Jim Atwell
You know the truism: You
really can’t lay claim to your
own house till you’ve owned
it at least a half century.
That’s how it is in the country
— not just around here,
but in any rural area. If
you’ve only owned a place for
20 or thirty years, others will
still call it by the former owners’
name.
I do it myself. If I’m trying
to explain where Anne and I
live, I can joke and say we’re
at the dead end of Cemetery
Road. But if I want to clinch
the matter, I have only to
say, “We’re in Stanley Stucin’s
place.”
“Oh, sure,” people will
say. “Nice people, Stan and
Frances.”
I’m sure they were. Frances,
we’re told, was a warm,
energetic woman who raised
chickens and a big garden,
and pretty much kept up the
place herself.
Stan evidently lived life
at a more measured pace.
About my present age when I
met him, he was a lonely
widower anxious to get out
from under “Stone Mill
Acres” and carry on with the
rest of his years. These, it
turned out, were sadly few.
Anyway, if Anne and I
manage to hang on here for a
few more decades, the eventual
new owners will get
more than house, deed, and
Anne’s richly composted garden
plot. They’ll get the need
to explain that they’re living
in “the old Atwell place.” I
like that.
Meanwhile, we two are
making a move to establish a
permanent place in Fly
Creek. We’re planting our
flag, as it were, by buying a
plot in the graveyard that’s
in sight from our driveway.
That seems apt, too.
Judy Cook, superintendent
of The Fly Creek Valley
Cemetery, is searching the
maps for us, looking for a vacant
single plot up in the old
section, beneath the big evergreens
and hemlocks. (We
both plan to be cremated, so
a single plot will do just
fine.)
“I’ll turn up a nice one,”
said Judy, “dry, and without
a lot of roots.” For no rational
reason, I like the idea of
“dry,” but a root-free plot
seems more of an advantage
to the hole-digger. Maybe
that’s what Judy was thinking,
too.
I first explored that
sprawling old cemetery in
1977, just after my late first
wife Gwen and I struck a
deal with old Stanley for his
house. One autumn morning
I was wandering around far
back among the graves when,
emerging from the mists, appeared
a big granite stone
inscribed ATWELL. I looked
closer and saw similar inscriptions.
A whole passel of
Atwells lay resting there. I
went back to the house and
told Gwen we’d picked the
right place to buy. We were
expected.
I asked Judy Cook to look
for a plot at least a little distance
from those Atwells to
avoid confusing any future
genealogists.
A Maryland Atwell, I’m
separated from the local distant
kin by at least six generations.
I found that out
with Mabel Atwell, who
taught a couple of Cooperstown
generations herself,
drilling in the old subject
complements and subjunctive
clauses. (Mabel, bless
her, is part of that passel
herself now.) We researched
it together in census rosters.
It was the redoubtable
Mabel who made the definitive
judgment. She clapped
shut the book of rosters,
planted her fist on it, and declared
me a shirttail cousin
to her late husband. And
that was that.
If Judy can swing it, I
wouldn’t mind a plot near
one of Fly Creek’s Civil War
casualties, since a couple of
them actually died in my native
state.
A tall obilisque just above
the winter vault records a
young man killed at Sharpsburg.
Another has a Fly
Creeker dying right four
miles from my own home. In
an exchange of ill prisoners,
he’d been brought by steamboat
up the Chesapeake to
recover at Annapolis before
being shipped north to home.
But he worsened and died.
In my boyhood, that place
was still called “Camp Parole.”
The most moving Civil
War markers, though, are on
the graves of two brothers,
killed in battle within a year
of each other.
Side by side, the stones
can bring tears almost a century
and a half later, for their
carvings must have been
chosen by a desolate father.
On the earlier stone, a hand
extends down, holding the
handle of a hook. From the
hook dangles a single link,
for a second link had broken
free from the first and is falling
away.
On the later stone, the
second link has also broken
free; the hook hangs empty.
The second link has fallen to
the earth. It lies rejoined to
the first.
I hope our old house
stands for another 200 years.
I hope eight or nine more human
generations shelter under
its sturdy roof.
Lots more, I hope, will feel
pride of ownership, though,
like us, they’ll really only
have a short-term lease. But
meanwhile, Anne and I have
made plans to stay in Fly
Creek, just up the road, under
those handsome tall
trees.
This hamlet is home and
always will be.
Find out about Jim Atwell’s
book, “From Fly Creek
— Celebrating Life in Leatherstocking
Country” at www.
JimAtwell.com.
Columns
In for the long haul ...
- Columns
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In These Otsego Hills: Continuing on from 1986 ...
We continue this week by answering the question we asked if anyone remembers the old Cooperstown National Bank? On May 13, we wrote: “Martha Dickison, Delaware Street, called to tell us about the Cooperstown National Bank where she worked at her first ‘real job’ after her graduation from school.
Continued ... -
Up On Hawthorn Hill: Spring inventions
The second line of Lawrence Durrell’s novel “Justine” reads as follows: “In the midst of winter you can feel the inventions of Spring.” I first read all four novels of his magnificent Alexandria Quartet during the year I traveled from Saigon to Paris after working in Vietnam for a refugee organization for several years.
Continued ... -
From Fly Creek: Revving up for spring
Time to bring you up to date on Fly Creek’s happy clambering into Spring. First, the eatery scene. “Is Jerry’s open yet?” The answer is, “Oh, yes!” The porches are freshly stained; the lawns a uniform green, and the hop vines are already climbing the posts on the covered side deck. Blue and I went up there to lunch earlier this week, and I celebrated spring with my traditional bacon, onion and Swiss cheese hamburger. We two sat on the deck, enjoying the broad view and some spectacular clouds marching across, up toward Schuyler Lake.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: More from 1986 ...
