Our
Butternut
Book 1 Volume 2
Founded
December 17,1912 Ceased
Publication Thursday February 1, 1951
This
is a restored version of the original sent in 2003
Saturday,
November 29, 2003 7:37 AM 37 Deg at LVIA and 37 Deg in
the bus stop
Dear Folks,
Well, it is almost
December. It is really beginning
to feel like it. This morning my blood glucose was 125 and my weight an
amazing 203+. So far, so good.
We went for our
walk this morning. We missed one
entirely yesterday. Then after breakfast, we went down to the bank,
Rite-Aid, and then up to Aldi, Wal-Mart, K Mart, and finally home about
noon.
I really want to
dispel any one’s idea that this is
in any way an attempt to be anything remotely resembling a newspaper.
It is really only Bobby’s letters in a different format. I had in my
possession the masthead of the old Palmerton Press and I thought it
might make a good entryway for these letters, nothing more. It is all
an integral part of our “family” over many years. Potential advertisers
need not get in line. Instead, call the Times News Ha!!!
However, I do want
to set the record straight on the
paper. I scanned portions of the last copy of the paper and wish to
display some of them here.
`
There are
many memories in the notices seen above.
Some bad, but mostly good thoughts about what we did and how we did it.
Technology has changed a lot, but it still all entails hard work. That
hasn’t changed.
************************************************************************************
This afternoon
about 2 pm, George and Andy took me to the train show in Bowmanstown.
What was done to that building was quite a major accomplishment. They
have transformed that old church by turning it into a nice display and
work area for their Model Railroad Hobby. A whole lot of work has gone
into that project. I took some pictures that I will share. I enjoyed
the trip very much.
Son, George, and
grandson Andy any had their train
hats on as did may others there. You can always tell the true
believers. It really was fun. There were a lot of little kids there,
the only thing was most of them were adults. It was great! They have
the beginnings of quite a layout with multiple trains running
simultaneously.
Some scenes from the Bowmanstown Train show
This
was a very interesting display. It brings
to mind some of the
stuff from my past. It was very different display from those of my
youth. I know I wrote about this some time back, but things like this
at the Christmas season hold such wonderful memories that I like to
share and rehash those memories; besides I am an incurable romantic, so
bear with me.
In those days,
there were no malls. Thus, the
Allentown department stores were the big guns in displaying Christmas
merchandise.
We did all of our “big
shopping “ in Allentown mostly at
Hess’s, Leh’s, or Zollinger-Harned stores. A Saturday trip to Allentown
was always a thrilling event for a little kid. However, Christmas was
extra special.
My Mom drove the 7 passenger Packard
and then later the 1938 Buick. We
all went along with Mom’s sister, our Aunt Guga, [Gulia} sometimes with
my sisters, Mary, and Dorothy, but occasionally it was just the three
of us. Hey, my sisters were over ten years older than this little kid
and they often had different interests.
Mom usually parked in Leh’s
parking lot. Then we walked wherever we were going. The parking lot
attendant knew her on sight and by name. “Joe” always found a spot for
her if possible. If there was nothing, she then parked at the Motor
ramp down in the next block a bit off Hamilton Street.
When we walked up
to Hess’s, I remember the police
officer in the little steel tower in Center Square controlling traffic.
In my earlier days, for any
“pee relief”, I was taken into the
ladies room, but center square had an underground men’s and woman’s
facilities. The first time I was permitted to use it was a big deal for
a little kid, but taken for granted as I got older. I wonder if Mom
thought they would never see me again, Ah growing up!
Usually it was a trip scheduled
for school clothes, but always,
if possible, a side trip for Bobby to visit the toy department this was
made a part of the agenda. However, Christmas was always extra special.
We kids loved those trips,
Early on, we
discovered that crying and generally carrying on was completely
counterproductive, so we kids all used other approaches. They must have
been reasonably effective because we always came home with stuff of
some kind. Usually it was nothing big. Money was tight in those days
during the depression. Mom ran things with a firm hand. She wasn’t a
one-room schoolteacher before she married my Dad, for nothing.
Nonetheless, Aunt Guga, being an unmarried woman was a softie.
Bless her heart, Aunt Guga was the softest of soft touches. We kids
really would plague her until she relented and we kids usually always
came home with something out of her the kindness of her heart. The
trick was to get her alone away from Mom. What a wonderful person she
was! Mom always admonished her not to get too much for us. Usually it
was not big stuff. It usually was clothing of some kind. But the
Christmas trips were memorable. All of the department stores had
extensive Lionel displays in their toy departments. The heck with Santa
Claus! It was the trains I wanted to see! Some of them were
surprisingly complex with good attention to many details.
