Lattes, rock bands, and catching up with The Murder Room’s Richard Walter. 12
Heart of the Mountain
By Patricia Brown Davis
What happens when a child declares, “I’m running away”? Our writer has a better answer.
14
All About the Shoes
By Mary Myers
A pair of high tops, a battered jack knife, and a time gone by. 18
Reading Nature
By Tom Murphy
James Watson’s The Double Helix reminds us of the ecosystems inside us all. 22 Yogamama
By Kathleen Thompson
Making commitments and feeding the hungry this holiday season.
The Better World
By John & Lynn Diamond-Nigh
A rapturous celebration of the morning meal.
Soldiers’ Stories
By Donald Gilliland
They fought for our freedom and returned home broken but unbowed. For many, even amputees, their first stop after leaving the hospital is Ed and Lew Fisher’s L.E.E.K. preserve, and a hunting trip to remember.
What a Deer
By Roger Kingsley
A massive buck transfixed a Bradford County town with its eyepopping headgear.
Lime Time
By Angela Cannon-Crothers
Middle Eastern rugs, Navajo figures and expressionistic animals fill Lime Berry galleries in Hammondsport.
Top: Lew and Ed Fisher. Center: The official Boone & Crocket score chart of the antlers from the buck of Rome Township. Bottom: Lime Berry gallery.
Cover art by Tucker Worthington.
On Track
By Dawn Bilder
One man’s love of toy trains inspires an Expo in Williamsport that celebrates its 20th year this month.
30
Picture Perfect Pies
By Angela Cannon-Crothers
Monica’s Pies are a local favorite that have gained fame nationwide.
34
Finger Lakes Wine Review
By Holly Howell
Heavenly Finger Lakes cheeses and the wines to go with them for the Thanksgiving table.
36
Marvelous Mansions
By Matt Connor
John Stopper built his great house in 1905. Today it’s a stop on the Williamsport Victorian home tour.
46
Back of the Mountain Floating through the fall.
P ublisher
Michael Capuzzo
e ditor - in - C hief
Teresa Banik Capuzzo
A sso C i A te P ublisher
George Bochetto, Esq.
M A n A ging e ditor
Matt Connor
C o P y e ditors
Mary Nance, Kathleen Torpy
s t A ff W riter
Dawn Bilder
C over A rtist
Tucker Worthington
P r odu C tio n M A n A ger / g r AP hi C d esigner
Amanda Doan-Butler
C ontri buting W riters
Kay Barrett, Dawn Bilder, Sarah Bull, Angela Cannon-Crothers, Jennifer Cline, Matt Connor, Barbara Coyle, John & Lynne Diamond-Nigh, Patricia Brown Davis, Steve Hainsworth, Martha Horton, Holly Howell, David Ira Kagan, Roberta McCulloch-Dews, Cindy Davis Meixel, Suzanne Meredith, Fred Metarko, Karen Meyers, Dave Milano, Tom Murphy, Mary Myers, Jim Obleski, Cornelius O’Donnell, Audrey Patterson, Gary Ranck, Kathleen Thompson, Joyce M. Tice, Linda Williams
P hotogr AP hy
Bill, Crowell, Ann Kamzelski
A dvertising d ire C tor
Todd Hill
s A les r e P resent A tives
Christopher Banik, Michele Duffy, Richard Widmeier
i ntern
Nora Strupp
b e A gle
Cosmo
Mountain Home is published monthly by Beagle Media LLC, 39 Water St., Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, 16901. Copyright 2010 Beagle Media LLC. All rights reserved.
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MOUNTAIN Ch ATTER
Starbucks Hits Small Town in Old-Time Disguise
For many of us, the idea of facing the morning without the taste of Starbucks on our tongue is practically intolerable, bordering on tragic. That’s why a recent announcement by the Dunham family was greeted by caffeine aficionados Wellsboro-wide with something approaching euphoria.
Ellen Dunham Bryant and her husband Shawn moved to Wellsboro a year ago from Washington, D.C. to run the Wellsboro Hotel Company, which operates the Penn Wells Hotel, Penn Wells Lodge, Arcadia Theatre, and the café in Dunham’s Department Store, all located on Main Street.
“One of the first things we missed when we got here was our Starbucks coffee,” Shawn says with a smile.
But it wasn’t an easy process to bring the coffeehouse giant to Wellsboro. “Starbucks is very particular about where their products can be sold,” says Shawn. The first time the Bryants applied, the chain turned them down. But the couple persisted, using a connection from one of their food suppliers to get the company to take a second look at them.
“We’re not a typical location,” says Shawn. “But, since we are already an established café, and we’re on the street, they agreed to take a second look at us. We made the case to them that Wellsboro, although a small town, has a very active population of professionals— doctors, lawyers, businessmen, and people from the university.
“We also added,” Shawn continued slyly, “that Wellsboro gets a lot of tourists, who are used to having Starbucks coffee. If the tourists have to pick other coffees while they are here, that isn’t good for Starbucks.”
