Friday with Add-on

9:40 A.M.

I've just received an Email from Mary Beth VanDenbergh asking if I'd post the following information about a bus trip that she and Don Brown have put together for
December 20th. They've had a few cancellations and, therefore, can offer those spaces to others who might like to see the Sights of New York! Sounds like fun!!

"Mary Beth VanDenbergh and Don Brown have organized a trip to New York City on Saturday, December 20th. The cost per person is $50.00 which pays for round trip bus fare on a motor coach to and from NYC. We will be leaving the school at 6:00 am and leaving NYC at 8:00 pm. Some people that are going plan to see a Broadway show, go shopping, eat, wander, or see Radio City Music Hall. We will be dropped off near Rockefeller Plaza, so folks can check out the tree in the plaza and watch the ice skaters. I will be taking people around to see some of the sites. If you are interested or have any questions please feel free to contact Don at dbrown@watervilleschools.org or Mary Beth at mbvandenbergh@watervilleschools.org

Come enjoy the fun! Happy Holidays Everyone!

Mary Beth VanDenbergh
MPS Teacher Assistant
Academic Union Advisor

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According to WIBX Radio,

Waterville Schools are

DELAYED 1 Hour

From WKTV: "Heavy snow has exited Central New York. Regionwide, we picked up on average between 4"-8" of snow, with sleet mixing in and reducing snow totals further south and east. Light snow will continue this morning and last until about noon, with additional accumulations ranging from a trace to as much as 3". Expect winds to pick up this afternoon as cooler air works in on the back end of this system. Temperatures will fall throughout the day into the low 20s by 5 PM.

Limited lake snow will wrap in behind this storm Friday night and Saturday morning, perhaps depositing a few more inches of snow, before high pressure and a shift to milder weather begins in earnest Saturday afternoon and Sunday.

*****************

Richard Enders stars in

Tonight and Tomorrow!

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I didn't receive any answers re: yesterday's query about the apartment building that sat just in front of the "cemetery wall," on the north side of the creek at the toip of Buell Avenue, but... Sheri Brennan's dad, Dennis Salm, wrote to her with this:

"Just checking the blog: There was at one time a large two story building that was referred to as the Odd Fellows hall. Grandpa Earl was a member and I don't know anything about the origination of the name. Ed Carter was also a member and had the jewelry store on the corner where you could go get the key to play pool. I don't remember if there were one or two buildings along that stretch."

I wonder if this was the original "Oddfellows Hall?" I remember that, in 1971, Nancy King and Jean Davis and I worked on decorations for the Centennial Ball in a big room on the second floor. The building was vacant, otherwise, and was taken down soon after that.

Look at the far right-hand side of the photograph and you can see the stairs leading to the apartment above the former "Hap's" restaurant. That's where Ed Carter had his jewelry store.

The "Oddfellows" was - and still is - a fraternal order.

As to the long, low apartment house that this discussion was originally about, I suddenly remembered that one of the residents was a Miss Korbel who had been a secretary for ..... ?

*********

This note came from Doris Stephan:

"The Waterville Book Discussion Group will meet on Wednesday, Jan. 21st at 12 noon. We are reading Pete Hamill's "North River." Bring a bag lunch, and join us for tea, coffee, and treats. Call the library - 841-4651 - to reserve a copy.

(Click the image for more about Pete Hamill and "North River.")

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OUT AND ABOUT ON THURSDAY

I found Kevin Nasypany just starting to hang decorations on his front porch on White Street.

Mayor and Mrs. Younes have done a thorough job at their home on Buell Avenue ......

....... this is just one small part of the lighting on a farm a short ways up Shanley Road from Route 315. It really is worth going to look at!

Other eye-catching displays are on homes on Stafford Avenue,

............ West Bacon Sreet .......

........... and Sanger Avenue.

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FOR THE RECORD

Drive Safely

and

Have a Great Weekend!

Thursday

It's Garbage Day!

23.9 degrees and overcast.

It sounds as if we're going to have an interesting day!

"WKTV's forecast: "Weather will continue to be quiet for the morning commute, with cloudy skies and temperatures in the mid 20s. Latest models continue to show precipitation move in after 1PM for areas to the south and east of Utica. The current track shows the heaviest precipitation of snow and sleet is going to beto the south and east of Utica and into the Adirondacks. Light to moderate snow and sleet is expected for most of the viewing area. There will be a sharp cut off of precipitation to the north and west of Rome, where light accumulation is possible. Everyone should see at least a period of light snow, if not steady moderate snow Friday morning, before it ends around Noon.
Storm accumulation map through Noon Friday:



Just to reiterate, we're confident that the heaviest precipitation will fall south and east of Utica. Sleet will hold down snowfall amounts in many locations, perhaps significantly.

