Dynamic media man John Vogt’s heart was failing until his wife, children, God, and a Guthrie doctor/electrician intervened
FREE as the wind
Ithaca’s
Veggie Landmark
Dave Milano’s Golden Path
American Idol in Wellsboro
Important reasons why you should consider Guthrie for your health care needs.
– One of the Top 50 Health Systems in the Nation, Modern Healthcare, 2009.
– Niagara Health Quality Coalition Honor Roll for Excellence in Patient Care (myhealthfinder.com), 6th year.
– VHA Leadership Award for Clinical Excellence, Outstanding Nursing Care, 2008.
– Recognized by the national American Nurses Credentialing Center, as a Magnet™ Hospital for Excellence in Nursing, 2008. Fewer than 5% of hospitals in the nation have earned Magnet Recognition®.
– 100 Top Hospitals in the Nation, 3rd consecutive year.
– 100 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals in the Nation, 6th year.
– Hospitals & Health Networks “Most Wired” Hospital, 3rd year.
We Are Guthrie... & Fitness Center
www.guthrie.org
By Laura Reindl & Dawn Bilder
Tots learn to eat fresh and local. How safe is Williamsport?
By Joyce M. Tice
Today we know it as H1N1. In 1918 it was the three-day fever, and it killed millions.
By Patricia Brown Davis
For healthy life, it takes a village.
By Angela Cannon-Crothers
The wind might be blowing and the temperature frigid, but our writer finds wisdom and wonder in the beauty of winter.
By Fred Metarko
A new boat means better fishing, right? Not always …
By Tom Murphy
The Snowflake: Winter’s Secret Beauty illuminates the precise science of winter’s white mantle.
By Dawn Bilder
When drugs and surgery fail to relieve pain, muscular therapist Kim Runey provides a healing touch.
Electric Man
By Dawn Bilder
John Vogt put too heavy a load on his heart and needed a master electrician to fix it.
No Strings Attached
By Cindy Davis Meixel
The Chapter 6 a cappella group doesn’t need fancy electronics to wow a crowd. Their voices are enough.
By Angela Cannon-Crothers
In answer to the recession, Famous Brands in Watkins Glen spins off a sister store.
Top: David Tews, John Vogt, and Rev. Glen Hallead. Middle: Chapter 6 a cappella group. Bottom: Jim Guild, owner of Famous Brands and Seneca Lake General Store.
Cover art by Tucker Worthington. Photography by James Fitzpatrick
21 The Better World
By John and Lynne Diamond-Nigh
Forget uniformity, homogeneity, and universality. Strive for civility.
24 Fad to Franchise
By Angela Cannon-Crothers
Once a mecca for vegetarian beatniks, Moosewood Inc. in Ithaca, New York, has evolved into a leader in the healthy-eating industry.
26 Read & Feed
By Cornelius O’Donnell
Marion Cunningham’s The Supper Book and The Breakfast Book are now one cookbook for any occasion.
29 Finger Lakes Wine Review
By Holly Howell
Imagine Moore Winery brings Inspiration to the table.
30 Custom Craft
By Angela Cannon-Crothers
Inspired by the Appalachian Trail, woodworker David Colle brings nature inside.
32 Someplace Like Home
By Dave Milano
Dave finds a comforting mixture of man and nature in the footpaths of the woods.
35 Ask Gary By Gary
Ranck
Our handyman tackles some loose linoleum.
42 Back of the Mountain Rust in Peace
P ublisher
Michael Capuzzo
e ditor - in - C hief
Teresa Banik Capuzzo
A sso C A te P ublisher
George Bochetto, Esq.
G ener A l M A n AG er
James Fitzpatrick
M A n AG in G e ditor
Laura Reindl
C o P y e ditors
Mary Nance, Kathleen Torpy
s t A ff W riter / C lient l A son
Dawn Bilder
C over A rtist
Tucker Worthington P r odu C tio n M A n AG er /G r AP hi C d esi G ner
Amanda Doan-Butler
C ontri butin G W riters
Kay Barrett, Larry Biddison, Dawn Bilder, Sarah Bull, Angela Cannon-Crothers, Matt Connor, Barbara Coyle, John & Lynne Diamond-Nigh, Patricia Brown Davis, Jeffrey Allen Federowicz, Martha Horton, Holly Howell, David Kagan, Roy Kain, Rob Lane, Cindy Davis Meixel, Fred Metarko, Karen Meyers, Dave Milano, Terry Miller, Tom Murphy, Mary Myers, Jim Obleski, Cornelius O’Donnell, Gary Ranck, Myles C. Rhodes, Kathleen Thompson, Joyce M. Tice, Linda Williams
P hoto G r AP hy
James Fitzpatrick, Ann Kamzelski
A dvertisin G d ire C tor
Michele Monks
s A les r e P resent A tives
Christopher Banik, Michele Duffy, Zachery Redell, Laura Rose, John White
A CC ountin G Ruth Braham
b e AG le Cosmo
Mountain Home is published monthly by Beagle Media LLC, 39 Water St., Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, 16901. Copyright 2009 Beagle Media LLC. All rights reserved.
To advertise, subscribe or provide story ideas phone 570-724-3838 or e-mail info@mountainhomemag.com. Each month copies of Mountain Home are available for free at hundreds of locations in Tioga, Potter, Bradford, Lycoming, Union, Clinton, Wyoming, and Sullivan counties in Pennsylvania; Steuben, Chemung, and Schuyler counties in New York. Visit us at www.mountainhomemag.com.
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found.
MOUNTAIN Ch ATTER
If you’re from the area, you’ve no doubt heard rumblings of discontent concerning the crime problem in Williamsport. Burglary, drug use, shootings—the list is long according to some. A recent report claims otherwise, though. According to CQ Press’s 2009 Metro Crime Rate Rankings, Williamsport is the fourteenth safest place to live out of 332 metropolitan areas in the United States. In the state of Pennsylvania, it is second only to the State College area, which ranks first overall.
Although the report is based on the Uniform Crime Reports released by the FBI, there is much debate as to the validity of its rankings. The rankings are based on the occurrence of six crimes: murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, and automobile theft. Challengers argue that burglary and theft should not be ascribed the same level of “danger” as murder and rape. The report also fails to take into account specific
Healthy Food for Healthy Kids Safe and Sound in Billtown
What do you get when you cross kindergarten children with farm-fresh goodies? You get children who may grow up to practice healthy eating. Canton Elementary School designed their own programs, submitted them to the Department of Agriculture’s Healthy Farms and Healthy School grant, and received $1,450
individuals’ susceptibility to crime, rather assuming that the danger is evenly spread throughout every neighborhood making up the metropolitan area.
A resolution released by the American Society of Criminology in November calls the report “invalid, damaging, and irresponsible,” and the FBI explicitly warns against using the Uniform Crime Reports as a means of ranking cities or metropolitan areas based on criminal activity.
So is Williamsport a “safe city?” Regardless of the controversial CQ rankings, according to City-Data, a renowned city-profiling site, crime has decreased in Williamsport since 2005 in seven of eight categories, burglary being the lone exception. The city is no Mayberry, but it does seem to be heading in the right direction.
~Laura Reindl
to initiate fun, hands-on activities to teach their kindergarteners about nutrition and local options for nutritious foods. In November they were even recognized by State Representative Matt Baker for their dedication.
The grant was spearheaded by Deb Keppler, the school nurse at Canton High School. “I
originally heard about the grant three years ago when the Pennsylvania Department of Health sent out an e-mail to various health providers.”
“The kids go on various field trips,” says Diane Barrett, principal of Canton Elementary School, “where they learn things like how to make apple cider. There’s also a program called Farm Fresh Fridays, where area people come in and teach them about their products, including honey, milk, and corn.” Keppler says, “It culminates in the spring with a program called From Our Farms To Your Arms, where parents and students participate in a local food tasting event. Farmers have display tables, and the participants move from table to table, sampling their products.”
Keppler is gratified by working with the students and watching them sample fresh foods, some of them for the first time. “It’s exciting to feel that at their age, the programs might set the stage for their healthy eating in the future.”
~Dawn Bilder
Canton students visited Peppers Dairy farm during one of the programs funded by the grant.
The Heart That Flew
John Vogt put all his heart into God, family, and business, but it was beating in deadly double time.
By Dawn Bilder
In the spring of 2005 fifty-six-year-old John Vogt was walking up a hill on his property, and he could barely make it to the top. His body was weak, he was light-headed, his heart was beating too fast, and it felt wobbly in his chest. After twenty years of trying different doctors, medications, and complicated procedures, his resting heartbeat was still 125 to 190 beats per minute—two to three times faster than normal. Because of this, he had been warned that his heart was wearing out, and he might only live half a life. Now he wondered if his half was up.
After making his way to his house with difficulty, he and his wife, Sara, whom he had always considered his rock, prayed together and called their pastor, who counseled him to see his doctor right away. It all seemed unfair to Vogt. He had moved his family from Virginia back to Wellsboro, his wife’s hometown, only a year earlier to settle in his dream home on sixteen acres in a town he considered a country paradise. He had wanted to start a new life with his wife of thirty-four years and their four-yearold adopted daughter, while maintaining a close relationship with his grown son, who lives in Washington DC. Vogt had enjoyed success owning and running a radio station in DC, but he wanted to get away from the rat race, where it seemed to him that the rats were winning.
As Sara drove him to the doctor, Vogt prayed again for God to keep his wonderful life together. He wasn’t ready for his story to end.