But he thinks that what really sold Starbucks on Wellsboro was a visit by a company representative to the town. “Anyone who comes to Wellsboro can see that it isn’t just your average small town,” says Shawn. Soon after the representative’s visit, Shawn and Ellen were given permission to sell the Starbucks product.
As part of the Starbucks addition, the Bryants changed the name of the café to Café 1905, after the year that Ellen’s great-grandparents, Roy and Fannie Dunham, opened the first Dunham’s store, a grocery store located where the card section in Dunham’s Department Store is located today.
They’ve kept all the popular menu items that they’ve had all along, and have also added some new artisan sandwiches, like the tomato, basil, and mozzarella and the tarragon chicken, and some more menu items for children, yogurt parfait and mac n’ cheese.
“We have always tried to serve fresh, quality foods at the café, using fresh basil and roasting our turkey instead of using processed turkey, things like that,” says Ellen. “Having Starbucks quality coffee and products feels as though it’s completing us.”
Since unveiling the Starbucks products on October 1, there have been many happy locals and tourists visiting the department store, eager to sample the world-famous caffeine-charged bean derivative named for the first mate in Melville’s Moby Dick.
“One lady,” Ellen reveals with a smile, “stood staring at the menu for many minutes and finally said, ‘Oh, thank goodness!’”
~Dawn Bilder
Return of the Thin Man
Who was Jack the Ripper? Who killed JonBenét Ramsey? How does one catch a serial killer? This month brings a rare chance to learn from one of the world’s greatest detectives. Richard Walter (pictured above), known to Scotland Yard as “the living Sherlock Holmes,” will speak with bestselling author (and Mountain Home publisher) Michael Capuzzo on Saturday, November 6, at the Seneca Lake General Store, 214 N. Franklin St in Watkins Glen, New York. The event, from 2 to 4 p.m., is free and open to the public. Walter will discuss murder and his famous cases and he and Capuzzo will sign copies of Capuzzo’s new book, The Murder Room, on sale at the store. Walter, of Montrose, Pennsylvania, is the renowned forensic psychologist and criminal profiler featured in The Murder Room.
The book is a New York Times bestseller, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch declared it the “true crime book of the year.” The Murder Room was featured in a one-hour prime-time television special on ABC’s 20/20 on Friday, October 15. (Watch it at http://abc.go.com/watch/2020/SH559026/ VD5592269/cold-case-what-happened-tooregon-teen). Go to www.michaelcapuzzo.com for more information on the book.
Ellen Dunham Bryant and her husband, Shawn Bryant.
Mountain Home Ad Rep Rocks On!
The hard-rocking little bar band Red Led has been laying low for the past couple of years, but they’re poised for a comeback, and their fans couldn’t be happier.
“We’ve been off because of people having babies, and illnesses, stuff like that,” said band member Rich Widmeier, 59. “The last thing we did was a benefit for a guitar player’s wife in October… But this will be the first time we’ve played out like this since March of 2008. So this is really the start of our comeback tour!”
Widmeier, who is Mountain Home’s new advertising representative for Potter County and the Cowanesque Valley, plays drums for Red Led, which will return for engagements on Nov. 6 at the Corner Bar in Bradford, Pennsylvania, and on the 27th for a 10 p.m. gig at the Gemania Hotel in Germania, Pennsylvania.
Members of Red Led are particularly psyched about the Germania engagement because of the hotel’s longtime reputation as a fabulous showcase for live performance.
“We play everything from AC/DC to the Stone Temple Pilots to Green Day and Metallica,” said Widmeier, whose son, Bob, handles bass guitar for the band. “We’ve been playing together for twelve to fourteen years, maybe a little longer.”
Red Led’s lead singer, Chuck Evans, is an old friend Widmeier has known since he moved to the area over a decade ago. Through Evans the band hooked up with guitar player John Frilegh.
As for Widmeier, he’s been playing drums since about 1964, beginning in drum corps (eventually winning a national
championship) before moving on to small jazz, big band, and rock groups.
“We get a lot of enjoyment out of it, out of getting out in front and playing for people,” he says. “It’s a lot of fun. The adulation that you get entertaining people is great, when you have a big crowd and they’re all getting into the music.”
~Matt Connor
Wounded Warriors
They fought for our freedom and returned home broken but un-bowed. For many, even amputees, their first stop after leaving the hospital is Ed and Lew Fisher’s
and
WL.E.E.K. preserve,
a hunting trip to remember
By Donald Gilliland
hen Ed Fisher and his brother Lew bought a hunting cabin near the Oswayo headwaters in northern Potter County, it was their father’s dream made real: “He just loved it,” says Ed. The boys and their dad had hunted in Potter and Tioga all their lives, making regular excursions to the northern forests for serenity as well as for sustenance.
Ed recalls, “My fondest memories are hunting with dad. I remember the joy of it... if we didn’t manage to score any game, at least we were out in the field. You learn a lot about yourself.” Ed learned a lot about people too.
His dad had lost a leg when he was just a boy, but the handicap didn’t stop the man from hunting or from teaching his boys about the outdoors, about handling guns safely and about overcoming setbacks. “I thought every dad had a wooden leg,” says Ed. “I never saw anything my father couldn’t do.”
