I'm sitting here enjoying my second cup of coffee, knowing that I should be doing something else. I started work on a post that needs graphics and haven't found what I'm looking for on-line. I have a book...someplace...that has in it what I need, but I will need to find the book first. Since that may be a major undertaking, requiring that I locate who I loaned it to if I can't find it in my home, I decided to set it aside for later in the week. Which, of course left me without a topic for todays post.



Well sort of. What can I say? It's MONDAY.

The only winter sport that I take part in is chucking wood into the woodstove to keep my home toasty warm. So, you could say I'm not big on winter exactly. I enjoy the changing seasons, and winter is a season, but it's one I like looking at through a window rather than being out in. This past Friday the morning temperature was 7 below zero and I had to get out in it. So, to psych myself up to it I started remembering all the things that I truly love about New York state, especially the area I live in. Which actually brings me to the topic of my post, which is Old Forge, NY and it's hardware store. Aptly called, Old Forge Hardware.

I suppose, if you're reading this, you're asking yourself what a hardware store has to do with psyching yourself up to brave sub-zero temperatures. My answer to that would be that it's the closest thing I've found to something that used to bring me much pleasure when I was a teenager. I used to love to go shopping in the winter at our downtown business district in Rome. This was before Malls which, in my estimation anyway, have ruined the shopping experience .It was before Supercenters, and Target, K-Mart, TJ Maxx, Kohls, Bon Ton, etc. It was before you felt as if you were in the same store, no matter where you were. It was before every place to shop was in a new modern building with banks of florescent lights overhead. It was before you walked from one store to another in a hallway.



When I used to love shopping was when you could go to Woolworths Five and Dime, H.L. Greens, W.T. Grant, the stores where wood floors creaked underfoot and products were placed in bins and shelves under hanging incandescent lights. You could take an elevator up or down to another department of the store, or in the case of Montgomery Wards (old downtown store) or the Boston Store in Utica, ride an escalator. You could stop at the lunch counter in each store for a hot chocolate that always tasted better when you came in out of the cold. There used to be shoestores where real quality American made shoes and boots could be purchased. They were leather and suede, NOT vinyl or plastic. Not Payless with it's ill fitting bad for your feet shoes made in Taiwan.

I can recreate the feeling that I used to experience when I went shopping if I want to drive to Old Forge. I don't care what it is, if they don't carry it, no such thing exists. Have you tried to find good quality cast iron cookware in any store these days? They have it in Old Forge Hardware. I remember Mom and Grandmothers having fry pans of cast iron, but I never knew that there was an entire line of cookware made from that material. You can buy copper molds, cookie cutters, egg cups, timers, presses, dishes, silverware, placemats, tablecloths and runners, books, fishing equipment, hunting and camping equipment, candles, pottery, gourmet foods, baskets, and of course hardware all under one roof. You can walk on uneven old building creaky floors and the lighting isn't always that great. Just the way it used to be, when my babysitting money was burning a hole in my pocket on a Saturday in the winter. The only thing you can't do is sit at the lunch counter and enjoy a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream or Marshmallow Fluff. Which is probably a good thing, I'd probably never come home. Oh, and they sell postcards and stamps so I could keep in touch.

Crank it up and let's boogie on!!!! Party time

I, not being entirely enamored by John Travolta, never understood the mystique surrounding the movie "Urban Cowboy". After that movie, even Upstate New York was caught up in the "Mechanical Bull" craze. There was a bar called Coleman's Rodeo in Rome, NY that had a Mechanical Bull. I never went in there, but my buddy Mike did. From what I heard, the place was too rough a joint for me. Too many catfights and parking lot brawls, and I wasn't a fighter, so I stayed away from the place. Mike, on the other hand, thrived on fights. He never threw the first punch, but the last punch was always delivered by him and he was always still standing. Not for Mike was the biblical notion of turning the other cheek. He had this arrogant smile that always could be counted on to liven things up. There were so many that tried to wipe that smile off his face, that I was always surprised that he had any friends other than me. He had a small handful of friends, and they were the only ones that mattered. He didn't have the time, nor the inclination to make any more. If he loved you, he was there for you no questions asked, and nobody ever abused a friend of his and escaped unscathed.