Vogt, who was adopted as a baby, grew up near Chicago before his adoptive father moved the family to his hometown of Emporium, Pennsylvania, where Vogt fell in love with the country. In 1969, while he worked as a DJ at WNBT in Wellsboro, he met Sara Davis. She came to the radio station with friends looking for a record by the 2+2s. She was eighteen years old, and Vogt was twenty. “I noticed her right away,” he remembers with a smile. But he didn’t see her again until a year later. “She was wearing an inside-out sweatshirt, cutoff jeans, and pigtails.” He called her a few nights later and asked her to dinner and a movie. The movie had a lot of
nudity in it, and they were embarrassed, but dinner went well. When he dropped her off at her home, he gave her a hug instead of a kiss. “I was thinking, ‘I better be very, very good.’” Back at his apartment, he decided that praying was the best course of action. “I didn’t pray much in those days,” says Vogt, “but when I needed something big, I knew where to go.” His prayer went something like this: “Dear God, I know I don’t deserve a girl like that, but if there is any way to make her love me, that would be great.” They married a year later and wanted to start a family, but Sara had trouble conceiving. When they learned of an experimental procedure available in Washington DC to help couples have children, they moved to Vienna, Virginia. After the procedure, the doctors told the Vogts
that it hadn’t worked. But soon Sara realized that she was pregnant, and she asked her doctor to confirm it. The doctor said, “It’s physically impossible for you to be pregnant, but I’ll run the test if you want me to.” On March 28, 1974, John Regis Vogt was born. Their “miracle baby,” who goes by Regis, is now thirty-five. He works at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC as a multimedia producer, and Vogt says proudly, “He’s a gentleman and my hero.” Regis returns the compliment, “He’s the best man I know. I hope to be like him.”
But in 1977 even Vogt didn’t want to be like himself. “I was emotionally and spiritually bankrupt,” he says. He was the business manager for a car dealership, and he’d learned how to deceive and manipulate people to make a dollar. His marriage was at an end. “I was crazy about her, but I didn’t know how to love her. I was so oblivious that I never really allowed myself to think about what was happening.”
Sara was beginning to feel as though a spiritual connection to God might help, but they didn’t belong to a church. When a neighbor invited her to her church, Sara went home and proclaimed, “John, I found someone who can help us learn to pray.” Vogt answered, “Ah, hell, I can talk to God whenever I want to.” Sara won out, and on July 10, 1977, during the Vogts’ second visit to their new church, the pastor gave a sermon about motives and truth. “And I realized,” Vogt says, “that there was no truth in my life. I didn’t know how to love. I prayed for God to teach me how to love my wife. And I really took God into my heart. He helped me realize that I made no room in my life for what Sara needed because it
was all about what I needed. He taught me to make her needs my priority instead of my own.”
During the next year, he worked at a new car dealership, which was owned by Christians, and as a janitor for his church before returning to his radio broadcasting roots as a weekend staff announcer for a Christian radio station, WCTN, in the Washington DC metro area. The following year he started working there fulltime as program director. Things went pretty smoothly for a while until, in 1985, the owner of the radio station, Christ Church of Washington, announced it was selling the station. A process ensued that tested both Vogt’s faith and the health of his heart because he felt with immense certainty that God wanted him to purchase the station. “But,” Vogt says, “I didn’t have two nickels to rub together.” Buying the station would cost $2,000,000.
He confided his helplessness to his old boss at the second dealership, who introduced him to a wealthy businessman, Jim McIlvaine. “I was so nervous to meet him,” says Vogt. But McIlvaine was warm and kind, and he told Vogt, “I understand God has put something on your heart.” These words began a lifelong friendship. Tears appear in Vogt’s eyes, and he turns his face to the side, tapping the table in front of him for emphasis. “Jim taught me how to give.”
But the financial backing of McIlvaine and
his partners, other men of stature who wanted to help, didn’t make buying the radio station a sure thing. Vogt’s boss at the station also wanted to buy it, and he put together his own financial backers. On May 1, 1985, Vogt and his boss gave their presentations to Christ Church. On May 31, Vogt found out that he had lost. When he went to work, his boss fired him. After driving to his lawyer’s office and finding he wasn’t there, Vogt went into the conference room. He began to cry, telling God that he’d been so sure he could do what God asked of him and that he was sorry he wasn’t able to. In a moment, Vogt felt that God was comforting him and saying, “I only asked you to try.” He knelt on the floor and prayed, “Whatever you will have me do, I will do, whether it’s sweep the streets or run a radio station. Amen.”
The phone in the conference room rang as he finished his prayer, and his lawyer’s secretary said that someone was on the phone for him. It was the head of Christ Church. He told Vogt that the church was reconsidering their choice
of whose offer to accept and asked if Vogt would be the interim general manager while the decision was ironed out. Vogt agreed, and the next day he went back to work and found that his boss had been fired.
Eventually Vogt, McIlvaine, and their backers purchased the station, whose logo was “WCTN … Where Love Is In The Air.” Vogt recognized the station’s potential. “This was a major Christian radio station in our nation’s capital, the center of power and influence in the greatest country on earth. I could reach people from here and other countries and from all walks of life, including diplomats who came in regularly, with the station’s message of faith. I knew for a fact that certain congressmen and senators listened to the station every day.”
And he still did his morning show each day. He would wake up at 4:00 a.m. and be on the air wide awake and with something to say at 6:00. He enjoyed interviewing people like Joe Gibbs, the head coach of the Washington Redskins football team. Gibbs appeared many times on Vogt’s show, and they became friends.
Vogt had gone from janitorial work at his church to a weekend staff announcer and a manager at the radio station to owning and
operating it. He was living his heart’s desire, but his heart was moving too fast. “I was running on high octane adrenaline and no sleep,” says Vogt. “A few months after buying the station, I would sit at my desk, and my heart would just start racing. It was scary.” He demonstrates a typical day, bursting through the door and pretending that he’s talking to an employee at the radio station. He walks through the room swiftly and frenetically, spouting, “Have you finished the piece that I gave you to do? It has to be done. Good, you have it. Thanks.” He walks quickly out the door again, waving. “Have it on my desk soon.”
“I just felt,” Vogt explains, as he sits back down, “that I had to somehow keep up with my racing heart, that maybe if I moved around and talked quickly, it would provide a good reason for my elevated heartbeat. And that made me feel less concerned. I’d never had heart problems—ever. I was an athlete. I ran track in high school.” But at thirty-six years old, his resting heartbeat was 125 to 190 beats per minute, two to three times faster than a healthy heart. When he exercised, his heartbeat reached 245 beats per minute.
Less than a year later, his heart developed a
condition known as atrial fibrillation, in which the top two chambers of the heart, called the atria, beat irregularly and too quickly because the electrical impulses that make the heart beat are blocked or travel the same pathways repeatedly. He decided to ask Gibbs the name of his doctor. Gibbs’ doctor was an older doctor, and, as far as he was concerned, Vogt would just have to live his life as best he could with a sick heart. “He gave me medication,” Vogt says, “but he wasn’t aggressive about treating my condition with new methods.”
For all but two of the next twenty years, Vogt’s heart was in chronic atrial fibrillation, which was literally wearing it out. He faced a lifetime of uncertainty. His heart would start racing when he exercised or shared a romantic dinner with Sara, and he had no way of stopping it. It would happen at work when he interviewed people, when he laughed at Christmas parties or walked up a flight of stairs, when he said good morning to someone or was trying to find a pen, or when he fought with his wife. And each time he wondered if this was the end. Was the scene in front of him the last sight he would
TLooking Back The Three-Day Fever
Joyce M. Tice
he attics of Sullivan Township continue to release their treasures into my welcoming hands. Most recently, five volumes of school attendance records from 1891 to 1900 for five of the schools in the township came out of a century in hiding and found their way to me. As I looked again at this particular segment of the local population, it struck me that a large number of those who had been students in that era had their lives cut short by the flu pandemic of 1918.
World War I ended in November of 1918 after causing sixteen million deaths. Starting in the spring of that year, the “three-day fever,” as it was first called, broke out. It was fleeting and accounted for very few deaths. Coming back with renewed vigor in the fall, the influenza escalated. Twenty percent of all people then alive, in all parts of the planet, contracted the flu, and fifty million died worldwide. Each of those untimely deaths represents a personal, family, and community tragedy.
Mansfield’s Austin-Cox Post of the American Legion is named for Gerald Austin and John
Cox. Austin attended the Doud School in Sullivan Township. Cox was a 1917 graduate of Mansfield High School and was enrolled in Mansfield State Normal School when he enlisted in the military. Both young soldiers died in 1918 during the war, but not of wounds received in battle. They were victimes of influenza.
Ned McConnell was a student at the Red School in Sullivan Township in the 1890s. He died in Williamsport in 1918 of flu at age thirty-two. He left a wife and two young daughters. Ina Richmond attended both Gray Valley School and Elk Run School in Sullivan from 1890 until 1903. She married Fred Sutton, who had been a teacher at the Elk Run School. Ina also died of the flu in 1918 at the age of thirty-two, leaving a widowed husband and two very young children. Her brother Colin Richmond, then the district attorney in Potter County, adopted and raised the two children. Ina’s daughter, Margaret, named her own daughter Ina, even though she was too young when her mother died to have remembered her.
Edna Carrie Card, a student at Sullivan’s Holly School, was also thirty-two when she died of the flu of 1918. She left grieving parents and a widowed husband, Leonard Hagar. Grace Rose, a former Doud School student, was only twenty-nine when the flu took her. Her husband, Claude Sours, was left with five sons from a previous marriage and Grace’s young daughter to raise without her. Martha Robbins was orphaned at the age of eight. Her parents had died in 1905 and 1906, and the Ashley family adopted her. In 1912 Martha married Ethan O. Ashley of the family which had adopted her. Ethan attended the Doud School in Sullivan and was manager of the T. W. Judge store branch in Mainesburg. At that time, most post offices were within an existing business, so Ethan was also the postmaster. By 1918 Martha and Ethan had three little girls, the youngest only a few months old. Thirty-two-year-old Ethan contracted the flu and died in the winter. The following summer Martha sent her oldest daughter, six-year-old Naomi, off to an aunt in Texas just as she had been sent to another family when she was orphaned. Within days her second daughter died unexpectedly of convulsions.