The boys grew up and joined the military, with Lew eventually retiring with thirty years in the Coast Guard and Ed retiring with twenty-seven years in the US Army. They named their new hunting camp after themselves and their wives: L.E.E.K.—Lew, Ed, Elaine, and Kate.
Their father died shortly after they bought the camp, and he is buried in an old cemetery on the property, so he could
always be in the hunting ground he loved. His spirit endures.
Three years ago, Ed and Lew decided to combine their military experience with lessons learned from their dad to share his special dream with those who need it more than most.
Three years ago, six wounded veterans from Walter Reed Army Medical Center arrived at camp. Their driver from Walter Reed had gotten lost on the way, so they’d been on the road for ten hours. Three of the young men were in wheel chairs. Ed and Lew lifted the men onto their backs and carried them up the stairs to the dining and sleeping quarters.
The soldiers settled in for an extended
weekend of hunting as part of Walter Reed’s wounded warriors program. They were soon swapping tall tales and jibes over a dinner table loaded with homemade food.
Local churches had joined the effort, donating food. Local businesses joined, donating equipment. Local land owners joined, donating use of their property. Local hunters volunteered their time as guides.
“People realized what we were doing, and it was amazing the outpouring of support,” says Ed.
The soldiers received a heroes’ welcome whenever they went into town; when they went into the woods, they had free ranging through over 8,000 acres of prime deer habitat.
One of those wounded warriors is Jeremiah Catlin. Jeremiah never expected
Left to right: Lew Fisher, Brad Garfield, and Ed Fisher.
Facing page
Left: Gravestone of Lewis Fisher.
Middle: The camp’s Action Trackchair. Right: Camp tree stand.
he’d be a wounded warrior. Who does? But unlike many of his compatriots who visit the L.E.E.K. hunting camp, Catlin had never even planned to go into the military. He was a minister.
But in May 2005, he joined the Army, commissioned as a chaplain, because he realized there was work to be done there.
“I saw the military as being an opportunity for a greater impact for my ministry,” he said.
Catlin was sent to Iraq, and requested to be chaplain for units that rarely had one: dangerous units like special forces and explosive ordnance disposal. While in the field with them, he was exposed to a “fog” of chemicals that may have triggered what came next.
One day Catlin woke up with a small bump on his shoulder. Within three days, it had grown to the size of a cantaloupe. It was a wildly aggressive form of cancer, a stage 4 melanoma ballooning under the skin of his shoulder.
Catlin was medically evacuated to Germany where there was emergency surgery to remove the rapidly growing malignancy.
Doctors sent him on to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, but told him, frankly, that he wasn’t going to make it.
The doctors at Walter Reed let him go home for Christmas, and when he returned told him they hoped he had enjoyed it because it would be his last. With the form of cancer he had, his odds of survival were about five percent.
Johns Hopkins took over Catlin’s case and the physicians there did “really miraculous surgery.”
In the process, they cut his pectoral muscle in half. He has scars from his neck across his chest. His arm still swells with fluid and he has ongoing problems with his neck, but Catlin is free of the cancer.
“I’m a really fortunate man, and I’m thankful,” he said.
It was during Catlin’s recovery that he was introduced to the “wounded warriors” program. Catlin, who learned to hunt from his grandfather as a small boy growing up in Kansas, was game for it.
Some soldiers physically need a lot of therapy, but Catlin says, “There’s more to therapy than just the physical... There’s therapy for the emotions, for the mind, for your spirit.”
The wounded warriors program supplied that, and Catlin began to volunteer organizing trips for fellow soldiers. It was a new aspect to his service as chaplain. “I want to be that guy that guy who helps out,” he said.
He learned of L.E.E.K. Hunting Preserve by accident. A fellow soldier told him he’d heard of this really famous hunting place up north but couldn’t remember the name. Catlin started searching the Internet and found Ed Fisher and L.E.E.K.
The funny thing, he says, is L.E.E.K.
Left: Jeremiah Catlin. Top Right: Camp barracks dedicated to Cpl. Jason L. Dunham. Bottom Right: Lew and Ed Fisher.
heart of the Mountain Declaration of Independence
“I’m running away from home!”
How many times have parents heard that one? I suspect, at some level, it might have been the only power we thought we wielded over our parents. Probably subconsciously, we knew their love for us was unconditional. Most of our attempts ended with day turning into night, not being sure where our next meal was coming from, or being stopped because we knew we weren’t allowed to cross the street.
Even my oldest daughter had announced just that to her dad, as he was reading his Wall Street Journal. He quietly closed and folded his paper, placed it on the kitchen table, and stood up. He leaned forward, shook her hand, and coolly said, “Well, it’s been real nice knowing you!” I think she got as far as the end of the driveway. However, one of our funniest family stories was this one:
It was summer. My sister-in-law, Connie Davis (now Adams, of Tioga), then just six years old, a rambunctious and precocious tomboy, was bound and determined she was going to ride Gypsy, her pony, over the four miles of back roads to where we were living.
