Why doesn’t Google recognize Fox Creek?

The Old Men of the Mountain met at the “Your Way Café” on Tuesday  morning, June 2, and the OMOTM are still glad to be out doing a few things more on the normal side.

The question comes up, “What is normal?”

Normal is such an ambiguous word, like sane. Who is really sane? And who decides what is normal, and who is sane? It sure tain’t this scribe. Someone once said it’s the guy with the biggest or most guns who decides.

As the farmers cut hay and the grass grows taller, the OFs are saying summer goes fast, and it isn’t even here yet.

Some of the radio and TV stations offer an allergy report, and they are correct, but the OFs say you can tell it is allergy season by the number and loudness of the sneezes. Some of the OFs complain about being continually stuffed up, and others can attest to that for they are just as stuffed up.

The pine trees are generating their pollen so there can be more pine trees — especially the white and red pines. When leaving the car to go for a walk in the woods, you find, upon returning, that you have to look all over the parking lot for your car because all the vehicles are yellow. They are now covered with pine pollen, and this pollen does not dust off easily.

The OFs were again talking about traveling but there was quite a conversation on streams and waterways. The OGs wonder where some of the local streams start and what some of these streams eventually run into or become.

One creek or (crick, as some people call it), is listed as being completely not where it actually is, according to Google maps. According to these maps, the Cobleskill Creek is running from West Berne, through Gallupville, and Google names the same creek (Cobleskill) as going from Richmondville through Cobleskill and Central Bridge.

What just happened to Fox Creek? Both creeks run into the Schoharie Creek only miles apart but there is no Fox Creek listed in Berne. There is a Fox Creek Market, but it is on the Cobleskill Creek. (Say what!) The OFs were quite intrigued with that bit of information; no wonder trucks get caught under bridges.

Relating to the area around Richmondville, the OFs asked each other if they ever noticed, when driving down the hill on Route 88, heading west, it is necessary to continually keep depressing the accelerator to maintain speed even though it looks and feels like the highway is going downhill. The OFs commented that this phenomenon is very strange to them because the traveler is actually going uphill.

Trees down

This is a “not so funny Magee” event. Two of the OMOTM have had large trees blow over on their homes; one is an actual OF and the other is the mother-in-law of another one of the OFs.

The OF had the tree blow over in the very high winds of late winter. The OF said the weather people were saying how the gusts in places were 60 to 70 miles per hour. It was during this time that a perfectly good poplar uprooted and blew out of the ground (the ground, of course, was quite wet) right into the back of the OF’s home.

The other OF said it was a willow that blew over on top of his mother-in-law’s home. Both OFs said it was something to watch the professional tree people work, how they had chainsaws that were sharp; the saws didn’t ever seem to bind up, and the saws started on one pull.

How anyone started in this business is hard to tell. No fear of heights must be at the top of the list, and not being afraid of birds that are ticked off because their nests are now gone. Cardinals are one thing, but condors would give this scribe time to pause and think about it.

The good die young

One other procedure that has come up recently is needles in the eyes for macular degeneration. This scribe cannot remember this as a subject for discussion in all the years of attending these breakfasts.

Now all of a sudden here are a bunch of OFs shuddering just to hear the process of needles in the eyes, but some of the OFs, themselves, or their wives are going through the process just like going to the doctor’s for a flu shot.

Like the OFs keep saying: It is tough to get old, yet it is necessary to be tough to get old. The other saying about age is: The good die young; that may be a blessing to keep them from putting up with getting old.

Warranty warning

The OFs are beginning to wonder a lot about warranties, or guarantees. The OFs say they can remember when the best guarantee was a good, firm, handshake.

Now they are given a folder of paper weighing about five pounds, stipulating the guarantee; how good it is and long it is etc., isn’t worth all that paper it is written on. One OF said for each paragraph that explains what the guarantee grants, there are 10 just below it that explains how the company or companies can get out of it.

In other words, most are not worth the paper they are written on. On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call. Moments later, he learned his auto warranty had expired.

Those OFs who attended the breakfast at the Your Way Café in Schoharie, and can guarantee that, for them, old age is better than viewing grass from the roots, were: Robie Osterman, Rick LaGrange, Roger Chapman, Wally Guest, Harold Guest, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, Joe Rack, Russ Pokerny, Ted Feurer, Wayne Gaul, Jake Herzog, Peter Whitbeck, Bill Lichliter, George Washburn, Lou Schenck, Jack Norray, Herb Bahrmann, Henry Whipple, Otis Lawyer, Dave Hodgetts, Bob Donnelly, and me.