Wanderings

Anything you dream is fiction,
and anything you accomplish is science,
the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction.
- Ray Bradbury
January 13th, 2009

More about the Wall Street Christmas Tree

I just received some pictures from Robert Fassler. He writes:

I found your Blog about our tree and you mentioned you knew my half sister Debbie (lives in stony point now) and your brother knew my grandfather. I thought you might be interested in what the tree was in 1965 when it was transplanted from Birchardville PA where I live now to West Nyack, Where we used to live.

I just got off the phone with Jim O’Sullivan from O’Sullivans tree service that did the work and transported the tree to Wall St. The tree was taken down and brought back to his yard on western highway. I’m going down sometime this week (a 3 hour drive from here) to pick up the logs from the tree. I plan on hiring a wood carver to make different shapes and artistic items from the logs to give to family members as a souvenir of this interesting story.

Tree in 1965. It is the one next to the driveway. (Click to see larger image).

 

This was the tree in 2008.






December 19th, 2008

Lots of Winter Pictures

I am cleaning out the various cameras here. I put some of them on a Picasa album here:

Some interesting pictures —

When Larry and I went to see Cadillac Records, we got there a little early. Larry spent the time annoying some nice girls trying to sell bath salts and other smelly things. They worked hard flirting with Larry and trying to sell him something. Of course, he didn’t spend any money and when we went by later one of them gave him the finger.

There is a mouse at work that leaves me little presents every night.

Furry in the snow showers that we had around Thanksgiving.

The usual suspects at work. This is our Christmas lunch. Programming attracts a variety of cultures.

There are a bunch of arty pictures of the backyard in the collection.

Here is a Battenfeld tree farm picture.






October 31st, 2008

A True Ghost Story

The Clarkstown Cemetery next to my house is one of the oldest in the U.S. and has had its share of spooks. My Dutch ancestors lived in the area granted to them by William of Orange back in the 17th century. They came here, as did many early Americans seeking religious freedom.

Although the Dutch settlers kept their own customs and even spoke a dialect of Dutch well into the 19th century, they could be very tolerant and some of them had a reputation for scholarship and freedom of thought.

Back in the 1700s, a prominent citizen of Clarkstown died. (Clarkstown was sometimes called Clarksville and later has become known as West Nyack.) This citizen was an atheist, but his family had a family plot and his ancestors had been buried in the church yard for over a century. The grave was dug, but there was some controversy as to whether or not he should be buried in sacred ground.

On the night before his funeral a white shape could be seen over the freshly dug grave. It seemed to leap out in the darkness from time to time as though it had taken over the grave and would prevent anyone from putting the atheist’s body into the churchyard ground.

In the morning the story got around and a group of people went to stop the funeral. The casket was brought from the church after the funeral, but the people would not let the pallbearers carry it to the grave. There was an argument where the story was told of the mysterious spirit that hovered over the open grave during the night.

Just as the argument turned to yelling there was a loud sound of an animal in distress and a white ewe jumped up from the grave trying to escape. It had fallen in the night before and could not get out. The spirit was the sheep that was trying to escape the grave.

The crowd was embarrassed that they had thought that the sheep was a ghost and did not prevent the burial.

True story.






October 31st, 2008

Clarkstown Graveyard

We don’t get trick-or-treaters. It is partly because we live next to one of the spookiest cemeteries in the county.

I went over and took some pictures just as the sun set. The flash pictures came out, but the long exposures are often blurry because I could not hold the camera still enough. I wound up setting the camera on a gravestone and using it for a tripod.

Graveyard Gallery






September 18th, 2008

Poker at John's place

John moved up to Nyack from the city. He’s down on lower Depew ave. Here is his new apartment. $1,000 a month – ouch. That’s Robert on the porch. Robert is growing a Santa Clause beard.

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John is often confused with a hung over David Duchovny.

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He has two very fat cats named Bogey and Mingus, who were not interested in posing for the camera.

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Mingus jumped on the table to see what Poker was all about. I caught John with a weird expression on his face.

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After poker Jim rode back to Birchwood Avenue on his Vespa.

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I lost money at Poker. I did not have a good hand all night.