Patience not being high on a youngster’s list, she grew tired of waiting for her brothers. Her dad’s pronouncement of, “When the chores are done,” wasn’t working. In exasperation, she proclaimed, “That’s it! I’m running away from home.”
Her dad calmly stopped his chores, helped her saddle Gypsy, and remarked, “You’re going to need some hay,” and quickly tied a large bundle of it behind her saddle. “You better tell your mother you’re leaving.”
Not allowed to cross the road from the barn to the farmhouse by herself, Connie was followed to the house by her dad. “Mommy! I’m running away from home.” Slowly looking the situation over, her mother said,
Patricia Brown Davis
“You better take something to eat,” quickly making her two sandwiches and putting them in a bag. Connie asked, “Is that all you have?” Her mother answered, “It’s all we can afford.”
Her father then asked, “You taking your dog Spike?” When she hesitantly answered, “Yes,” he grabbed a bag, filled it with dog food, and tied it to her saddle horn. Connie said, “Where will I sit?”
“Well, you’ll have to lead her for awhile. But, when you feed Spike, you’ll have some room to ride. By the way, it’s going to get cold this winter. I’ll go get you a warm winter coat.”
He reappeared a moment later with a huge, heavy, red-and-black checked Woolrich hunting jacket, and added, “Oh! And it’s gonna get dark; you’ll need a light, so here are a few matches,” and handed her some large “barnburners” from his back pocket.
Connie, now laden down with items, gulped, “It’s gonna get dark?” They slowly plodded down the driveway, with an overexuberant Spike jumping around and nipping at Gypsy’s tail. When they reached the road, she realized the ponderous decision she’d made and thought about the rationed food, the coming night, the approaching fall and winter, and all the other home life things she’d miss. She blurted out, “Never mind. I’m not going!”
As years passed, if Connie ever thought of running, she thought of this day, and thought better of it. I’m still amazed by the quiet courage my in-laws, Ethel Bliss Davis and Grant “Bender” Davis had, by going along with Connie’s decision, all the while letting her quietly know what a life “on the road” might hold.
Patricia Brown Davis is a professional musician and memoirist seeking stories about the Wellsboro glass factory. Contact her at patd@mountainhomemag.com.
Top: Connie Davis Adams, about age 5. Bottom: Connie and Gypsy.
That Was Then
Not so long ago, a jack knife in school was just an accessory
By Mary W. Myers
In these days when suspicious luggage causes Red Alert in an airport, I think of the jack knife I wore to school in my high tops.
High tops were hard-toed leather shoes that laced half way to the knees. Stitched near the top of one shoe was a knife pocket with a little leather flap. Both looked empty to me, so I slid a knife into the pocket, flipped the flap over it, and went off to third grade.
I loved those high-topped shoes. They discouraged snow, rain, and schoolyard gravel, and signified my commitment to nature. I noticed, of course, that other kids were trudging to Wellsboro’s Grant Street Elementary School in standard black rubber boots and galoshes. They kicked them off as soon as they got to their respective cloakrooms and, maybe with last bell already tolling in its rooftop cupola, they hurried to their desks. The assorted footwear collapsed mainly two by two in little puddles
under the damp wooly coats and hats.
Use of a cloakroom, no matter how casual, was a specific part of the grade school experience. Where else could you find one to use? Only elementary schools had cloakrooms, as far as I knew. While their designation hinted romantically of long ago times, their odor more insistently identified the egg salad sandwiches inside the lunchboxes lined up on the floor.
In Grant Street’s school, the narrow cloakrooms were all about the same size. But the higher the grade level, the bigger the boots and galoshes, the lunchboxes and puddles.
To be honest, my high tops did appear to be a bit rugged with the dresses I was urged into every morning. But once I got them on, I felt prepared for whatever the day might bring. (I’d heard my aunt say that of her corset.)
I suppose the knife boosted my confidence, though it was only a dull old jack knife that had belonged to my brother. He hadn’t been able to open it since a coal delivery truck ran over it. But he saved it in case someday he
Its casing was hardly dented at all and flaunted the checkered red and white Purina Chow trademark, barely scratched. It fitted just right into its
Our teacher that year was Miss Ruby Ballard. Colorful first
name notwithstanding, Miss Ballard was worrisomely pale and thin. Fragile though she seemed, she somehow made every one of us feel that we were her favorite third grader. We weren’t sure she could finish out the year if we disappointed her, so we worked hard for her.
I’m sure Miss Ballard knew about my knife, though I never actually showed it to her. Something must have told me that Miss Ballard was not up for a knife in fourth row, second seat, even if it was broken.
My parents also knew that I was packing a knife that winter. I don’t recall them saying I should leave it behind when I dressed for school. No doubt I promised to keep the leather flap closed over it at all times. When spring came, I was promoted to fourth grade and only wore the high tops on Saturdays.
I don’t know what happened to the knife. Which is just as well. My fourth grade teacher might have thrown me in the slammer for carrying a knife.
Looking back now, I see that when Miss Ballard and my parents trusted me to carry my knife they were giving me a gift, a gift not easily given in today’s world. I suppose
Wellsboro resident Mary W. Myers is an occasional contributor to Mountain Home magazine.