The children of Sullivan Township’s schools of the 1890s could not have imagined as they launched their lives that for so many of them the future they envisioned would be so brief.
Joyce M. Tice is the creator of the Tri-Counties Genealogy and History Web site (www.joycetice.com/ jmtindex.htm). She can be reached at lookingback@ mountainhomemag.com.
Top: Ethan Ashley and Martha Robbins on their marriage day in 1912. Left: Ethan Ashley and Grace Rose of Blanch Harvey’s 1899 Doud School class would succomb to the flu of 1918.
heart of the Mountain Neighbors, Brothers, Friends
Patricia Brown Davis
Have you ever heard someone speak from their heart and felt so awed that the words lodged in your mind and heart for days, or even months? If so, it may have changed you in some way, probably for the better. It happened to me recently. Even more amazing, it came from an unexpected source.
This past fall, a few days before Halloween, a reception was held for the Friends of Laurel Health and other supporters to thank them for their gift of several pieces of health equipment needed in our community. Highlights included speeches by the Honorary Chairs of the Friends, Edmund P. Guelig, MD, and Daria Lin-Guelig, PA-C. Wishing, desiring, and taking action for personal health is only natural. In our rural mountain home, though, it’s not enough. We need a good support system—a hospital, health centers, and a host of caring
Nineteen years ago, when Ed was finishing his residency at Geisinger, we were looking for a community to practice in. he had interviews at various small communities in Pennsylvania. We took the drive up to Wellsboro on a snowy January day. I was quite pregnant with our fourth child. The roads were windy, icy, and from the curvy, slippery Route 15, it seemed like we would reach Neverland before we would Tioga County. But one spin down the gas-lit, snow-covered Main Street (the gas lights do it every time), and I said to Ed, “This is it; we can cancel the rest of the interviews.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, “We still have four more clinics to interview.”
“I don’t want to go,” I replied. “This is where we need to be.”
Why Tioga County? Why Wellsboro? I like to make the analogy of spiders that we see hanging from windows and hallways around halloween. A solitary spider, hanging tenuously from a single strand, can be easily broken, easily crushed. A spider enmeshed in a web has an invisible strength that makes it much harder to break.
Rural communities, especially our small communities in Tioga County, are complex networks of lives. Our neighbor might be our teacher. Our co-worker might be our child’s Girl Scout leader. We might sing in the choir with the waitress at the diner. Small towns are like spider
people who keep the community’s lifeblood surging, like the one in our laurel mountains.
But they need a caring and supporting community, as well. Volunteers like us assist them and boost their functioning by helping all those charged with keeping us well—a symbiotic relationship. One such volunteer network is Friends of Laurel Health—made up of friends, neighbors, and perhaps your own family. It really does “take a village.”
It’s unfair how we catalog people—“Oh, she’s a doctor, he’s an administrator”—labeling them by their careers. Then we discover a health provider who’s also a writer, and we’re astounded! But should we be? Read this amazing account written and presented at the reception by Daria Lin-Geulig. It’s a great story of why we live and thrive in our mountain home.
webs. Our relationships are multilevel, intertwined, and therefore stronger, more meaningful, more personal.
In the twenty-first century, our communities seem to be crumbling down before our eyes. Main streets have given away to malls. Churches are declining. Even schools are closing, consolidating. Along with schools and churches, the hospital has always been a mainstay of the community. It has been a place where transitions occur—births, illness, healing, deaths.
Unfortunately, it has proven impossible to fight the invasion of the malls; it might be difficult to prevent the decline of churches and schools—institutions that, along with the hospital, have formed the soul of our community.
however, we are here today to help keep our hospital and health centers vibrant and alive in our community—to help them continue to form the invisible spider web that gives Tioga County its strength.
There is a poem called “Spoon River Anthology.”
Well said, Daria! To become a Friend of Laurel Health, or for more information, call the Development Office today at 570-723-0494. Gifts may be donated in memory of or in honor of a loved one.
It’s set in the cemetery of a rural town, where the deceased inhabitants reminisce about the joys and pain of their lives. This last verse reminds me of our community:
But you know and I know there never was reason to hurt,
When all of our lives were entwined to begin with here in Spoon River.
Patricia Brown Davis is a professional musician and memoirist seeking stories about the Wellsboro glass factory. Contact her at patd@mountainhomemag.com.
Daria Lin-Guelig, PA-C, with patient Lana Bennett.
OU TDO RS
Of A Cold Winter’s Night (Or Day)
Despite the Deep Freeze, Winter Wonders Await
By Angela Cannon-Crothers
It’s only January and already my shoulders and arms are weary from splitting and carrying wood, hauling buckets of water to my shaggy Morgancross pony and the chickens—often in the dark—and shoveling out the driveway. The quickly shrinking woodpile makes me anxious, but a steady blanket of snow piling up now brings my reward. I enjoy getting out into the winter world. The Norwegian’s have a saying: there’s no such thing as too cold, there’s only not being dressed well enough for the weather.
So when the white wings of the many turbines across the hills lick a sky the color of bed sheets on a clothes line and the landscape is crystalline, I take my skis and the dog for a glide through woods and hills. I am struck with how vivid every living thing has become—the branching silhouettes of trees; the tangled spirals of vines almost turning along the fencerows; each animal track ablaze with its own story of survival and trespass. If I follow a set of narrow-toed, straight running fox tracks, I often find where he pounced onto a vole tunneling under the snow. Throughout the scene are small food caches, broken open and hollowed of their store of acorns. Sometimes, in the coldest of the season’s weather, I am breathless with the clarity of life’s endurance and brilliance.
Like many of the animals who have adapted to northern winters, I’m in the thick of it now and need to make do with what
I’ve put aside for the season. For flu and colds I’ve made goldenseal and Echinacea root tinctures to help ward off illness in my family. I have dried boneset, the herb used during the flu pandemic of 1918, in case we do get H1N1 or bad coughs. I have motherwort (for more womanly needs), a freezer full of meat chickens I raised myself for soups and stews, jars of canned stewed tomatoes, pickled beets, pickled dilly beans, and chopped frozen veggies from the garden. I also have a stash of homemade soaps. These things, as well as jugs of water if the power goes out and a pile of quickly disappearing wood for the woodstove, help me feel I am ready, and able, to handle whatever winter might bring. In a snowstorm, at the very least, we can wash up for a chicken dinner.
Although we’ve passed the winter solstice, night still rules the day in January, so I also try to get out for more nocturnal experiences. Orion the Hunter is slowly marching across the southern sky. Orion’s right shoulder (which faces my left looking up) is the red star Betelgeuse. His left foot is the star Rigel. These two shining stars are among the brightest in the heavens all winter long.
Orion’s “sword” hangs down below the brightly lit belt. The fuzzy star in the center of the sword isn’t actually a star but the Orion Nebula, made of hydrogen gases, dust, and massive nuclear fission reactions that happened long ago. The Orion Nebula’s ancient history is easily viewed with the aid of
binoculars and shows creation in the making; a nebula is the place where stars are born. Because Orion is located above the equator and is visible almost everywhere in the world, cultures around the planet have legends about Orion. In Greek mythology, he was the son of Neptune, with a club in one hand and a sword in his belt, endlessly fighting off Taurus the bull, located just a bit higher and to the west. Other cultures saw the figure as representing the forces of Goodness and Light and the promise of spring’s return. Chinook Indians of the Northwest saw two canoes in this grouping of stars: one is Orion’s belt, the other, his sword. One canoe raced with the fierce north wind and the other with the gentle Chinook wind that would eventually bring warmth back to the land.
The Quadrantrid meteor shower rings in the New Year around January 3 and can be seen high in the northern sky from nightfall past midnight. This spectacular yearly event often sights over forty shooting stars per hour. The full Wolf Moon lights up the snowscape on January 29. If I get out to enjoy its bright shadows and listen, I might hear the subtle hoo-hoo of a pair of great horned owls that begin nesting, just there, beyond the tall spruce and red pine stands, in this early quiet of the year.
Angela Cannon-Crothers is a freelance writer and outdoor educator living in the Finger Lakes region of New York.
The Lunker Same Old Lunker, Brand New Boat
Fred Metarko
Ihave a nice used bass boat for sale. No, I’m not giving up fishing and selling all my stuff, but my wife bought me a new boat for my birthday. It’s a Nitro Z7 that’s eighteen feet, seven inches long with a 150-hp outboard: a big upgrade from the seventeenfoot aluminum Tracker that served me well for many years.
Two long days passed before I could take the Nitro out on Cowanesque Lake. My wife, Linda, daughter, Lisa, and grandsons, Alex and Andy, came to get break-in time on the outboard. New motors have a computer that records the break-in period, so you have to follow the procedure closely. Otherwise they won’t honor the warranty if there are problems later.
We ran around the lake varying the speed every few minutes. The people there must have thought we were nuts, speeding around and making circle after circle. After a few rounds the time was up, and we picked a spot. Everyone grabbed a fishing pole. Who was going to catch the first fish to christen the boat?
Alex had the first bite, but sadly it came unhooked at the boat. Farther up the lake, in a cove, I caught a 3-pound smallmouth. We took pictures, weighed it, hooked it on a culling stringer, and put it in the livewell. This would be a good test of the livewell system.
Everyone relaxed on the boat as we enjoyed a lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches, Twizzlers, and lemonade. Then it was time for another run. We went through the no-wake area toward the trees, where we raced around logging more time on the motor. Then we went back to fishing. Everyone wanted to catch a fish on the new boat. Lisa wanted to catch her first bass.
After fishing for a while, dark clouds started to move in, and we heard faint thunder in the distance. Everyone kept saying, “Just one more cast, I want to catch a fish.” The sky darkened, a cool wind blew, and the thunder was getting louder. It was time to move out. We secured the
rods and hurried to the launch, but we had to slow down through the no wake area. We were just securing the boat on the trailer when the rain started. Finally, all buttoned up, we jumped in the Jeep and headed home. It was raining harder—a real downpour.