**********************

This letter from Sheri Brennan was in my mailbox, yesterday:

"I was wondering if anyone has a photo you could post of the old apartment building that use to be on the right hand side right after the creek on Buell Avenue/315. It butted up to the cemetery hill (which would be right across from the new Home Shoppe). I remember when I was a kid walking downtown to Langone's store on Main Street to get 5 cent candy and seeing all the residence out on their porches with a nice view of Main Street. Thank you!"

Although I do remember that building, I'm quite sure that I don't have a picture of it. Do you?

And - just out of curiosity ---- Where was "Langone's Store"?

*************

Yesterday was the grayest, gloomiest, most unpleasant day to be outdoors, so I visited some shops in the village.


I started at "Merri-Rose Florist" ........

........... where there's an amazing collection of giftables ............

............. including Yankee Candles and
Suzy Quayle's "Zookeys" and (yes!) fresh flowers, too!

To answer the question: "Where do I get gift tickets for the Laser Car Wash?"

Right at Main Street Liquors!

(You might find a few other gifts there, too!)

(Click to enlarge.)

Then go next door to Morgan's! It's a hardware store, of course, but along with nuts and bolts and washers and wrenches, there are toys and decorations and housewares and even furniture, too!

Right now, Tom's having his annual RAFFLE. This year's prize is a basket filled with products from New York State - from jams and jellies to dishtowels, candles, a bun warmer and a Tim Clive CD - and all proceeds will benefit the Waterville Christmas Committee.

**************

Another RAFFLE Basket is on display at "Totally-U" on East Main Street.

This isn't really it, but serves as a reminder that

the real prize is a huge basket filled with

Everything Disney!!!!

The raffle is sponsored by the Brothertown Music Boosters
(who brought you the Air Force Band of Liberty in November.)

The drawing will take place during a

BAKE SALE

at Foodking

on Sunday, December 21.

Proceeds will be used to help defray individual musicians' expenses on a performance trip to Disneyworld, in Florida, next Summer!!! (What an experience that will be!)

Tickets are a dollar each and there's an "arm's length" bargain, too!

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Here are some pictures that Library Director Jeff Reynolds took at the Historical Society's "Victorian Tea," last Saturday afternoon.

Hats, gloves and furs!

-- and entertainment by the Historical Choraleers.
(or is it "caroleers," at Christmastime?)

**********

Jeff also took this picture of watercolorist Gail Gale and instructor W. Ralph Murray.

Gail's display includes this picture of her husband Ed's 1953 Century Coronado on Raquette Lake.

(Thanks, Jeff!)

********************

After I took this pictures, I searched the internet for a website for

"La Petite Maison" on East Main Street

but could only find a series of "travel sites," where there
were many, many remarks like these at "Tripadvisor".

(How nice! and Aren't we Lucky?)

****************

FOR THE RECORD

Keep an eye on the weather,

and Have a Great Day!

Wednesday

It's Recyclables Day!

47.8 degrees and raining.

(and it smells just like Spring!)

HOWEVER .......

Here's the WKTV forecast: "As (Wednesday) goes on, cold air will traverse from northwest to southeast across CNY, mixing with and changing the rain to snow. Accumulations should mainly be confined to areas north and west of Rome, where a few inches may fall. Here's our current thinking:

"Things begin to get tricky late (Wednesday). Clouds should hang in, and with cold air in place, we could be seeing pockets of flurries and freezing drizzle tomorrow evening, which could make travel a touch slick. Then, ample moisture is going to overspread the region Thursday..especially after about Noon. With cold air in place, wintry precipitation will occur. Our computer models are having a world of trouble honing in on exactly how this is going to play out, but at this point, we can say this: Snow will build in much of the area Thursday. Snow will mix with and change to sleet and freezing rain south and east of Utica Thursday afternoon. Heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain is possible Thursday evening and Thursday night before ending as a period of snow Friday. It is far too early to say anything specific regarding amounts, but significant snow and/or ice accumulation is likely somewhere in Central or Eastern New York. Winter Storm Watches are posted for areas south and east of Utica, and will likely be expanded as we get closer. Expect travel headaches Thursday night."

**************************

In yesterday morning's blog post I included a "chain letter" that I'd received urging me (all of us!) to send letters to recovering soldiers at Walter Reed Army Hospital.

However ------- I began getting Email right away saying "It won't work!!"

Here's why!! ............................Urban Legend Explanation

"One of the consequences of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 is that the U.S. Postal Service will no longer deliver mail addressed to "Any Service Member," "A Recovering American Soldier," or any similar generic addressee.