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OU TDO O RS
The Buck of Rome Township
In pursuit of an elusive—and extraordinar y—white tail
By Roger Kingsley
Warren “Barney” Singer of Rome, Pennsylvania, was picking strawberries in his garden early one morning in June 2002 when he noticed four whitetail bucks feeding in a hay field adjacent to his house.
Barney recognized the most prominent from sightings the year before. With several weeks of antler growth yet to come, Barney knew this buck was destined to be monstrous by the time the velvet peeled.
Barney, a retired Pennsylvania waterways conservation officer and an avid deer hunter, was a fanatic for interpreting the sign of a particular deer in an area, and the biggest of these four bucks was one on which he would surely keep tabs.
Throughout the summer months, Barney took note that the buck frequented
certain fields near his home.
One evening in late August, Barney borrowed a video camera and positioned himself along the edge of the field where he had seen the buck. As luck would have it, the big buck, with his eye-popping headgear, entered the field with ten other bucks. Since video doesn’t lie, Barney concentrated on getting some good footage of the bachelor group.
The big buck didn’t seem to be bashful about exposing himself during daylight hours, and as a result other people began to seriously take note of his patterns. Very soon Barney learned that half a dozen tree stands had been strategically placed along a creek near the field by archery hunters eager for opening day.
The sudden intrusion of human scent put a stop to the daytime sightings of
the big buck in that area, but, along the road, the nights were riled by a constant procession of spotlighters searching for his nocturnal whereabouts.
One spotter even caught the buck chowing down on Barney’s strawberry plants, and as proof Barney saw the hoof prints amidst the runners.
As the weeks passed, the buck’s existence continued to gain more attention. Though the hills of Rome Township were noted for producing quality bucks, this particular deer became a topic of conversation more popular than the weather.
During previous seasons, he frustrated even the best hunters, but then again was equally appreciated for cleverly eluding them when venison was hot on the menu.
One such hunter was Mickey Morris
of Rome. Mickey had a forty-five yard encounter with the buck while he was bow hunting, but a well-placed shot at that distance was unrealistic and unethical.
Mickey was fascinated with the deer and seized every opportunity to pursue him. The last time Mickey saw the buck, he said, was on Friday evening November 8, 2002.
Then, in the early evening of the following Monday, a lone vehicle was traveling south on Route 187 in Rome Township. Behind the wheel of the green Saturn sedan was eighteen-year-old Kasie Edsell of Rome, a senior at Northeast Bradford High School.
Kasie was on her way home from a friend’s house when out of nowhere a deer burst onto the roadway directly in front of her car. Kasie slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. The sound of crushing metal and broken glass filled the air as the animal was hurtled up across the hood and into the windshield.
Shaken from the collision, Kasie steered her car to the edge of the road to survey the damage. The automobile had taken a beating, the deer likewise. It was, she said, the biggest buck she’d ever seen.
Walking back to the scene, Kasie expected to find the buck badly hurt or dead, but apparently driven by adrenalin, the powerful animal managed to vacate the area.
After returning home, Kasie phoned a friend to relate the incident she’d just had with the buck. Visions of the animal and its massive antlers kept haunting her. This wasn’t the first deer Kasie had hit with a vehicle, but then again this was no ordinary
deer. Hoping she could find it, Kasie drove her battered car back to the scene of the collision and thoroughly searched the area.
Still, no deer.
The next morning was Veterans Day. Tim Moore of Rome, a retired car salesman and avid outdoorsman, left his house around 6:30 a.m. to check a series of fox and raccoon sets on his trapline.
About 8 a.m., Tim parked his vehicle at the Mountain Hardwoods log yard owned by Dewey and Carolyn Russell of Rome, to check some sets near a stream a couple hundred yards in back of their buildings.
As Tim neared the first set, something caught his attention in the high goldenrod on a steep bank by the stream. An enormous buck lay there about twenty-five yards away looking straight at Tim. As the two made eye contact, the buck instinctively lowered his head into the weeds. This cunning behavior is typical of mature bucks to avoid detection.
Tim immediately dropped down out of sight and slowly eased away. His astonishment at encountering such a large buck so close was quickly mixed with despair. Archery season was still in progress, but Tim had already filled his buck tag in October.
Carolyn Russell and her brother, Donnie Parks, were busy in the office at the log yard when Tim came running in with news of seeing the giant buck.
The two followed Tim back to the stream bank hoping to get a glimpse of the deer, but the spot where the deer lay was now empty.
That’s the Point
Whitetail deer can show an almost infinite variety in number and location of points. The non-typical category was established to properly recognize such configurations so that the abnormal points can add to the final score, rather than be subtracted from it. If the abnormal points are few in number and short in length, the typical score chart that subtracts the total lengths of such points as a penalty for nonsymmetry would be used. It’s not uncommon for some antlers to be measured as both typical and non-typical, but the trophy can only be listed in one category, and that decision rests upon the owner, and where the antlers would rank the highest.