About halfway along the lake road, I slowed down and said, “Oh, no. We forgot to release the bass.” I pulled into the overlook area to get out to release the fish. Lisa said, “No, I’ll do it.” I didn’t argue. She put on a raincoat from the boat, opened the livewell, grabbed the fish by the stringer and headed down the path to the lake. We watched as she disappeared among the tall weeds. Then we waited and waited. After what seemed like forever, we saw her head bobbing up the path. Out of breath and soaked, she climbed into the Jeep and said, “That path kept going and going; I ended up way out on a point. I kept telling the bass he would be okay and back in the water soon. We got to know each other quite well. I put him in the water and he swam off. He was okay.”
Days later Linda and I went to Hammond Lake to complete the break-in time. A fisherman was loading his Jon boat. He said, “I’ve fished all morning without getting a bite. They lowered the lake another foot. I wouldn’t take that boat out there.” We took his advice and went to Cowanesque Lake. There was only one other boat on the water. We circled in the area by the dam to complete the time. It was chilly while running at the required speeds, but really enjoyable when we stopped to fish.
I didn’t complete the break-in period in time to be able to use the Nitro in a tournament this year. I plan to start early next season and break it in with some largemouth lunkers. I already know it can catch 3-pound smallmouths.
The Lunker is a member of the Tioga County Bass Anglers (www.tiogacountybassanglers.com). Contact him at lunker@mountainhomemag.com.
READING NATURE
The Science of the Snowflake
Tom Murphy
Though I have become encrusted with age and responsibilities so that snow can sometimes cause anxiety and disruption, I haven’t completely lost the childhood sense that snow is something to celebrate, that it disrupts the dull daily routine and creates opportunity for play. Even as the wet, heavy, early snowfall last October was breaking off our tree limbs, it was hard not to be impressed with how the snow transformed the landscape almost instantly into a whole different time and place. But since reading Libbrecht and Rasmussen’s The Snowflake: Winter’s Secret Beauty, I’ve realized I didn’t know the half of how strange and wonderful snow is.
Mostly we talk of snow in huge qualities—how many inches or feet—but this book looks at snow one flake at a time. I know that snowflakes, well, look like snowflakes, and I have examined them on the sleeve of my jacket and been able to make out the design on the really big flakes. But once I saw the detailed photographs in this book and began to think about them, I began to wonder how such a thing is possible. How does it happen?
Just look at the picture of the snowflake on the cover. As are all snowflakes, it is six-sided (though some double-up to make twelvesided ones). But look at how the six sides are similar. What makes that even more troubling is that individual snowflakes are also all different. Libbrecht spends the beginning of the book successfully raising questions so we will be ready for the answers. He really got me with the symmetry issue. One thing we find out is that perfect symmetry is rare: most snowflakes are irregularly shaped—one arm longer than the other, a hexagonal plate slightly skewed, or like the complex flake on the cover, a similar basic structure with minor variations. Though the perfectly symmetrical snowflake is rare, the degree of order in a snowflake makes it clear that some complex principle of design is at work. But a snowflake is not a living thing; there is no genetic code governing its growth. It turns out it’s all physics.
Libbrecht takes us slowly through the steps with a minimum of technical language and always accompanied by diagrams and Rasmussen’s startling photographs. The frozen water-vapor
crystals that form around the floating dust particles high in the sky are six-sided because of the structure of the H2O molecule. Instability at the corners attracts more water vapor there so that the emerging snow crystal becomes either a column or a thin plate that may start to get fancier still at its corners. The exact shape a snow crystal takes depends on the combination of humidity, temperature, and wind. Apparently, the best time for the most elaborate snowflakes is when the temperature is about five degrees Fahrenheit, and it is very humid. That’s when the flakes begin to sprout dendrites—tree-like side branches.
This explanation may seem cold (pun intended), but Libbrecht’s enthusiasm is apparent and his explanations much more detailed than mine. One section of the book, “A Field Guide to Falling Snow,” classifies snow so the observer can identify snow’s variations. Just the names of the types give a sense of what we might expect: diamond dust, stellar dendrites, sectored plates, columns and needles, hollow columns, bullets, capped columns, and twinned crystals. Here is such a wonderful variety of shape in something that has such a singular effect.
This book combines science and art and raises the persistent question of their relationship: can the objectivity that science strives for (as the scientific method tries to squeeze out any individual’s point of view, though we know the task is hopeless) combine with the subjectivity of the artistic search for beauty and self-expression (though when successful it resonates with a wide audience)? Libbrecht’s goal is to inspire readers “to look at snowflakes differently, to see them with new eyes.” To do that, he does not just say, “Hey, look, a snowflake!” He explains how they have come about so that we know that not only is the product extraordinary, but so is the process.
Knowing how natural forces converge in the snowflake tips us off on what to look for so we can see differences between crystals we might not have seen before, so we know the right conditions for the best snowflakes, and so we have some idea of how moisture and temperature and wind and chance combine to produce something beautiful. More commonly known science allows us to see why these delicate, natural works of art last for so short a time and why they disappear when they touch the warmth of human skin. For us to enjoy this beauty of nature, as in so many cases, we must take care, for the slightest breath can destroy it.
Tom Murphy teaches nature writing at Mansfield University. You can contact him at readingnature@mountainhomemag.com.
Review of The Snowflake: Winter’s Secret Beauty by Kenneth Libbrecht and Patricia Rasmussen. St. Paul, MN: Voyageur Press, 2003.
B ODY & S OUL
A Hands-On Approach
Muscular Therapist Kim Runey Eases Minds and Bodies
By Dawn Bilder
Early on a Monday morning, a twentyeight-year-old woman walked into a massage school in terrible pain, knowing the students there needed to practice on people to gain experience. She was carrying an inflatable donut to sit on. The weekend before, she had been white water rafting, and for fun jumped off a fifty-foot cliff into the deep part of the river with her friends, breaking her tailbone on contact with the water. On top of the great physical pain she was in, she was angry with herself for being so careless. She knew massage would help her tailbone because it would loosen the muscles around the bone to give it more relief as it healed.
Waiting to receive instructions, she watched the students at the massage school and wondered if they would judge her or if they had ever been in great pain. Finally the class started, and she introduced herself to the other students. Her name was Kim Runey. And she was there as a student, too, to learn the other side of pain, her future clients’ sufferings, and how to help them. What she didn’t know was that someday she would be using her skills to help a skeptical family of health professionals—her future in-laws.
Runey, now thirty-five, met her fiancé, thirtythree-year-old David Krohn, three years ago at an Octoberfest in Windsor, Vermont. He was working at a naval hospital at Fort Smith, Virginia, and she was living in Pembroke, Massachusetts. By that time she had earned her degree at the Muscular Therapy Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the only school in the country whose students can legitimately claim to be “muscular therapists.” They came to Wellsboro a year ago to be close to Krohn’s
family and for Krohn to study to be a physician’s assistant at Penn College in Williamsport.
The first family member Kim helped was her future aunt-in-law, Geri Kennedy, who’s been a nurse at Laurel Health for sixteen years. Fiftyeight-year-old Kennedy had no symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis—inflammation of the lining of the joints—until she was in her forties. It got so bad that in 2004, in two separate operations two months apart, she had both knees replaced. Runey started massaging her a year ago, and for the first time in years Kennedy started feeling increasingly less pain instead of more. “Kim reduced my pain by more than fifty percent,” she says. “I can move more freely now, and I can do things that I haven’t done in years, like ride my bike and lift weights. I’m able to do my canning again, too.” Kennedy also has fibromyalgia, which is characterized by widespread pain that affects the muscles and bone attachments. “Kim has reduced that pain, too,” says Kennedy, “by
See Massage on page 20
Top: Kim Runey working on Geri Kennedy. Right: Ann Krohn (left) and Geri Kennedy.
over fifty percent. The major thing Kim does for me is to help me keep moving. As soon as you give in to the pain, you’re done.”
But it was Runey’s future mother-in-law, sixty-two-year-old Ann Krohn, who really hesitated to try massage to treat her arthritis. “I don’t just have rheumatoid arthritis,” explains Krohn, “but also osteoarthritis,” a degenerative joint disease in which the cartilage covering the ends of the bones in the joint deteriorates,
causing pain and loss of movement as bone begins to rub against bone. Krohn was a nurse for forty years, including twentyseven years for Laurel Health, before retiring last year. And she had tried massage before and had no faith in it. Finally Kennedy was able to convince her, and Ann’s progress has been as good as Kennedy’s. “With arthritis,” Ann says, “it’s really hard. You see something you feel you can do, you think you could try, and you want to do it. But when you try, you can’t. Now, with Kim’s help, I can.”
Runey’s skills have also helped other family members. Krohn’s sister-in-law, Mary Stadler, has been a nurse for forty years, and she was even more skeptical about massage than Krohn. “She was reluctant,” admits Krohn, “but now she goes to Kim every other week.” Brian Krohn, Runey’s future brother-in-law, went to
a friend’s bachelor party the night before the wedding, and he couldn’t move when he woke up because he had hurt his back somehow. Runey was attending the same wedding and gave him a massage. “He felt wonderful afterwards,” says Krohn. “And she helped Judy Kennedy, Geri’s daughter-in-law, by giving her a massage after she had been throwing bales of hay on her farm and hurt her arm and shoulder. Stephanie Krohn, Kim’s future sister-in-law, has two young children, a seven-month-old girl and a four-year-old boy, who strained her back and neck. Kim massaged her, and it really helped.”
Runey lives with Krohn, but Krohn is quick to point out, “As a professional courtesy, I make appointments for my massages and go to her office,” (Therapeutic Massage in Wellsboro). And Runey is more than a healer and future daughterin-law to Krohn. “Kim is my daughter,” says Krohn. “I have two sons, and she is the daughter I never had.”
