Despite storm, six brave souls kept up 30-year tradition

Most people in our area know what the weather was like on Tuesday, Dec. 3.

Dec. 1 and 2 dropped a little bit of snow in the circle of the Old Men of the Mountain. Some had as much as 30 inches, and some 27.5 inches. That is a collection of little white flakes to pile on top of one another.

The breakfast for Tuesday, Dec. 3, was at the Duanesburg Diner in Duanesburg; for some of the OMOTM that is their furthest diner west and they were the ones who were there.

Now let us recall how the eighth worst storm in the area (since records started to be kept) affected the OMOTM.

On the second of December, there were 10 to 12 inches of pristine white stuff in my driveway. The plow arrived at 8:30 a.m. and made it disappear into banks of pristine white stuff.

So — on Dec. 3, this scribe arose, checked his driveway at 5:30, 6:30, and 7:30 a.m. It was noted that there were about 8 to 10 more inches, which had managed to find the driveway in the night. At 8:30 a.m., the plow still hadn’t arrived and so a phone call was made.

However, it seems that this scribe wasn’t the only one who needed a plow and it wasn’t until 11:30 a.m. or so that the driveway was cleared enough to use.

This scribe then received a phone call around 6 p.m. Tuesday night, and the caller said he had gone to the restaurant in Duanesburg and thought he was going to be the only OF there. Eventually, a couple more OFs came through the door and these three thought they would be the only ones there; then three more showed up and it began to feel like a group.

That made six hardy souls out of 25 to 30 who usually attend the breakfasts.

These six brave, hardy, fearless, valiant individuals have kept the reputation of the OMOTM intact.  Neither rain, sleet, snow nor things that go bump in the night will keep these OFs from having their breakfast and social gathering ruined.

They deserve a Huzzah! From all the others who were unable to be at the Duanesburg Diner on Dec. 3. 

However, not all is lost, because in the future this will give us something to discuss and complain about. The good part is that our record of 30 years of meetings is intact.

The column will be short this week because this scribe did not want to use conversation not used from previous breakfasts. Give the credit to the brave souls who did make it and they were: Glen Patterson, Joe Rack, Harold Guest, Wally Guest, John Rossmann, Elwood Vanderbilt, and not me.