The fields of Rome: Stills from a video shot by Barney Singer during the buck’s last summer. (Images pulled from home video by VanSant Productions)
READING NATURE Great Chain of Being Tom Murphy
It is that time of year we may behold, as Shakespeare put it, “when yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang upon those boughs which shake against the cold, bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.” We see the natural world pared down to the bone, and all the life of spring and summer has been drawn inside, locked away in roots and seeds and eggs and wombs, hidden. I tend to think of nature as places that I can enter, forgetting that there is a hidden world inside us too, that each of us is an ecosystem, a kind of wilderness full of diverse organisms and cells coming into being, living out their lives, and dying. And we are the drama of their existence.
Actually, I am assuming you forget this too; maybe you don’t, or maybe you are working on a cold right now and are aware that you are an ecosystem with an alien weed wreaking havoc. What made me aware of my ecosystemness was reading the fortytwo-year-old book by James Watson, The Double Helix, about the discovery in 1953 of the structure of the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecule.
Part of the excitement in the book is the race between Linus Pauling at Caltech and Watson and his collaborator, Francis Crick, at the University of Cambridge in England. Pauling had shown how a helical (that is, a spiral) structure was involved in proteins. Using X-ray photographs of crystallized DNA taken by Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin and information about the chemical properties of the atoms in the DNA molecule, Crick and Watson worked their way through multiple-stranded helixes, and the double helix with backbones on the inside or backbones on the outside, with similar base pairs connecting the backbones or different base pairs connecting them. But the progress was not smooth or continuous; it was fraught with false starts, personality conflicts, territorial disputes, and the need to attend parties to meet women. After all, when he started working on DNA, Watson was only twenty-three years old.
It is an exciting story. Watson gives us enough information to understand the plot, but does not burden the narrative with extended explanations of the chemistry. Not all scientists agreed at the time that DNA contained genetic information, so even spending time on it involved some risk. Those working on DNA had no way of knowing, even if they understood its structure, whether their conclusions would be interesting or would produce any useful insights.
The subatomic particles inside my body—particles that form up into molecules that make up my internal organs that organize themselves into me—are part of a continuum that reaches out through the trees’ bare branches to the starry universe of the night sky. Watson, Crick, Wilkins, and Franklin gave us a bit more information about how we fit in that great chain of being, and Watson’s book gives us some insight into just how human that scientific process of discovery is.
Tom Murphy teaches nature writing at Mansfield University. You can contact him at readingnature@mountainhomemag.com.
Scanning the terrain, they soon spotted the bedded buck twenty yards farther downstream. The buck spooked and scrambled up over the long, steep embankment out of sight.
Thoughts of the big buck consumed Tim the rest of the day. Lying in bed that night, Tim surmised that the buck might possibly be hurt, but then again he saw the animal run with no visual signs of an injury. Why, Tim wondered, would the buck lie down so soon after leaving his first bed?
With the seasonal behavior known as the rut going on, Tim knew there could be umpteen reasons why the buck displayed such mannerisms. Nevertheless, he was back to the same spot the next day on a hunch that he’d find an answer to his question. A thorough search of the buck’s first bed turned up no sign of injuries. Tim couldn’t find the second bed, and the open hardwoods where the buck disappeared provided no evidence and no deer.
Ten days later, on the afternoon of Saturday, November 23, 2002, Dewey Russell decided to go small game hunting in his woods behind the log yard. With a pump shotgun under his arm, Dewey hiked a skid trail in an area known to hold good grouse populations.
As he poked along, Dewey suddenly spotted two dogs a short distance away. He recognized them as the neighbors Labrador retrievers. The dogs appeared to be occupied with something within a tangle of limbs and evergreens.
As Dewey approached, the dogs skedaddled. Parting the branches, Dewey was shocked to find the carcass of an enormous buck rotting from death. The massive deer with non-typical antlers was the one that he and countless individuals had watched for months.
The dogs and other predators had consumed parts of the animal, no doubt drawn in by the offensive odor, which served as an enticing dinner bell. Dewey knelt beside the buck, glad to have found him yet saddened by the noble monarch’s sad demise. Questions filled his mind. Dewey decided to get help before handling the animal.
Leaving the woods, Dewey drove to the home of Rick Larnard, a wildlife
conservation officer, to report the discovery. Later that evening, the two men returned to the carcass with a video camera. Closer investigation revealed a large wound on the animal’s side, ripe with gangrene. Not a wound characteristic of a bullet, but rather something larger, like a vehicle.
The next day, Dewey and a few of his friends transported the carcass out of the woods. Word of the big buck finding spread like wildfire. For days the Russell residence was the center of attention for everybody and his brother who heard about the deer and longed to take a peek or a picture of it.
That’s when the Russels got wind of Kasie Edsell’s collision with the huge animal. Since the deer was found on his property, Dewey Russell was granted ownership by the Pennsylvania Game Commission, with the stipulation that the jawbone be sent to a biologist for age analysis, and the antlers were to be officially scored and put on display at the Northeast Bradford High School for educational purposes during the school year.