“I can kick a soccer ball around my yard with my four-year-old grandson now,” says Krohn with joy and gratitude. “I can walk and kick the ball,” she repeats, “with my grandson.”
Wellsboro resident Dawn Bilder is a staff writer for Mountain Home
Massage continued from page 18
The Better World Un-stirring the Pot
John & Lynne Diamond-Nigh
Let’s pick up the story about Rob, the young Marco Polo who, in the last four years, has ventured to every end of the earth except Antarctica. We asked him if, in the course of his travels, he had ever felt in any danger. Bear in mind, he wasn’t hopping from Hilton to Hilton. He was sleeping in yurts and caves and grubby hostels. He was bribing bush pilots to fly him from China to Tibet.
“Not once,” he said. “In fact, where I expected hostility, I often found the greatest hospitality.”
We were surprised, but at the same time we weren’t. If we reflected on our own youthful travels, we’d have to answer the same—not once.
Remarkable, isn’t it, when the lingua franca of media, politics, and much else is conflict— having a foe, a rival, a danger against which we must arm ourselves—we forget that a young man can travel the world for four years and not only fail to meet a real barbarian, but find his way smoothed by universal manners of hospitality and helpfulness. I recall entering a small town in Syria as a young man sprinted beside our car window bearing a tray of steaming cups of tea. Recently an aunt welcomed us with cups of her immaculate lemonade. Different drinks, but the same milk of human kindness.
Universality, globalism, or world, when affixed to “music,” or “hunger,” or “organization,” can mean such different things. In business or finance, it means erasing the boundaries of national borders and laws and allowing uninhibited access to materials and markets. To a political idealist, it might mean some form of supra-national court or government that can alleviate older forms of conflict resolution such as boycotts or wars. To passionate travelers, it means a freedom to explore the natural, social, and aesthetic wonders of this planet. To a musician like Ry Cooder, it means making a CD with Vishna Mohan Bhatt. To my missionary mother, it’s the outreach of her faith as far and wide as possible. All see the globe in different ways, with different blends or
homogeneities in mind.
We for one (or two) don’t particularly want a universal world where that means buttering it with uniformity. We don’t even want a universal America. I love that when we cross the nearby border between Pennsylvania and New York, the air tastes a little different. Fly from Louisiana to Oregon. Almost different countries. Fine by us.
How do we preserve the colors of the regional while promoting the highest instincts of the universal? I confess I don’t like the word “diversity.” It’s the compulsory sanctus of our time and, as such, is wearing thin. When we were both in college, it belonged to a benign lexicon that often fronted a belligerent zeal. We prefer the term “civility,” a humane and genuine consideration of everyone’s dignity and distinction.
It’s the prescription for Democrats and Republicans getting along. It’s the first principle of diplomacy, the horse that pulls the welcome wagon. It’s that surprising grace you encounter in some small tribe in Jordan or Mongolia. It’s the ancient and instinctive way we have of preserving difference in the very best spirit of our common humanity, acting where dissensions arise like a natural antibiotic, quite free of the self-interest of expansive ventures, the zeal of evangelism, the double-speak of social agendas, and the disproportionate dreams of the idealist.
Rob paused. “Well, once, perhaps,” amending what he’d said. “I was in a bar in Moscow with a friend. We each had a beer, and when we got the tab it was for $180.00. Over our protests our predicament was quietly made clear. We had strayed into the kindness of the Russian mafia. Pay up. So we did. No fuss, all done as among gentlemen. Just a very expensive bottle of beer.”
We both laughed. Gallantry even in a den of thieves.
Lynne is an etiquette and protocol consultant and a humanities professor at Elmira College. John is an artist and designer. Please send questions and comments to thebetterworld@mountainhomemag.com.
A RTS & L EISURE
Synchronized Singing
Chapter 6 Brings A Cappella to the Mountains
By Cindy Davis Meixel
They’ve performed at The Kennedy Center and been featured on TV’s American Idol, but right now the renowned a cappella group, Chapter 6, has its sights set on Wellsboro.
As you’re reading this, the seven synchronized singers of Chapter 6 are winding their way by tour bus to the Pennsylvania mountains, undoubtedly harmonizing (with some off-key snoring) all the way.
Buoyed by a one-month holiday break, home-cooked meals, and family hugs, the group is primed to take on their rigorous tour schedule once again, starting in midJanuary. This month marks their eighth year of touring and their 1,000th paid performance. Prior to their Wellsboro Community Concert Association performance on the evening of Thursday, January 28, they will swing through gigs in Texas, Kentucky, and Ohio.
“We’re going to be well rested after Christmas break, with a lot of stories and jokes to share, so it should be a lively bus ride to Wellsboro,” relates Mark Grizzard, the group’s arranger and vocal swing (as well Chapter 6’s seventh man and sole bachelor).
As arranger, it is Grizzard who provides the group with its musical inspiration, suggesting songs and creating new material for the six performing members. He is also called upon to pinch-sing for ailing or absent members.
The members of Chapter 6 have been together since their college days at Milliken University in Decatur, Illinois. Initially launched in the late ’90s as part of a college course, Chapter 6 began winning national and international competitions in 2000, but the course was discontinued a year later when most of the members were graduating, so the singers requested permission to retain the name and take their show on the
road. They formally established Chapter 6 in the professional market in 2002 with all of the current seven members.
The origin of the group’s moniker is uncertain, but the group has chosen to ascribe its own meaning to the name by relating it to a Bible passage from Acts, Chapter 6, which refers to “The Choosing of the Seven.” A modern version reads: “Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of Spirit and wisdom.”
While Chapter 6’s repertoire is sprinkled with some spiritual tunes, the majority of its show features secular numbers. Signature pieces include Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and an eight-minute version of “The Wizard of Oz.” Other tunes include: “Mercy, Mercy Me,” “Rhapsody in Blue,” “What a Wonderful World,” “Go Tell it on the Mountain,” and “How Deep is Your Love.”
The ensemble prides itself on performing a family-friendly show laced with beautiful harmonies and brilliant wit.
Tenor Aaron “A.D.” Stonecipher says the most rewarding feedback he receives from audience members is their continual appreciation of the G-rated nature of the show. “After a show, I often hear, ‘Thank you so much for traveling here and for providing clean, family-friendly entertainment. My five-year-old enjoyed it, my sixteen-year-old enjoyed it, and my mother enjoyed it,” Stonecipher shares. “I am so thankful we can provide high-caliber entertainment that is accessible to all ages.”
Their first order of business in Wellsboro will be an educational outreach concert for band and chorus students at Wellsboro Area High School. “About 200 music students will participate in this outreach,” says Karen Jacobson, president of the Wellsboro Community Concert
Association. “We believe the youth are our future concertgoers and performers, so student outreach is a vital part of our mission.”
Educational outreach is also an essential component of Chapter 6’s mission. “School outreach is important because we can go into a classroom and show them that we actually use the information about proper singing, music theory, etc. that their director has been trying to teach them,” says Grizzard. “And, if we just make kids more excited about being involved in
The group also enjoys sharing their professional story with teens who may have misconceptions about artistic success due to popular culture. While Chapter 6 enjoyed a brief brush with fame when member Luke Menard reached the Top 8 Men on season , they are quick to point out that “being famous” is not essential to a rewarding career in music.
“We were only a brief sideshow on the national pop culture scene, but we aren’t ‘famous,’” explains Grizzard. “It is always great to have more visibility and more exciting performance opportunities, but we have no plans to become superstars through Chapter 6. In many ways, we have already accomplished what we set out to do—make a full-time career out of our music and share it with people all over the world.”
ellsboro Community Concert Association : January 28, 7:30 p.m.
igh School auditorium : Tickets are $20 for adults, $5 ), and free for accompanying
Williamsport resident Cindy Davis Meixel is a frequent Mountain Home magazine.
F OOD & D RINK
I’ll Have the Moose, Hold the Meat A Vegetarian Mecca, Ithaca’s
Moosewood Restaurant Serves Up a Fourth Decade
By Angela Cannon-Crothers
These days the USDA recommends that American meals be comprised mainly of whole grains and fresh fruits and vegetables, with red meat limited to only twice a week, a diet the founders of Moosewood Restaurant have advocated for over three decades.
Moosewood Inc. is more than a restaurant, with a thirty-four-year-old history of being one of the most influential vegetarian connoisseurs in the country. This year, Moosewood published its twelfth cookbook, The Moosewood Restaurant’s Cooking for Health, having had several of their previous cookbooks win, or be nominated for, James Beard Awards. (The James Beard Foundation presents numerous annual awards in different categories relating to the food industry, including books, journalism, broadcast media, humanitarianism, and individual restaurants and chefs.)
Over the years Moosewood has also developed a franchise of zingy organic salad dressings, hearty canned vegetarian soups, and healthy frozen entrées available at national health food stores throughout the country. But vegetarian food isn’t their only product; they also provide consultation and a working and successful example of operating a business collective: Moosewood is owned and run by the people who work there. What has made Moosewood famous to foodies worldwide, though, is their menu.
No response. Since mine are children who like to cook, I try again.
“Probably no other cookbooks on the subject have been used in as many homes in this country.”
My thirteen-year-old looks at me wide-eyed. “I don’t care. I want meat.” I moan.
“You realize that I cook vegetarian meals at home at least two or three nights a week, don’t you?”
No response. My nine-year-old is humming in the backseat. She probably feels guilty for spilling the beans earlier and telling her brother I was taking them to a vegetarian restaurant.
“But this place is famous!” I stress.
While on our countryside drive through the Finger Lakes Region, past Seneca Lake, up Route 79 to Ithaca at the south end of Cayuga Lake, I’m trying to explain to my children, ages nine and thirteen, that this restaurant I’m taking them to is a real Mecca.