I remember
watching the Lionel display at Hess’s and
seeing the stainless steel “Flying Yankee streamliner come down the
track with a Milwaukee lines stream engine going by in the opposite
direction. Golly!!! Lionel had just brought out the whistle. It was
very realistic and impressive. The engines were all zinc die cast. I
bet NJZ was a prime supplier of them. In fact, there was a model of
Lionel’s Berkshire Steam engine and tender on display in a glass case,
outside of the NJZ Superintendent’s office on the third floor of the
central lab building for years
There were lesser
displays of AC Gilbert’s American
Flier trains also. The gauges were compatible, but the cars could not
couple with Lionel equipment. AC Gilbert’s big item was their erector
sets. One could make a whole lot of stuff out of them. As with Lego’s
today, it brought out the creative genius in kids. An electric motor
operated what ever you built. I built many things with my erector set.
The good thing was that additional stuff could be added to it also. It
came in a green steel hinged case that held everything.
I remember one year they got me an AC
Gilbert chemistry set. I burned a
hole in the dog’s food dish attempting to ignite some potassium
nitrate. Oh I did but then it was decided that I was not cut out to be
a chemist. < Sheez! Honest to God>
I remember Aunt
Guga getting me a set of Daniel
Boone logs. One could build all kinds of structures with it. It was
neat.
Christmas was a
happy time in our lives in spite of
the hard times. Being just a small kid, I was unaware of any my Dad’s
business problems. He never made a big thing about them to us, but
things were hard in those days. Running a printing business and a
newspaper, paying his skilled men was a real problem at times during
the depression. Oh, there were occasional quiet conversations between
Mom and Dad that quickly stopped when we kids came into the room.
Little pitchers??
Now I realize that many of my
views and political inclinations
are all tempered by what I experienced as a child with my Dad’s
business along with my experiences as I entered the business world
myself. We are all products of our early lives, like it or not.
One of the things that I
cherish very much is my Mother’s
statement to me in her later years she was never sorry that I came
along. Hey, she was in her 40s when I was born. However, there a lot of
love in our home and there is now. I would like to think that
were my departed loved ones able to sit up on the plate rail and see
our Thanksgiving meal, they would be very happy with what they saw.
I am very grateful for
it. Both Queen and I came from good,
stable, homes. Moreover, we were all loved and we knew it. Oh,
occasionally there was the iron hand, but it was not often needed.
That certainly seems not to be
universally true today, oh, but
good folks still abound. They are just harder to find!
I
have often thought how wonderful it would be now, at 77 years, of age
to be able just to sit down and talk with Dad and Mom. I may not be any
smarter, but I am a lot wiser and I can see that much of what they said
has indeed, come to pass. Mom’s statement of “ one day you will
understand” rings very true. Everyone has to learn these things the
hard way; we don’t believe it when they first tell us.
For that matter, I wish right now
that I could pick up the phone and
talk with my sister, Dot, as has Queen often wished she could talk with
her sisters. I do miss Dot’s wise council.
This
is a picture of one of my Mom’s Thanksgiving Day dinners many
years ago
Sunday,
November 30, 2003 7:33 AM 36Deg at LVIA and 33.8 in the bus stop
Gee, I
was surprised at the medical report this
morning. The blood glucose was 124 and the weight 205 after that pig
out yesterday at the Elliston’s. We had a turkey meat pie as we have
done for the last few years. Man, it was delicious. If this is becoming
a tradition, I am all for it.
I was up on the
park bench this morning enjoying the
day. It is cloudy and it is cold, but I was very comfortable there with
my coffee.
Since I have been
working in this new medium of a
web page, I must concern myself with details that previously were not
necessary for me to know. I am trying to learn how to properly get a
web page in a proper format and how to set up the web page and maintain
it. The really technical stuff like writing code in HTML is out of the
question. This is enough of a strain on this old dog.
However, I have
instituted some changes. Since this
is no longer an e-mail letter, I increased the font size one point and
am adding more pictures. It sure would help if I knew what I was doing.