Don Hunt of Nichols, New York, a
certified measurer for several recordkeeping organizations, measured the antlers at 175-6/8 non-typical Boone and Crockett points. That score would rank it number three in Bradford County according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s 2010 Pennsylvania Big Game Records, if it had been legally killed with a gun.
Though some firmly dispute the fact, personnel within the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation estimated the deer was only three and a half years old.
But Dewey Russell still loves to show the sprawling antlers to anyone who stops by to gaze at the strength and beauty of this extraordinary whitetail.
Roger Kingsley, a first-time contributor to Mountain Home, lives on a farm in Columbia Cross Roads. A hunter, photographer, and writer, his articles and photos have appeared in, among others, Country, Deer & Deer Hunting, Quality Whitetails, Pennsylvania Game News, and Farm & Ranch magazines.
Dewey Russel proudly displays the magnificent non-typical antlers from the “Buck of Rome Township”
B ODY & S OUL
Yogamama Says The Giving Path
Kathleen Thompson
As the holidays approach, many of us begin to contemplate our own personal journeys through life. Our own life “paths.”
When I was sitting meditation retreats regularly at Springwater Center back in the 80s and early 90s, I used to have the same discussion over and over again with Toni Packer (the resident wise woman there) about how hard it was to sustain my meditation practice once I got home.
At every meeting I would whine, “But Toni, you don’t understand! I live in the world, I have a little kid, a husband who’s not into this stuff, and friends who aren’t into this stuff! When I go home, it’s a battle to carve out even fifteen minutes a day to sit on my cushion!
And she would always say the same thing: “If these questions are really important, if you are really interested in finding out…” and here she would become very quiet, and just look at me (lovingly).
“But I am interested!” I would whine.
“Then just do the work,” was the implied answer.
My MO up until fairly recently has been this: I get all excited over what appears like the path to clarity, enlightenment, selfknowledge—whatever you want to call it, and I pursue it with great vigor and intensity until it gets really, really hard.
At that hard point, I begin to have doubts. Is this really the way? Is this really the way for me? Maybe I should try “X” instead. And so I switch to X.
It’s like climbing a mountain, getting to the hard part, then deciding to go back down to the trailhead and try an alternate
route to the top. No. I simply cannot keep doing this anymore.
Why?
I don’t have enough time left.
I think when you are young, you can spend some time going up halfway, then back down, then up again, then back down, exploring all kinds of trails, but after a while you’ve just got to pick one and stay on it. You’ve got to decide: This is who I am. This is my path.
There are thousands of routes to the top. Some are steep and treacherous.
Some are long and arduous.
Some are dark and scary.
Some have hungry animals that will eat you if you’re not careful.
There’s no easy way to the top, so the best thing is to just pick a path and stick with it.
Even if it’s the wrong path (there are no wrong paths), or hard (all of them are hard).
Just pick and commit.
A Food Give
Recently I took all the food that was donated by all the yogarians over to the food pantry. I had never been to the food pantry, so had no idea what to expect.
It was small, and filled with, well, food. The woman I had spoken to on the phone was there, and she and another woman were getting ready to open.
Eggs were being delivered and I had to “Stand aside!” as a man carrying eggs barreled in.
I took the food in, and the woman behind the counter said, “This looks like a wonderful food drive!”
I thought, “Oh. A food drive: That’s what this was. I didn’t think of it that way, somehow.
I just thought of it as, “Bring food and don’t pay for yoga.” I thought of it as, “Do a good deed! Bring food!”
But apparently it was a “Drive.”
Thing is, I don’t like to be driven. Driven is not all that yogic, you know?
What’s a better word?
How about, “give?” It wasn’t a drive, it was a give.
Yeah, that feels right.
And what do yoga people give to a food give? They give a lot of beans, and organic soups, and Kashi cereal. And they also give more of the things that people who come to the pantry expect to receive, too: boxes of mac and cheese and stove-top stuffing, etc.
Some people thought of coffee. Someone donated a big tin of cookies! (Oh yay! somebody got cookies!)
I wanted to stay and watch what people left with, but I didn’t.
There were a few people there waiting for it to open when I left, and they looked kinda sad.
But tonight, hopefully, there is enough yummy food in some houses for some people to be able to have a special Christmas dinner.
God bless all who eat this food, and all who gave.
Kathleen Thompson is the owner of Main Street Yoga in Mansfield, PA. Contact her at 570-6605873, online at www.yogamansfield.com, or e-mail yogamama@mountainhomemag.com.
The Better World Breakfast of Champions
John & Lynne Diamond-Nigh
Surely somewhere there’s a Goddess of Breakfast, a chubby stone figurine with rays of morning light spiking from her forehead and a carton of eggs or a bowl of Aztec Crunchy Corn & Amaranth Cereal on her lap; a goddess in whose presence we may extol the delicious and immemorial majesty of our first meal.