“When I was a kid,” I begin, “vegetarianism for Americans was the newest, hippest craze in healthful feasting. Why, back in 1977 The Moosewood Cookbook was one of the food bibles for a generation’s movement away from industrialized meat production and on to The Diet For a Small Planet, inspired by Frances Moore Lappé.”
“I don’t care,” my son says. “I want a hamburger for lunch.”
We arrive at the Moosewood restaurant, housed in its original building—a renovated old brick schoolhouse’s basement detention room in what is known as Dewitt Mall. Far from being dark and hemmed in, the restaurant is sunny with large plate glass windows bordered in green plants and leggy views of passersby (I hear there’s an actual moosewood tree out front, but I forget to look for it). Natural and twinkling lights add ambiance to amber-colored rooms decorated with local artists’ paintings that change from month to month.
Moosewood menu planners and cookbook writers historically have sought out a delightful variety of international recipes, vegetarian gastronome delights, and just plain good food. The result is a restaurant with hundreds of colorful and eclectic dishes—from Caribbean Red Bean and Vegetable Burritos to Fat-Free Pesto, Indian Stuffed Peppers, Autumn
TRead
& Feed
The Marvels of Marion
Cornelius O’Donnell
he wind may whistle, the snow may fall, but what better antidote than the aromas of coffee, bacon, and pancakes wafting from the kitchen? Or after slogging through the slush, the relief of coming home to the good smells of a onedish wonder loaded with flavor? The holidays probably produced a slightly thickened torso, a thinner wallet, and a desire to simplify. Have I got a cookbook for you!
One of my favorite memories is sitting at Marion Cunningham’s kitchen counter in Walnut Creek, California, sampling several of her cookie recipes. Marion updated the classic Fanny Farmer Cookbook, which appeared in 1979 and has been republished many times since. Her next project was the Fanny Farmer Baking Book. It’s now a wellloved classic. Cunningham was also a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and a food consultant on such projects as the breakfast-only Bridge Creek restaurant in Berkeley, just down the street from famed Chez Panisse. We joked about buying a cottage on that same street and calling it Between Meals: great breakfasts to the east and fantastic dinners to the west.
Marion capitalized on her research for Bridge Creek by writing The Breakfast Book (Knopf) in 1987. I immediately became a fan of the ten-inch Puffy Apple Pancake, as well as the “lightest sour cream silver-dollar-size hotcakes” called Bridge Creek Heavenly Hots. The Supper Book appeared in 1992, and I cherish my autographed copies of both books. In fact, I find such inspiration in the pages of The Supper Book that I’ve been known to grab my copy before leaving for a day filled with meetings and errands. You might find me in the parking lot of the supermarket consulting the book and madly writing down the one or two ingredients I need to make one of the 180 singlecourse supper recipes.
The question was: which book to choose for “Read and Feed”? I went online to make sure copies were available. Eureka! In 1999 Gramercy
published both books in a single volume under the title Marion Cunningham’s Good Eating. “Good” is the understatement of the year.
As for the breakfast portion, I put a big star next to her Fluffy Caramel Coffee Cake. I’ve made her ham loaf countless times. It’s so easy to make ahead of time. Later nestle a slice alongside her Feather Bed Eggs—a celestial sort of strata with custard. For supper, I may choose a flavorful and substantial soup or a supper salad. In her dedication to the book, she wrote, “Hope to see you in your hometown this next year. (Try the Pozole Salad Soup.)” She hasn’t made it to Corning—drat—but I love the soup made with canned hominy (called “pozole” in Spain) and topped with shredded lettuce and cubes of avocado. So easy, so good.
Marion’s recipes don’t disappoint. Take the bit of applesauce she adds to the dressing of a Waldorf salad of chopped Granny Smiths, celery, and walnuts served on shredded lettuce. That’s a double apple whammy. Brilliant. And she makes simple individual chicken custards, centers each in a soup bowl, and surrounds them with steaming chicken broth, a great dish for kids.
You’ll find a warming Winter Vegetable Cobbler and a sublime Pork Tenderloin with Jalapeno Sauce made with a jar of pepper jelly, part of which is spread on the meat before quick roasting. The remaining jelly is mixed with sour cream, warmed, and used as a sauce on the meat slices.
In 1982 Marion sent me a recipe to use in the Cornelius cookbook. It didn’t have a title, so I named it Marion’s Walnut Creek Chicken. It’s in The Supper Book, and it’s one of the easiest and most satisfying dishes I’ve made. It yields extra sauce to use another day with chops, pasta, or burgers.
Copies of Marion Cunningham’s Good Eating can be found at the usual online used book sources. It’s worth seeking out. The book is inspirational, so be sure to make room in your car for your copy and a small notepad. See you in the supermarket parking lot!
1 1/2 cups dark red or pinto beans, soaked overnight
6 slices bacon
8 cups water
1 large onion, chopped (1 cup)
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 cup chopped parsley
1/3 cup yellow cornmeal
2 cups chopped cabbage
1 1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried sage
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 medium onions, chopped (1 1/2 cups)
Drain the beans. Put aside one slice of bacon, and dice the rest. Put the beans, diced bacon, and water in a 5-quart soup pot. Bring to a boil and cook over low heat for 30 minutes.
In a frying pan, cook the remaining bacon slice until crisp. Remove from the pan, crumble, and set aside. Add the chopped onion, celery, and parsley to the bacon drippings. Sauté the vegetables over medium heat until soft, about 5 minutes.
Add the cornmeal to the beans and bacon in the soup pot, and stir to mix. Add the sautéed vegetables, cabbage, sage, and salt, and stir. Cover and cook for 30 more minutes. Just before serving, stir in the 1 1/2 cups chopped onions or sprinkle the onions on top of the individual servings with the crumbled bacon. Serve hot. Serves four.
Considering the weather, I’ve picked a stick-tothe-ribs favorite from The Supper Book to whet your appetite. Make it early in the morning and then reheat and add the raw onions just before serving to four famished folks who might be fresh from a day of skiing. This doubles easily, and I would take advantage of that.
Marion says, “Taste it before and after you add the chopped raw onion; you will be surprised by the difference.”
Chef, teacher, and author Cornelius O’Donnell lives in Corning, New York.
Bean Stew with Raw Onion
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Vegetable Stew, and multigrain baguettes served with brie, caramelized shallots, bosc pears, and baby greens. The idea is that vegetarian dishes are whole and complete without meat. Their menu changes daily, from lunch to dinner, from day to day, and seasonally with what’s freshest and most abundant. Sunday afternoons offer a special Sunday dinner with imaginatively ethnic appeal.
Inside the restaurant, large chalkboards advertise some of the day’s specials. My dubious son is excited by a large selection of natural sodas, smoothies, and desserts. Although the Seasonal Pumpkin Martini or Ithaca Nut Brown Ale sounds tempting to me, I am, unfortunately, the designated driver. I try the Ginger Lemon Honey Tea over ice and am not disappointed.
My daughter, whom I thought would be more courageous and who likes vegetarian food, orders plain noodles with parmesan cheese from the Children’s Menu. When my lunch, a Salad Du Jour, arrives, it smells so good and looks so colorful that I can’t keep either kid from asking for bites. Dark, leafy greens are edged with roasted fall vegetables like beets, grilled squashes, and celeriac. The dressing is an exquisite, sweet Maple-Thyme Vinaigrette and what’s supposed to be a feta cheese topping tastes more like a fresh chèvre flavored by the summer meadows that created it. Alongside, I have Mushroom Barley Soup in a rich, flavorful broth.
“We strive to be as local as possible, as fresh as possible, as sustainable as possible, and as organic as possible,” says Melissa Bergmen, a Front House Manager who’s been at Moosewood for seven years. The degree she earned at Cornell University in applied environmental economics, she says, is a “good fit for working at Moosewood.”
David Hirsch, co-owner of Moosewood since 1976, joins us at our table. Having worked in all aspects of the restaurant, these days he’s primarily a gardener and menu planner, who has been involved in the writing and editing of all twelve Moosewood cookbooks. “We have wide appeal,” says Hirsch. “We offer some vegan and gluten-free dishes, and because about 85% of vegetarians are pescatarians, we do offer some wild-caught fish and seafood and farm-raised catfish.”
Hirsch says the restaurant has a large database of menus to choose from, but even their most common vegetarian dishes include variations to fit what’s in season and available. “We have a globally diverse menu,” he adds. “We use Latin American, Thai, French, European, and other cultures’ recipes.” And he’s quick to interject, “But it all gets the Moosewood touch.”
He tells me that last year Regional Access began distribution for two-dozen family farms, making it easy to get local, farm-fresh ingredients throughout the year. Although fresh and local are important aspects for the company, Moosewood is well known for its exotic choices of spices, herbs, and quality specialty ingredients.
My daughter tries a grilled squash and smiles. “That’s good meat,” she says, and then blushes, “I mean, squash.”
I figure it’s hard to get over our preconceived notions of what’s usually on a menu. For dessert my son gets a smoothie and my little girl: a gluten-free Ricotta Chocolate Mousse.
“Yummmm,” she says, her tongue rolling. “What’s this white stuff on top?”
“It’s whipped cream,” I tell her. “The real kind.”
The cheesy cocoa delight doesn’t last long. Skeptic boy is begging for taste after taste, and for a thirteen-year-old, his willingness to give in to something different with such zest is enough to please any mother, even if it is only dessert. Here, where the accolades have been many over the decades, nothing is typical fare, but at least, as I expected, everything is fabulous.
“So, what did you think?” I ask as we leave.
“Pretty good I guess,” says my son. “But now can I have a hamburger?”
“Sure hon,” I heave a long sigh, “as long as it’s grass-fed, free-range, and organic.”
Moosewood
Angela Cannon-Crothers is a freelance writer and outdoor educator living in the Finger Lakes region of New York.
Moosewood’s first cookbook was published in 1978.
