one injection mold - all save the bottom which was often added.  Enough. But Mr. Petty was known for his blob-top bottles and even Mr. Barth - of apothecary fame - used his services.

In the blog entry before this we noted that the Ulmer Brewery was in Brooklyn and the brew was likely transported out here in the traditional kegs and as the Long Island Railroad had its main line terminal here in Greenport and actually a train ferry went from here to Connecticut, perhaps Mr. Petty figured having a bottling company here made great sense.  Bulk in - bottles out.

Jan, one of our local residents with a great deal of common sense along with business skills noted that refrigeration as also an issue - how to serve a cold beer on a hot day.  We have noted that there were ice houses in the area - mainly to pack shellfish for the NY Market (yes we blogged about that a while back) but that doesn't permit cooling a big keg of beer - but bottles meant an ice box came into play just on the size issue alone so Mr. Petty's common sense was likely a gold mine.

Last, we come to Jaromir Vejvoda, who no one remembers although he died just over 20 years ago. He was a Czech musician who penned a catchy tune in 1927 "Škoda lásky".   We will tip the beer bottle on its side for a while and venture on to other things but it was a fine if not tipsy couple days of thinking about our village a hundred years ago....a fine time indeed.