In addition, I am trying to learn
about a program that I was bundled
along with my digital camera. It is Adobe PhotoShop elements. It is a
very powerful image program that I saw at Wal-Mart for almost $100. I
watched Jason use it and think I had best learn a bit about it. I have
a very steep learning curve and age has not helped improve it one bit.
Ha!! Along with my ACDSee, photo program, a lot can and must be
done with pictures. Then too should help to see how big the
letter is and how many pixels I using in the photographs. The overall
size of the whole letter I now must keep in mind. The text is a very
small part of the letter. I don’t even bother to number pages any
more. As I write this now the overall size of this letter with pictures
is now 1.15 MB. An ordinary letter ran about 57 KB..
A whole lot less. The HTML stuff adds
up quickly. The pictures are all
HTML. It is a real space hog and in that regard, I must be careful that
I don’t exceed the amount of space that Prolog provides free. I went to
Prolog’s site to see what my usage was and couldn’t get it to display
any figures. I e-mailed Prolog questioning them, and they replied that
they know about it and it is being looked at. I just cleaned out my
e-mail and checked with Prolog and my monthly average disk use is 1.14
Megabytes so I have plenty for now Gee wiz!!
All this high tech stuff is pulling
Bobby kicking and screaming into
the modern age. It is a very difficult experience. Watching Jason
typing all that HTML code into the computer in preparation of this web
site just blew me away. As with all this stuff, it is simple when
you know how to do it. Well now??! I am in no way any kind of an
expert. For me, this is a Quantum leap from a model T to a supercharged
Indy racecar! <Sigh>needed. If Fritz’s admonition that an
active mind is a healthy mind, then mine must be doing push ups Geez!!
I got this from Bob Green,another Ham
Radio operator it puts a new and
very interesting light on a man much admired for his other life as an
entertainer.
I am glad that Bob is willing
to send the stuff and allows me to freely
plagiarize it.
”The
following message was forwarded from the Frankford Radio Club
reflector:
Chandler
Doug FFRDC-Mitre ESC/JS wrote:
”Saturday
afternoon I was listening in the 3-meter band to WUMB UMass
Boston
radio,
91.9 MHz, when they had on an old interview with the late Johnny
Cash.
He was asked how he got started in his career, and a great CW
story
emerged.
Cash
was born on a small cotton farm in NE Arkansas. They were very poor,
and
the whole family worked the fields together. Their only enjoyment
was
they
did have a radio. When they came in from the fields, they could
listen
to
Earnest Tubb, the Carter Family, Gene Autry and so on. Johnny had a
great
singing
voice, but the family was too poor to afford a guitar so he just
sang.
His ambition for life was to sing on the radio.
In
1950, he enlisted in the Air Force. Aptitude tests showed he had a
great
capability
for Morse Code, probably due to his musical mind set he
thinks.
He
went to the usual AF places like Lackland and Keesler, graduating
first
in
his class in CW. Then they selected him for high speed intercept
operator
and
he aced that class. Then they sent him to learn Russian language and
Russian
code. He was doing 35 WPM in Russian. On graduation first in his
class,
he was offered either Adak Island Alaska or Germany. Cash didn't
know
anything
about Adak except that it was 100s of miles from nowhere, but
he
had
heard that Germany was a good place, so he went there.
Asked
if he ever intercepted anything interesting he had two stories.
Sitting
there with headset and typewriter, one day he was copying the
TASS
news
service bulletins to the outlying SSRs, when he copied the first
TASS
bulletin
on the death of Stalin. This went right up the chain to
Washington
of
course, as the first news they heard of it.
Another
time, he was tuning around when he picked up an in-flight
position
report
from a Russian bomber flying from Moscow to Smolensk. It was a
real
weak
signal at 45 WPM, almost lost in QRM and QRN, but he copied the
code
and
ran it over to the crypto shop. The departure time and ETA were way
too
short
for that route (either 1/3 the usual time or 1/3 off the usual
time, I
forget).
From this, Intel deduced that the Russians had got their jet
powered
bomber flying at last. This news flashed to WDC, and Cash got
an Air
Force
Commendation Medal for that intercept.
After
a few years, he made rank and became chief of the station.
Meanwhile,
in
his off time, he finally had enough money to buy himself a git-tar,
which
he
instantly learned to play. The Air Force offered him good
assignments and
bennies
to re-up, but he always just wanted to sing on the radio. The
rest
is
history.
73
N1ATQ Doug”
This
morning after the boys left for Delaware, we
went to K-Mart for a fiber optic tree. However I still want a real
tree.