Finger Lakes Wine Review
Moore Inspiration
holly howell
Ilove January—and for a New Yorker, that’s a pretty bold statement. Yes, it is snowy and cold, but January offers us the wonderful opportunity to start anew. Resolutions are strong, and personal challenges are plentiful! I am always looking for some good inspiration, and I have found it in a delicious bottle of red wine that is quite aptly named.
Imagine Moore Winery opened their doors just a few years ago, but their wines have already taken the Finger Lakes by storm, impressing even those hardto-please red wine aficionados. Founded by Tim and Diane Moore, the winery is located in a circa-1865 renovated barn in downtown Naples, New York. The quaint tasting room takes you back to the 1960s, portrayed by some as an era of peace, love, and harmony, which happen to be the names of three of the classic white wines produced here. As a matter of fact, all of their wines carry a message on the bottle. Inspiration is my favorite red, made by blending two Finger Lakes red grapes (as yet a mystery to me) into a fruit-forward, berry-laden, luscious red wine that finishes with a hint of peppery spice. It is the perfect wine to snuggle up with during a January snowstorm, and it pairs beautifully with the comforting stews, soups, and casseroles of winter. Imagine Moore Inspiration inspires not only with its flavors, but also with the wise words on the label: “‘Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined’ – Henry David Thoreau.” Cool. I love these guys. To find out more about this clever and unique winery, check out their website (www.imaginemoorewinery.com), or better yet, stop in for a visit. And you can even hit a few of upstate New York’s ski slopes along the way. After all, it’s January!
Imagine Moore 2007 Inspiration $13
Certified sommelier Holly Howell teaches at Rochester Institute of Technology and the Seasonal Kitchen Cooking School. Contact her at wineanddine@ mountainhomemag.com.
hOME & REAL ESTATE
Enduring Simplicity
Through Woodworking, David Colle Has Created His Home, His Career, and His Passion
Story and Photography by Angela Cannon-Crothers
“Ilike the detail, quality, and care in the woodworking of long ago,” says David Colle, a custom carpentry craftsman in the Finger Lakes area. “In this day and age our skills are more technical than hands-on,” he says. “We have more cheaply made things.” Colle has a calm, almost peaceful presence as he sketches out a concept graphic to represent his personal approach to custom building. “Woodworking is an art built for endurance and integrity,” he tells me. “It’s not about cutting corners or creating facades.”
That’s something that anyone who has had the good fortune to acquire Colle’s custom woodwork, built-ins, or furniture knows by heart.
David Colle is a detail-oriented fine wood craftsman who prefers the old way of doing things: from wood joinery and through tenons to milling the wood he uses himself. He produces a custom product from start to finish, being as environmentally aware as possible “to celebrate,” he says, “the inner beauty of the tree the wood came from.”
Probably the only thing that’s not traditional in Colle’s work is how he got started. After high school, Colle spent a couple of months hiking an extended portion of the Appalachian Trail. The simplicity of life on the trail and the beauty of the forests inspired him. He longed for a way to keep part of that experience with him always.
So Colle began learning to work with wood by building West African hand drums. As a drummer himself, he spent a handful of years building quality drums and traveling around to sell them at festivals. As he got more familiar with the things he could do with wood and tools, he began to see the potential within the materials he used and saw that the possibilities were endless.
While first embarking on his trade, he and his partner, Jen, spent some time in New Mexico. When Jen was expecting their first child, they headed back East, originally to Connecticut. When they reached the Finger Lakes region of New York with its lush, rolling green hills, steep valleys, waterfalls—and Jen’s family nearby—they decided to stay. Their firstborn was due in just a couple months. One of Colle’s first large scale ventures was building a home for his new family. That was nearly thirteen years, and two children, ago.
Since then, Colle’s projects have included custom kitchen cabinetry, home bar and entertainment units, a wine tasting room and bar for Imagine Moore Winery, custom trim, tables, wine holders, a handcrafted bed, a cedar gazebo, and many smaller items. Although he still gets involved in building projects, his real passion, and talent, is in personalized custom works and built-ins. In viewing his work, what’s as impressive as the artistry is the functionality of his products. Oversized kitchen drawers slide open and closed with superior ease, inlaid wood on a bar flows with its shape and form, and tables are joined seamlessly, without any metal hardware.
Colle also specializes in using non-toxic finishes like linseed oils and milk paints for distressed-looking finishes on modern forms, although he admits he prefers the look of the natural wood itself.
Colle calls himself a “mostly self-taught carpenter.” He’s taken a couple of short woodworking classes and workshops in green building, but primarily he’s learned by doing—that and a lot of technical reading.
David Colle at the wine tasting bar he built for Imagine Moore Winery in Naples, New York. See Colle on page 34
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Someplace Like home
Down the Beaten Path
Dave Milano
One of the major plus points of living on a sizable chunk of wooded ground is that one can have, just a step or two beyond the front yard, a perfectly splendid walking path.
Footpaths are an endlessly useful invention, even if, like ours, they are not for getting anywhere, but end pretty much where they begin. Treading along any woodsy trail at a leisurely pace, identifying flora and fauna, noticing or re-noticing this or that natural landmark, calms the mind and loosens the noose of worldly tensions.
Our property came ready-made with a quarter-mile trail, ten years old by the time we arrived. A decade is plenty of time for nature to scrub out construction scars, so our first traversing of it—an escape from anxious real estate agents—gave the distinct impression that the trail was the work of God, not man. Mary and I walked peacefully along, enjoying the snug forest and its seemingly infinite horticultural diversity, suffering no sensation at all that humanity or machinery had been busy there. We emerged twenty minutes later ready to put money on the table.
A footpath’s native look is, of course, mostly illusion. Its “authenticity” is really a maintenance-induced balance between nature’s desire to take back the path and our desire to preserve it. Fortunately, adequate stasis can be maintained with only regular use and perhaps a rough, yearly mowing. We were surprised to discover that an oft-used footpath has just about the most congenial labor/benefit equation of any built thing. So naturally, I decided to make more of them. I plotted courses, cut brush and branches, removed saplings, scraped away the high spots, and filled in the low ones. It was addicting. Paths appeared as if by psychokinesis, and before I knew it, a miniature forest highway system lay snaking through the trees.
Daughter Gina, who never saw any object that didn’t deserve an honest moniker, gave the trails names like Tobey Lane, The Logging Road, The New Path, and The Treehouse Section. Frequently enjoyed spots along the trails likewise received handles like The Season Pond (a large springtime puddle), The “P” (a tiny loop usually skipped by adults but always traversed by little ones), and The Fern Place (a favorite of wife Mary, who must associate it with some lost pleasure of her youth for she is decisively, inordinately, affected by it).
Years ago I would happily drive for hours to lug a sixty-pound backpack along footpaths much like what now sit a stone’s throw from my front door. On rare occasions I still do that, although the pull of distant woods has never been weaker. The footpath that is home is so easy, so warmly inviting, so genuinely, pointedly good, that it’s difficult to find cause for breaking away. So as long as my legs hold out and the seasons protect me from boredom, I will remain contented with these little looping hikes and continue to do my part in maintaining them. May the days be so kind to us all.
Dave Milano is a former suburbanite turned parttime Tioga County farmer. You can contact him at someplacelikehome@mountainhomemag.com.
He admires the type of artistry that went into detailed woodwork of years past and strives to create the same pride of craftsmanship in his own work. He meets with clients to see their space and interpret what they envision. He explores the form and purpose of the work and recommends different woods according to function, grain, and overall beauty, such as locust for outdoor items, poplar when intending to paint, or maple and white oak for interior projects.
“I use a lot of maple, cherry, and walnut,” says Colle. “I mill the pieces myself at my shop in the woods and take pride in being part of the work from start to finish. I enjoy what I do,” adds Colle. “I love working with the wood and testing my skill. I aim to create unique pieces with thoughtfulness to represent both the client and place where the work will be.”
Colle hands me the note and design he’s been drawing while we talked. On each of the three corners of the triangle are written the words “Hands-Mind-Heart.” And beside these he’s penciled in “Art-Beauty-Balance.” I can see the connections he’s thoughtfully diagramed both here on paper and in what he builds. It seems Colle has found a way to keep his original revelation of simplicity and forest living alive by creating woodwork that will endure for generations.
To contact David Colle regarding custom woodworking projects, call 585-374-6756 or email earthis4all@yahoo.com.
Angela Cannon-Crothers is a freelance writer and outdoor educator living in the Finger Lakes region of New York.
Colle
Ask Gary Bubble, Bubble, Linoleum Trouble
Gary Ranck
Dear Gary,
We need to replace the flooring in the kitchen and back door foyer area. We currently have linoleum, which appears to be loose and has bubbled up by the door. The floor is old and needs to be replaced. I also think we need a new stove (although my husband doesn’t). Does it make a difference in which order we tackle these projects? New stove first or new floor first? Also, linoleum is kind of expensive, and we are planning to move within the next few years. Do you have any suggestions for alternatives?
Thanks for a great column!
Floored
Dear Floored,
The stove can be replaced anytime. If the inlaid is bubbled and loose, you can try to remove it. Check the underlayment also to see if it is sound. Depending on its condition, the underlayment may have to be replaced as well, since the new flooring won’t lay right if the underlayment is bad. If everything looks bad, take up the underlayment along with the linoleum and discard all of it. Install the new underlayment, then lay new inlaid vinyl and trim the edge with new molding.
You could also install laminate flooring instead of vinyl inlay. Lay down the new pad, and then lay the interlocking laminate flooring, using a rubber mallet and a laminate flooring pull bar to get the pieces locked together snugly. Good luck!
Carpenter Gary Ranck is a sales representative for Brookside Homes. Contact him at or submit a question to askgary@mountainhomemag.com.
