It's Recyclables Day
48 degrees and still quite dark at 6:30
WKTV's Weather Forecast: "Sunny skies today and feeling more like summer with highs climbing over 80 degrees. Clear skies tonight and not as cool with lows in the 50s.
A massive area of high pressure will dominate the eastern seaboard through the week. This will bring sunny and dry weather. As the high slides east over the next several days warm weather will dominate the Northeast.
A weak cold front arrives early in the weekend, bringing us the chance for showers and a thunderstorm."
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FARMERS MARKET IN THE PARK
At the Library
Movie Matinée at 1:00
"The Lucky One"
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IN THE NEWS
Headlines from the front page of
The Waterville Times.
"Riding for Kurt"
"Seventh Cruise In Set for Saturday"
"Businesses Thank Village for Grant"
"Talk Set On Bath Salts"
"Wheel Days Returns In Brookfield"
"
Augusta Coffeehouse"
To read more, please click HERE.
IN THE MAIL
Good News from Jan Kelley:
"KC the cat has been found!"
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From the Waterville Garden Club
"We will be in the Park during 'Cruisin.' Between now and then, as well as on Saturday, we will be selling the raffle tickets for a Gardener's Basket. Tickets will be $1 each or 6 for $5. On Saturday we will also be selling mums and possibly pumpkins. Some people will bring plant related items."
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From Hank Gardner re: HOPS - "Excellent history today. I drink wine now days, but for years my drink of choice was beer. Always poured into a glass with foam so that I could smell the hops. The last time I was in Germany I was told that they have very few hop farms left. I guess, like most items today, hops primarily come from China." Thanks, Hank!
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Here & There, Tuesday Afternoon.
Yesterday was a lovely late-Summer day, and residents of the Schoolhouse Apartments took some time to enjoy it.
There is seldom a time when cars do not block the view of Morgan's sidewalk showroom: this was a rare photo op!
At least once a day I make a point of driving past Pat's gardens on Babbott Avenue South (or "Maiden Lane," as it was once called ) to soak up the Summer colors.
Autumn colors are appearing fast!
Autumn colors are appearing fast!
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FOR THE RECORD
Up and up it goes!
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Except for postcards like these there are few reminders
of the old days in the hop fields. Some pictures make the activity seem as enjoyable as a family picnic, but “A Hop pickers life,” published in the
Waterville times in 1875 and posted at the above link, gives a less than glamorous account of what those old
days really were like. Nor were they any better 60 or 70 years later.
The following is an except from "Social Change in a New
York Rural Community" published in 1954: "Hops and their attendant business almost vanished
from Waterville but they did not vanish from the minds of the residents.
Memories of the prosperous days could not be erased. They Linger – still
linger – with a determined a few. The hope that hops could come back to
restore the fantastic prosperity of the last days was strong in the 30s.
Efforts were made to solve the technical problems accompanying their decline.
The legislature was prevailed upon to appropriate money to support a hop
research center in Waterville. An experimental plot was established there in
1934; root varieties were tested, disease problems studied, and growing methods
developed. That hop yard was located in the vicinity of Allen Acres. The supervisor, there, was Pete Kane’s
father, Roger, and one of the young hop pickers was Miss Elaine Tilbe.
The International Grain Company began to operate on a large
scale on the Oneida chief farm in 1941, at Gibbons’ in Hanover, and the John I
Haas Brewing Company opened large operations in 1942 near the junction of Peck
and Shanley Roads. There were also hop yards on Upper White Street: one behind
the former Youngs residence and another farther out at McCabe’s and one in
Daytonville belonging to P. N. Lewis.
These are the fields that quite a few of our area residents remember. It
was a time that brought to many minds memories of Waterville’s “Glory days,”
but I never heard anyone say that there was anything at all glorious about
working in the fields! There were scores of hop pickers who came by truck and
train from Utica or other cities, but it was a chance for local kids to earn a
few dollars, too. Days began early, and some of the youngsters, like Dottie Bartlett
Ruane and Lou Langone, were picked up by flatbed truck. They, along with Elaine Tilbe Cowen, George Kelley, Bill O'Dowd, Jack Youngs and Skip Foppes remember ...........
(To be continued.)
The sun is shining ...
Have a great day, everyone!