This came in this evening.
Hi
Bob,
I
really like the new format for your newsletter, especially the
addition of
photos.
Please keep them coming. They're a link to my
Palmerton roots.
Please
pass along my best regards to those who might remember my
parents,
Bill
and Anne Danneberg.
Bill
Danneberg Jr.
Rock
Hall, MD
The pictures below were taken
back in the 1950s at Bellwood, New Jersey
on The Lehigh Valley Railroad,
where an old friend, Bill DeHaven the
tower operator, invited Dick and
me to spend the day with him. This tower was very important
in the Lehigh Valley Railroad system. Only about a mile or two above a
crossover with the Baltimore and Ohio Railway. We spent the day there.
When things happened, they happened fast.
Unfortunately I can’t find two
of my most prized photos that I took. One was looking into the mouth of the tunnel framing the
inside of the tunnel with a train
coming. It was neat. The other was a picture standing inside the
tunnel looking out. One constantly
heard the drip, drip of water inside the
tunnel.
It was kind of
spooky in there. I didn’t venture too far
before claustrophobia took over.
December the
first. It is the first day of
buck
season. It appears as though the hunters will be having good weather
for their big day.
The weight was 205
and the blood glucose was 120. I
guess last night’s turkey soup didn’t cause too much of a problem.
We went for our
walk this morning and then Queen
began her wash. About 10:30 we went to Service Team and got our
Christmas tree. They were selling them, any size tree, for $15. We
brought it home and I cut the lower limbs off, a slice off the bottom
of the trunk, and then placed it in a pail of water. It is a Douglass
fir. It seems fresh to us. Of course, I took some pictures of the
entire operation.
The
men at Service team helping
Queen pick out our
tree
Queen
and Bobby working on
tree
It was getting colder and
very windy while we were there. The wind was
very strong and cold on that tree lot.
Later this afternoon, we went
to Super-Fresh for some salmon and
then on to K Mart where Queen was looking for some snug warm undies for
the cold weather. Then we stopped back at the Post Office, the bank,
the Telephone Company, and finally the First National Bank to pay the
water bill for the last time as the Palmer Water Company. Next time it
will be a borough entity.
Tonight we spoke
with brother-in-law Walter and he
is able to open this web page as is his son, Dick. Both of them have
that miserable server, AOL. If they can open it then anyone with AOL
should be able to do it. If not then something needs attention at
their end of the line. Hopefully AOL’s help service should be
contacted.
Tuesday,
December 02, 2003 7:14 AM 28 Deg at LVIA and 28.8 in the bus
stop
Brrr, it is cold
outside this morning. As soon as
the coffee is ready Butternut and I will be heading out.
This morning my
blood glucose was 131 and my weight
205. Last night we dined in God’s restaurant with Queen’s spaghetti. It
is always a favorite in this house.
Now as I sit here
at the computer the fiberoptic
Christmas tree is turned on. When I went out on the front porch to get
the newspaper it sure smelled like fresh evergreens. The new tree is
out there in a bucket of water awaiting further work. In addition last
evening one of our wonderful early Christmas presents arrived. UPS
delivered a balsam Christmas wreath from daughter Mary. Today I must
put it up.
This
is the wreath Mary and Jim
gave us for Christmas
Golly
it must have snowed a bit last night.
I was
sitting up on the old wood bench this morning and noticed that
everything had a dusting of white on it. This is a very good place to
get one’s head on straight first thing in the morning. I was thinking
how inexorably our lives intertwine with one another. As I sat there I
was thinking about some of the technical aspects of keeping track of
the size of this letter so that I don’t exceed my web page quota of
space with Prolog. It suddenly occurred to me that this is no longer
simply an e-mail that I send to over 90 poor souls, anybody in the
world, with an Internet connection can open it and read it. Some body
in England, Africa, China, Moscow, Afghanistan, anyplace can if they
are unlucky enough to have accidentally stumbled upon the URL for this
is now able to read this. That is an overwhelming thought with vast
implications for me. We truly live in a worldwide communications
era, now. I am still naive enough not to take this for granted as kids
do today. I recall this was an utterly impossible dream when I was a
kid. I recall trying to see a television picture from my bother’s
spinning pinwheel disk that was modulated with a radio signal. Anything
that was there was 95% imagination, but there was something there.
I will bet my Dad and my brother
Dick would love computers and this
entire medium of communication. I know that I certainly do.