M ARKET P LACE
Shop Around the Corner Famous Brands Branches Out
By Angela Cannon-Crothers
Jim Guild had twenty-six years of experience running his retail store, Famous Brands, in Watkins Glen, when an older brick building he’d had his eye on for years opened up.
“Everyone thought I was crazy to open up another store,” says Guild, an unassuming man whose quiet manner begins to give way to rising enthusiasm. “But in 2008, with gas prices at $4.28 a gallon, we’d had our best season ever!”
Guild’s newest project is the Seneca Lake General Store, and even though it’s only four months old, its retro product line, pressed tin ceiling, and Havana’s Creamery—an oldfashioned ice cream counter and deli—take patrons back much further than that. “Our tag line is ‘Remember When,’” says Guild who excitedly walks from pinball machines to shelves of Radio Flyer B-B guns, balsa wood airplanes, and other toys of yesteryear. It feels like the movie set of A Christmas Story, circa 1940. But it’s also like being a kid in a candy store—from malt balls, fire balls, Mary Janes, and Clove gum to trays of homemade fudge (they’ve sold over 4,000 pounds of it since they opened in July), there’s something to suit everyone’s taste buds.
It isn’t all sweets and toys though. The creamery also serves soups, sandwiches, and salads, and the Seneca Lake General Store offers merchandise like Quinn Corn Brooms and wool blankets from Johnson Woolen Mills in Vermont. You can also find sets of Bridget Dobson china, fun fridge magnets, housewares, books, and so much more.
Guild says that part of the success of both stores is the tourist industry in a town of 19,000 that attracts over two million visitors a year. The area draws day-trippers to the Watkins Glen International Racetrack, the wineries, and Seneca Lake, as well as campers, hikers, and boaters to the famous waterfalls and stone bridges at Watkins Glen State Park. But the other reason the Seneca
Lake General Store is doing so well is probably that Guild’s first store, Famous Brands, already has its own strong reputation. Besides its local clientele, Famous Brands attracts shoppers from Corning, Elmira, Buffalo, Syracuse, and Rochester. Guild has a proven track record for pleasing customers.
When Famous Brands opened in 1983, it included 1,200 square feet of name-brand clothing and shoes. Today, the two-story shop includes 2,000 square feet of quality outdoor clothing from companies like Carhartt, Mad Bomber, Levi’s, Columbia, and North Face. From outdoor work clothes to recreational wear and women’s fashions, there is a discount on everything (and none of the merchandise is a factory second). One of the biggest departments is shoes and boots, with Dansco, Taos, Timberland, Red Wing, and more. They have everything from work boots to hikers to fashionable women’s designs. And there is no sales tax in Schuyler County for purchases under $110—another incentive for thrifty shoppers.
Famous Brands is also beautifully designed. There’s a stone fireplace upstairs with big, comfy chairs, a lovely sunlit staircase built by local Amish craftsmen, handmade cedar canoes and kayaks,
and stuffed wildlife decorating the walls. But the store’s best feature, the thing Guild takes the most pride in, is the people. “The number one thing here is our staff. They’re knowledgeable, professional, and courteous.” No matter which store you visit, you’re guaranteed to be impressed, by both the products and the people. They share Guild’s pride in what they offer, and it shows.
Shop: Famous Brands
Owner: Jim Guild
Address: 412 North Franklin Street, Watkins Glen Phone: 607-535-4952
Web Site: www.famousbrandsoutlet.com
Hours: Monday–Wednesday and Saturday, 9 a.m.–6 p.m.; Thursday and Friday, 9 a.m.–8 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
Shop: Seneca Lake General Store
Owner: Jim Guild
Address: 214 North Franklin Street, Watkins Glen Phone: 607-535-4131
Angela Cannon-Crothers is a freelance writer and outdoor educator living in the Finger Lakes region of New York.
ever see? Was his next blink the last time his eyes would open? Would he pass out before he died or die right away? Would it be painful? Had he made proper arrangements for his wife and son?
In 1998 Vogt’s doctor retired, and Sara and McIlvaine were determined to find him a more aggressive heart specialist. They found Dr. Antonio Parente, who recommended cardioversion. “That’s where they reboot your heart,” explains Vogt. “They stop your heart on purpose, and, with electrical paddles attached to your chest and back, they restart it.” The procedure put his heart in normal rhythm for the first time in thirteen years. Vogt was given a copy of his electrocardiogram, which showed his regular heartbeat, and he gave it to Sara as a gift, with his handwritten note at the top, “To Sara, From John. I love you!”
Along with medication, the procedure managed to keep his heart in normal rhythm for one year. Then he slipped back into atrial fibrillation until, a year and a half later, his heart returned to a normal rhythm. Unfortunately, one year later the atrial fibrillation recurred and persisted for the next four years. His heart was still wearing out, but Parente had slowed the process. “This doctor gave me a shot at life,” says Vogt, pointing out that the date of his cardioversion was July 10, 1998. “Parente gave me a better physical heart exactly twenty-one years after God gave me a better spiritual heart.” But even though he recognized his good fortune, he wondered how many years he had left.
In 2000 the America World Adoption Association contacted Vogt at his radio station to see if they could promote their upcoming Washington DC seminar. Vogt told them, “Sure. I’m adopted. Come on up.” During the live broadcast, the adoption association began describing their China program. “They started talking about these little girls,” Vogt says, “and I was overcome with emotion.”
Two years later, he and Sara adopted ten-month-old Johanna Renee Vogt from China.
They moved back to Wellsboro in 2004 to help their aging parents and started Adoption Ministries, which assists people with adoptions. Vogt also formed his own production company, John Vogt Productions LLC, where he uses his many media skills to specialize in audio and video production, photography, print media, Web site design and construction, and marketing and advertising.
A year later, Vogt had his moment of truth as he struggled to climb the hill at his home. He went to see his primary care doctor and a follow-up doctor, both of whom recommended a delicate non-surgical procedure known as cardiac ablation, in which a doctor inserts catheters into a patient’s body by way of a blood vessel in the neck or groin and maneuvers them into the heart, pinpointing the locations of faulty
Heart continued from page 10
Dr. Pramod Deshmukh, MD, of Guthrie Health.
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electrical sites. Once the problematic sites are confirmed, energy is used to destroy small amounts of tissue. This cauterizes, or sears, the tissue and blocks the interference of electrical flow through the heart, restoring a normal rhythm.
Every health professional Vogt talked to recommended the same specialist to perform the procedure, Dr. Pramod Deshmukh, a cardiologist and electrophysiologist at Guthrie Clinic in Sayre, Pennsylvania. But Vogt was warned that Deshmukh could be a bit difficult through careful statements like “He can be a little hard to talk to” and “I don’t think he’s going to talk to you like I am now” and “He’s very busy.” At their first meeting, Vogt was sitting nervously in the examination room when the doctor burst through the door, reminding Vogt of his hyper days at the radio station. As Deshmukh began asking him questions with efficiency, Vogt asked him, “Can I show you why you have to keep me alive?” He took out his wallet and handed Deshmukh a photograph of Johanna, who was then four years old.
“I could tell he was touched,” Vogt remembers. “He asked, ‘You adopted this little girl?’ I nodded. He said, ‘Adoption is a very good thing.’” At the end of Vogt’s examination, after Deshmukh had taken the time to show him a model of the human heart and extensively explain the whole cardiac ablation process to him, Vogt said to him, “I’m going to pray for you and the success of the procedure.” Again Deshmukh seemed moved. He responded, “Prayer is a very good thing.” Vogt says with a smile, “Any doctor that thinks prayers and adopting little girls are very good things is all right by me.”
Fifty-five-year-old Deshmukh, who has worked at Guthrie Clinic for almost twenty years, has done more than four thousand cardiac
Heart continued from page 38
Vogt (middle) strenghtens his heart with long walks with friends David Tews (left) and Rev. Glen Hallead.
ablations. On June 16, 2005, it took him only thirty minutes to perform the procedure, returning Vogt’s heart to a normal rhythm for the first time in years.
Thanks to medication and Deshmukh’s competence, Vogt’s heart has remained in normal rhythm for over four years. “This is a common result,” says Deshmukh, who is warm and helpful, “of cardiac ablations where patients are sixty-five years old or younger.” And because it has stayed in a normal rhythm for so long, Vogt’s heart, which was once killing itself, is now restoring itself.
As for the emotional health of Vogt’s heart, thirty-eight years after getting married and thirty-two years after asking God to teach him how to love his wife, Vogt says, “I’m more nuts about her than ever.” This summer, Sara’s and John’s hearts will be going out to China to rescue another little girl and bring her home as their daughter, Julianna Elizabeth Vogt.
Johanna is now eight years old. She is tall, very bright, paints, and plays the violin. Her favorite thing to do with her dad is tackle him. She also likes him to tell her bedtime stories that he makes up. They are almost always about Jack and Dory, two cardinals, and their bird friends who live in a tree in the Land of Johanna and can see her house from their nests. The birds have adventures and learn things like how to deal with jealousy and homework, and there’s a yearly “big birdie race.” Vogt laughs and says, “The stories always begin and end the same way. They start, ‘This is the story of Jack and Dory, and now my story’s begun.’” He smiles at Johanna, who is sitting next to him. “And they end,” he says as she smiles back and recites with him, “‘This is the story of Jack and Dory, and now my story’s all done.’”
But John Vogt’s story is far from done.
Wellsboro resident Dawn Bilder is a staff writer for Mountain Home.
Whatever
B ACK OF T h E M OUNTAIN
Rust in Peace
One man’s junk is a photographer’s joy. Wellsboro resident Ann Kamzelski has been practicing her art for over twenty years. A Fellow at the Wilmington Delaware Salon of Photography and a member of the Grand Canyon Photography Club, the Keller Photo Group, and the 171 Cedar Arts Center in Corning, she has contributed photographs to Mountain Home magazine since its inception. Her latest contribution reveals the beauty to be found in rusty, abandoned “junk.” Check back this fall for more of the collection.