This week we continue with the discussion of telephone service from the pre-dial days. On March 12 we noted that: “No one has yet produced a telephone directory from pre-dial days, but Doug Preston of New Hartford recalls that some business (which one?) in the village had the phone number 7.”
Continued ... -
Home Notes: Celebrations abound at the Thanksgiving Home
April was a month of celebrations and much to appreciate. We had a 90th birthday celebration for Wanda Noyes on April 4 including her family and friends. Personal care staff Dee Bouck worked with residents to hand paint Easter eggs for the tree in the activity room.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: 1986 continues ...
This week we continue our journey through the columns of 1986 with the answer to the question “for whom, according to tradition, was Hannah’s Hill named?”
Continued ... -
Book Notes: Baseball book features local contributors
Baseball is part of the nation’s fabric. Most kids have a memory of the game either from playing Little League, attending a major league contest or meeting a favorite player. In Cooperstown that feeling is magnified since we are the official home of baseball. We get to see firsthand what has made the sport the national pastime.
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From Fly Creek: Ya really wanna know?
SETTING: Fly Creek General Store. CAST: Assorted seated geezers, drinking coffee. [Door opens, enter heavy-set geezer; walking slowly with wide stance, maybe prostatitis.]
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In These Otsego Hills: Returning to 1986 ...
For the past several years now we have undertaken sharing some of the area’s oral history we have collected over the years that we have written this column. Therefore, this year, we would like to go back to 1986 to share that rather unusual year. Those who were here then no doubt remember that it was that year that the village celebrated the bicentennial of its founding.
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From Fly Creek: For reasons unknowable
[Jim’s reached back to 2002 to share one of his favorite columns.] My father was born as the last century began into a river village in tidewater Maryland. He told me once of a man there in his boyhood who, like so many, made a thin living tonging for oysters in the cold months and, in the hot and humid ones, crabbing and raising vegetables.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: CCS balancing act ... side two
Last week we shared a number of activities in which students at CCS can participate. We thought it was an impressive, if not overwhelming, list. And we are indeed pleased that the young people of our area have these opportunities. However, we think it is also important to keep in mind that these undertakings do have a cost associated with them. They are not free. In fact there are, no doubt, those who would say they do not come cheap.
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From Fly Creek: A graceful crowd
Make of this what you will, friends. I feel I’m really meant to share it with you. Despite good medication for my Parkinsonism, every four or five weeks I can sensethe symptoms building up on me, giving me more than ordinary trouble. Lately it’s been falls, and last week brought a typical one. I’d gone out to get the paper, moving along with penguin steps on the snowcoved ice patches, and usingmy spike-tipped cane the waya climber uses an ice axe. But circumstances overcame me. Parkinson’s wipes out the possibility of multi-tasking.
Continued ... -
In These Otsego Hills: This and that and the other side ...
We note that the CCS Class of 2012 is presenting its senior class play, “Snow White” by Tim Kelly, this week with performances 7:30 p.m Thursday and Friday, March 29 and 30, and at 11 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 31. All performances will be at the Nicolas J. Sterling Auditorium at the Middle/High School.
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In These Otsego Hills: That green thing ...
Of late we have noticed that our email inbox has been much busier than usual. In fact, we find ourselves hard pressed to keep up with all the various messages we receive. As a result we suspect we have not answered some in as timely a fashion as might be thought appropriate.
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From Fly Creek: What you need to know
In their last Sunday’s bulletins, all 84 churches of Otsego County were to have carried announcements of an important meeting; most of them did. But because the announcement is so important, and not just to the churched, here it is again.
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Book Notes: Living the magic of ‘Hoosier’
A lot of people consider “Hoosiers” the best sports film of all time. The 1986 classic follows the exploits of a fictional small town Indiana high school basketball team in 1952 as it attempts to achieve the impossible dream of a state championship. The story is inspired by the true life achievement of the 1954 Milan team, who with an enrollment of only 161 students shocked big city power Muncie Central on a last second shot to win the state title. It’s the kind of sports story that represents something that is hard to grasp unless you live in a small town.
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In These Otsego Hills: The most perfect village... home to heavy industry?
We suspect we would get a whole lot more accomplished if we spent less time thinking, pondering and musing about things. In fact, there is a good possibility we might actually have completed our goal of cleaning the basement if we only focused on the task at hand, instead of trying to figure out the world around us. It almost makes us wonder if it is possible to think too much about things. We certainly hope not because should that be the case, we are in deep trouble.
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Up On Hawthorn Hill: The past in the present
Clichés abound about the value of photographs. Most are probably true at least to a certain extent. What I do know about an image is that it represents something of the past that is not the pastitself. But that is the power of any image. It represents something that once was. The beauty of an image, revisited, is that it functions as a catalystfor reliving in the present a past experience. My own view, one that I thank the Spanish writer Jorge Luis Borges for, is that all we ever can experience is the present.
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Home Notes: Workshops held for Thanksgiving Home residents
We welcomed Linda Keller, Ph.D. of the Bassett Research Institute and Ida Baker of NYCAMH who presented a six-week workshop for residents and staff.
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From Fly Creek: Late-winter hamlet news
Well, at least I’m “guessing” it’s late winter now — in the winter that wasn’t. But, if not snow, I can provide a flurry of Fly Creek news to share with you, scooping Associated Press, Reuter’s, and United Press International, not to mention all local news services except our General Store.
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In These Otsego Hills: Continuing on from 1986 ...