This is to protect the safety of American servicemen and women. Likewise, according to a statement dated November 8, 2007, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center will not accept such mail at its facility (though mail addressed to specific individuals will still go through).
Holiday cards should be addressed and sent to:

Holiday Mail For Heroes
P.O. Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456

Cards must be postmarked by December 10 , 2008.

THAT MEANS BEFORE THE 11th:
in other words, TODAY!

Click the next link for more:

"Holiday Mail for Heroes"

One writer said he'd been told to "put 'Medical Family Assistance Center' as top line." Maybe that works ------- I don't know. I'm very sorry to have thrown you a curve!

***************

I don't think that there's much snow left on the ground, today, but yesterday - when it was still Winter - more bright decorations appeared: Above - on Osborn Avenue.



At the Swanberg Home on the corner of E. Main Street and Stafford Avenue.



There's a newly decorated tree on a balcony on W. Bacon Street.



Faith Gentile's doorway and ......



.... the Nichols' front porch brighten Berrill Avenue.


**********************

Speaking of "Bright Ideas" .....


Road Salt and Mud are already here:

why wait ???

*******

Rick Garrett told me, yesterday, that a salesman - or deliveryman - had asked where the name "Waterville" had come from, and he wasn't sure: My information comes from this 1851 "History of the Town of Sangerfield" by Pomroy Jones, found in "Annals and Recollections of Oneida County."

"The village of Waterville stands chiefly upon lots Nos. 39 and 40 in (Sangerfield) but a small part of the village is however in the town of Marshall. It is situated upon the east branch of the Oriskany creek, at its junction with a small tributary which rises among the hills in the east and south-east part of the town of Marshall. At, and below this junction the east branch falls very rapidly until it unites with the west branch and Deansville. The power thus furnished is the only durable water power in the town. This circumstance, very early in the settlement of the country, caused a collection or "huddle" of buildings, known as "Sangerfield Huddle," and which by a steady and healthy growth has become the third place in importance in the county. In 1793, the former Colonel, but then Judge Sanger, built the first saw mill at this place. In the year 1794, Benjamin White erected one on the site of the present woolen factory. In the year 1796, Mr. White erected a grist mill near the site of the one now owned by Goodwin and Church. Within a few years afterwards Justus Tower, Esq., who settled in the place in 1799, built the grist mill which stands a few rods below."

"In the year 1808, the Sangerfield Post Office which had been previously located in this village, was removed to the Centre. In this year or the year preceding, the village, which from its first settlement had no other local name than the Huddle, received the name of Waterville. In the fall of the year, on a certain evening, Doctor Sherman Bartholomew, Josiah Bacon, Reuben Bacon, Isaac Terry, and John Williams, Esquires, were together in the tavern kept either by Eli Hotchkiss, or Pardon Keyes, now the dwelling house of Doctor E. A. Munger*, and among other topics, the name of the village became a subject of conversation, and it was unanimously agreed that the village deserved a more dignified name and that it should have one. After the suggestion of a variety of names, Doctor Bartholomew proposed that of Waterville, to which they all assented, and by that name it has since been recognized. It was not however generally known by that cognomen out of the village, until the Waterville Post Office was established in 1823. The name Waterville was selected, because not only agreeable, but a very appropriate one. The writer would not, like a certain lady author, intimate, that Whiskeyville** would have been more appropriate, believing that pure water is more congenial to the tastes of a majority of its citizens than whiskey."

* I think that Dr. Mungr's house (or a part of it) - which once stood on Main Street - is now the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Pesto, on Babbott Avenue.

** The "Huddle" was well-known for the fine whiskey produced at a distillery at the bottom of the hill on what is now Buell Avenue. Thus, the name "Whiskey Hollow."

Buell Avenue - then Mill Street - c. 1870.
Click to enlarge.

The distillery is the grayish building right across the road from the white barn which has been Mrs. Leigh's summer residence for many years. I was once told that the barn had been the cooperage for the distillery and that barrels of whiskey had been rolled back and forth through a tunnel beneath the road!

**************

Now go and have a Great Day

and remember .......

- Only four months 'til Spring!

Tuesday

It's 22.8 degrees

WKTV predicts that: "On Tuesday, light snow will continue in the morning, but it may end as some sleet as warmer air filters in a couple thousand feet up. We'll see a lull in the action for much of the afternoon, allowing our temperatures to warm up from around 20, well into the 20s. By evening, as a new area of precipitation moves in, we will be on the borderline of rain and frozen precipitation. Given what we know now, this is what we expect. In the Mohawk Valley and western Oneida County, a brief period of freezing rain will change over to plain rain quickly. In the Southern Valleys (Southern Oneida/Herkimer, Otsego, Madison and Chenango Counties), the freezing rain may hang on a little longer, amounting to some minor travel problems in the coldest spots. Everyone should be over to plain rain well before Midnight as strong southerly winds take temperatures into the 30s.