This morning we
went downtown and went for our walk
there. It was pretty darn cold so it wasn’t as extensive as it might
have been. We stopped in at Country Harvest and Queen got a hug from
our friend, Pearl, who works in the butcher’s department. We got some
things at the deli. Then it was on over to Rite Aid where Queen picked
up a prescription that was ready for her. On the way back to the car,
we had to visit our friends at the Times News office. Earlier it was
snowing like all get out. Of course, I blamed it completely on
Sharon.She doesn’t have her decorated abominable snow shoveler up and
running yet. Had she done so, we probability have had a foot of the
stuff by now! <Grin>
It was good to hear
that apparently, Pattie had a house full for
Thanksgiving dinner. That was good. Friends and family are true
blessings. It is a lot of work, but it is worth it. It pleased Queen
and I to hear that she has declared herself a member of the Elliston
clan, Cousin Pattie. Hey we can always use another kook in this bunch
of folks.
Tonight for supper I re-treaded the
turkey soup. The problem was that
I tried to make something out of nothing. Bobby cooked up the
Thanksgiving bones and removed all the fat and other foreign objects.
Then the problem was that I should have discarded much of the water in
which I cooked it. Well, now it finally is pretty good. I suppose I
should call it my silk purse soup. I sure had to make a silk purse out
of a sow’s ear tonight. It really tastes pretty darn good. It doesn’t
taste much like turkey but it is passable.
Wednesday,
December 03, 2003 7:11 AM 21 Deg at LVIA and 19.1 in the bus
stop
This morning my l
blood glucose was 130 and my
weight 207. <Sigh>
Gee whiz but it
is damn cold outside this morning.
As soon as the coffee is ready I will be heading out doors.
<Later> It is mighty cold but there is no wind. I thought I
caught a fleeting glance of Lee Bollinger on his constitutional
the morning.
I sat there completing my agenda for
today. Last evening Queen
admonished me that I had best get the snow blower prepared for action.
Indeed, the weatherman warns of a possible accumulating snow on Friday
into Saturday. That means the I shall have to drain the last of the
gasoline out of the lawnmower, run it dry, put it toward the back of
the garage basement and get out the snow blower, gas it up, run it a
bit, place it at the front of the garage basement. Then, I will be
prepared to gnash my teeth for the rest of the winter. <Bah
Humbug>
Well I drained the gas out of the
mower ran it dry fueled the snow
blower and now I am prepared for winter. <Grind>
We went for our usual walk this
morning. It wasn’t too bad cold wise
but we did keep moving. I am finishing the coffee as I write this and
then I am going out on the front porch while we have sunshine and start
on the Christmas tree.
As one can see from the pictures
above we got the tree in it’s stand,
water in it and later on in the afternoon while it was in the shade, we
are in the process of putting the lights on the tree and trying to
place them for the best effect. We suspect we will need another string
of lights.
Thursday,
December 04, 2003 7:09 AM 18 Deg at LVIA and 17.1 in the bus
stop
Burr. It is cold
this morning. As soon as the coffee
is ready I shall go out to see for myself. Sheez, it was cold out
there. Fortunately there was no wind.
This morning we
plan to do our shopping. That will
take a while. The computer is full of winter weather warnings this
morning. Snow is on the way. < Sigh>
I talked with
Tommy Davies last night and he got his
deer on Monday. It was a doe. Apparently he used his flintlock
muzzle loader. I asked him if he shot it or bludgeoned it to death.
We did our
shopping this morning about 10AM and got
back about 1PM. We are tired. The stores were crowded with shoppers who
also must have heard the weather report.
After unloading
the car I took the newspapers up to
the church on Fireline Road the collecting place then I put the car
in the garage and that is it for today.
I think I shall
post this now. One of the main
reasons for utilizing this format is my desire to use some of the
pictures I have digitized over the years. I hope everyone will enjoy
them. This is a nice little town and we are proud of it.
Once
again, I will close with the usual, Please love
one another,
Mom and Bob [Queen and Bobby]
The following are two of my
very favorite Quotations. They say a lot,
about what is important in this life. Bob
“Not
everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that
counts can be counted.”
Albert Einstein (1879-1955), sign hanging in Albert Einstein's
office at Princeton
“Praise
is well, compliment is well, but affection--that is the
last and final and most precious reward that any man can win, whether
by character or achievement.”
Mark
Twain 1835 1910