He wasn't the most popular habitue of "the Rodeo" as it was called. He insisted that people treat women with respect, even if they weren't deserving of it. If they didn't listen...well...there was always the lesson learned in the parking lot. He did not brawl inside bars, which was why with his reputation he was even allowed in them, and he fought fair. He never kicked a man when he was down. He just made sure, with his fists, that you stayed down. Most of his opponents, even the cowards, followed the rules of engagement. The cowards, of course, simply didn't engage him. They just egged others on in hopes that someone would finally take him down.

As the Urban Cowboy craze started to die out, "the Rodeo" started to lose business. In a last ditch effort to bring it back, they purchased 2 Resistol hats, and offered them as first prize in a bull riding contest. The black hat had a mirrored hat band and red feather, the white hat for the lady in the winners life had a blue paisley band and blue feather. I don't remember how many weekends of bull riding it took, I do remember that each weekend there were three events and the winners of each event advanced to the final. Mike wanted those hats. So he entered the contest and on the weekend events that he competed in he stuck on the bull 3 times for 8 seconds each time. Which of course advanced him to the finals. No one thought he'd win, not even me, because he never rode the bull as a matter of course. The other contestants rode the bull regularly and I can't say how well because I never saw them. Needless to say it wasn't well enough because Mike won the hats. Which caused those who didn't like his smile to develop a serious hatred of his smile.

They banded together, as cowards do, and plotted and planned their revenge. They followed his bar hopping one Saturday night, and in a bar that was a couple of blocks away from the apartment house we lived in, they jumped him from behind. I don't remember the extent of all of his injuries, but they were sufficient that the hospital wasn't going to release him unless he had somewhere to go where he wouldn't be alone for 24 hours. I went and got him at 3 in the morning, put him up on my couch and spent a pretty sleepless night watching over him. The bars opened at noon on Sunday in my fair city, and as soon as noon rolled around Mike notified me he was leaving. where was he going? Well....to get his hat back, where else? I couldn't argue him out of it, he flat would not listen. It was a man thing, a reputation thing, it would be expected of him to do this. Faced with this argument, and the knowledge that the only way I could stop it was to hit him over the head, I went with him.

Word had gone around about the attack on Mike. We walked through the door and Snapper and Pat were all ready there and waiting for him. The three and a half Horsemen of the Apocalypse on a quest for 1 Black Resistol hat with a mirrored hat band and a red feather. I never figured out which one of us would be the half horseman. With his injuries it might have been Mike, then again I'm female so it could have been me. Either way, it wasn't ever necessary to find out. I guess the sight of Mike, injured but fearless, and 3 of his pissed off buddies were a bit more of a bite than his attackers wanted to chew. They gave him back the hat. No admission that they had it because they were part of the attack, just a hey, glad to see you and here's your hat.

Snapper and Pat were the other members of the roofing crew that died in Vermont in 1987. Mike, of course lived until 1994 with his brother in Arizona. I don't know what happened to the hat, I imagine it was with his things when his brother John packed him up. I knew from his sister that Mikes brain was seriously damaged, so the hat may no longer have had the significance it once had to him. He probably wouldn't have remembered me, and in many ways I am glad I didn't have any contact with him to find that out. What happened to the white hat with blue paisley hat band and feather? Well, the feather got lost someplace and it's yellowed with age, but I still have my hat.

Dad is going home today. If they stick to the diet plan he won't have that much of a problem with fluid build up, but all I can do at this point is hope for the best. I needed the day or so that I took off from Blogstream to center myself and decide what I was going to be able to handle. I also needed the comfort of friends. I don't want to sound as if I'm giving short shrift to my Blogstream friends, but sometimes you need the comfort of the real friends in ones real life.

Still many of my Blogstream friends were there for me as best they could be and I want to thank you for all the support, through prayers and cyberhugs that were offered. There's only so much you can do, but you did it and I am grateful. So HUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGS back atcha!!!



Please see my post on Powerful Song Memories on Needs More Cowbell. It is one that is very dear to me. One I will have forever.