***************


After starting out at just a degree or two above zero, it warmed up a little bit, yesterday ....


but not enough to make it comfortable for leisurely strolls along Main Street!

"The Caves" in Forge Hollow have an impressive veil of ice ........

....... and the little pond on Gridley Paige Road is frozen, except for the waterfall.

(There is an story on the WKTV website about two youngsters who fell through the ice on a pond in Whitestown, yesterday. There may be ice on our ponds, but it may not be as thick as it looks!)

Snowmobile trails have been marked. All that's needed now is more snow!

*********************

On Babbott Avenue South

Strands of lights make nightimes bright, but daylight displays are just as pretty!

On Sanger Avenue

West Bacon Street

There's one less lamp post on E. Main Street: the one in front of Foodking - which had been damaged a year or so ago by a delivery truck - was felled sometime Sunday night or early Monday morning by, presumably, a similar vehicle.

*********

We all get these messages - this is one I followed through on!

"I usually read messages like this and delete them or save them thinking 'I should do this' but then of course, I never do. I just finished doing the request in this email and do you know what? I feel better for having done it - probably better than I expect the recipient will feel but then if he feels a part of my merry Christmas wish and THANK YOU, I will be satisfied.

So, when doing you're Christmas cards this year, take one and send it to this address:

A Recovering American Soldier,
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue,
Washington, DC 20307-5001

And then if you pass this on and most everyone does it, think how many cards with Christmas wishes and THANK YOUs will be received and read.

And if you can't or don't choose to do this, that's OK too. Merry Christmas !!!!

*****************************

FOR THE RECORD

DRIVE SAFELY

and

Have a Great Day!

Monday

It's Garbage Day!

It's just 3.4 degrees!

There's a great deal of traffic here on Route 315. That sometimes indicates that Route 12 is closed - as it was yesterday afternoon.

I'm watching school closings - so far Camden is the only one listed.

WKTV predicts that: "Skies will average partly cloudy with high temperatures only in the teens. A surge of warm air will build in over the next several days. In fact, temperatures are likely to slowly rise from Monday morning straight through Wednesday afternoon, even during the overnight periods.
Tuesday morning's commute may be tricky for some. A warm front will attempt to move in on Tuesday morning, bringing with it sleet and freezing rain. Warm air continues to build in during the day, with freezing rain eventually turning over to rain by afternoon. There will be a break, followed by steady to perhaps heavy rain Tuesday night into Wednesday.

***********

YESTERDAY

Around 3:30, Sunday. Heading S on Route 12 toward Sangerfield.

On Osborn.

The trees arrived on Saturday ............

.............. and even in the bitter wind, yesterday, customers went up and down the rows, picking out the very best!

The Grinch has arrived on Berrill Avenue ..........

... while, on the side lawn of St. Bernard's Catholic Church, the Manger Scene is set and if you look into the distance (beyond the flag pole) you can see the Magi and their camels, traveling across the desert.

***********

Terry and Stan Lopata were driving through Sherburne when they spotted this huge "sub" and thought to take a picture to send to me so that any blog-readers who were planning large gatherings would know where to find a sandwich large enough for a really big party! (Thanks!)

(Clever disguise for a fuel tank!)

************

GOOD NEWS FROM BOSTON!

"Talk about a jump in the counts-the white blood cell counts went from 350 on Saturday to 700 today. Therefore, he was able to leave the nest and walk around the 8th floor. David thought the doctor said its because he is a physical specimen, but I heard the doctor, he said I'm going to need a specimen before you leave! What happens from here is he needs to maintain the wbc 500 or better for 2 days to be released to the Neely house. As long as everything else is good such as no fevers or rashes etc. The doctor said maybe tomorrow(Monday) he will be able to move into the Neely House. Our faces lit up with amazement as the doctors argued over which one would give us the good news. David already had his sneakers on-one was tied the other was untied in case it wasn't today. He then ran the doctors over to the door only to be stopped to put on a mask and gloves. His main source of pain(besides me) is the itching caused by the gvh(graph vs. host or rejection) which is controlled with creams and steroids. This is good because the doctors want a little gvh but it is uncomfortable. It looks and feels like he has a sunburn. All along the doctors have said the he has been doing fantastic. It is because of all the wonderful thoughts and prayers we have received from all of you. Thanks."

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FOR THE RECORD

DRIVE SAFELY, everyone,

and have a great day!