Summer mornings on my uncle’s farm I’d be whistled awake in the cool half-light, make my way to the hay-fragrant, moo-murmurous barn and proceed with the task of milking the cows. Job done, the cows ushered back to pasture, we ambled into the house where my aunt was cooking up a morning storm—sublimely salted oatmeal, just-gathered eggs, toast, grilled sausages, strawberries, muffins, cornbread, coffee by the firehydrant-full, and hot chocolate if you asked. Where merriment ran high and numbers of poached eggs consumed were a quotient of virility. Lucy, give this poor boy more eggs. He’s skinnier ‘n a split toothpick. In the meantime, kid, we’ll arm-wrestle to see who gets that last cream biscuit.
On quite another planet entirely, Saturday morning would bring an uncle to our door who’d bear us away to one of the diners or pancake houses that, like Levittown itself, sprang from that utopian horn of plenty that was the post-war boom of Long Island. The higher the stack of pancakes, the better pleased that uncle would be. In the Garden of Earthly Delights we each paint for ourselves, mine has a tree with pancakes for apples and an “uncle bird” in the branches who sings
In the Garen of Earthly Delights we each paint for ourselves, mine has a tree with pancakes for apples and an “uncle bird” in the branches who sings the best stories, the most frolicsome jokes of any bird in paradise.
the best stories, the most frolicsome jokes of any bird in paradise.
Breakfast at its simplest and best: Each month two friends, one a priest, the other a machinist, rendezvous at a run-down greasy spoon in the middle of nowhere. To talk, get lost in each other’s blizzard-scatter of ideas, and enjoy the sturdy embrace of an old friendship. The usual, please, easy over, and a cup of that brown water you call coffee. God bless you.
The Better World is a wellbreakfasted world. It stands between the rich dream ideas of the past night, and the threshold of a new day. Those dream ideas, mind you, are not to be wasted. Not a crumb. And over the pleasure of good food, you square the day before you. What will you do? How will you do it? You talk with your spouse. Your kids. Your cats.
How much more apt are we to be patient, kind and coherent when the day has been given its proper and savory forethought. When bonds have been refreshed. When the stamp, the augury that we have set down at daybreak, is one of delight, even enchantment.
John writes about art and design at serialboxx. blogspot.com. Lynne’s website, aciviltongue. com, is dedicated to civility studies.
Young at heart: Toy Train Expo founder Will Huffman, 81, still has a sense of play, and a toy choo-choo he cherished from his early years.
A RTS & L EISURE Training Day
Born of a love of model trains, the Toy Train Expo celebrates 20 years
Story By Dawn Bilder
Photography By Cindy Davis Meixel
Eighty-one-year-old Williamsport resident Will Huffman starts the story of his relationship with model trains in the manner of a man beginning the story of his life: “Dad started to put up a train around the Christmas tree every year on Christmas Eve when I was five or six. But first he sent me to bed.”
Slight disappointment invades Huffman’s voice, but he continues.
“I would stay up all night waiting for two things. The first was to see what was in my stocking. And the second was to see my Lionel train. All I could think about was pushing that big red button on the train set and seeing it
come alive again.
“From Christmas morning to New Year’s Eve was train time,” he says with a smile. “But on New Year’s Day, Dad would pack the train up for another year.
“I never got to put it together, and the time I had to play with it was too short. But I didn’t have much say.”
Still Huffman’s love of model trains was firmly established, and every year at Christmas was train time. Then Huffman hit his teen years and, in order to afford a record player, the Lionel train was sold. Many years went by as he met his wife, became a teacher in Williamsport, earned a master’s degree, and started a family.
“In the process of raising kids,” says Huffman, “the trains came back. I was in my mid-thirties. The impetus for it was a ping-pong table that wasn’t used that much, and offered a perfect table to build a train on.”
He and his oldest son, Eric, bought an HO train set, “But eventually Eric became a teenager, and my wife wanted the ping pong table back, so the trains disappeared again.”
Huffman’s younger son, Bruce, never developed an interest in model trains, and it wasn’t until Bruce was in college that Huffman spotted a model train store on 3rd Street in Williamsport.
“I went in,” says Huffman, “and I liked this, and I liked that, and I came
out with a new train. It was the third ‘Coming of the Trains.’ ”
In 1984, after thirty-two years of teaching, Huffman retired: “I realized,” he says with a laugh, “after a while that the biggest part of retirement is to stay out of trouble, so I got myself into train trouble instead.”
He began working at the Thomas T. Taber Museum in Williamsport in 1989, which included the famous LaRue Shempp Model Train exhibition. He loved dusting the trains. When he had been a teacher, he had taken his students many times to Shempp’s house to see his collection before Shempp donated it to the museum.
The following year, when the museum put up its Christmas tree, Huffman commented with nostalgia that every Christmas tree should have a model train running around it. The director thought it was a great idea, so Huffman supplied his own train for that purpose.
Huffman was given a small exhibit room in the museum the following Christmas for his Christmas tree and train, and a few other people brought in their trains. The Toy Train Expo was born.
The twentieth anniversary of the Expo occurs this year, and it’s now held at Park Place as part of the Victorian Christmas Celebration in Williamsport.
What: Toy Train Expo
Where: Park Place, 800 West Fourth Street, Williamsport
When: November 20, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., November 21, noon to 4 p.m.
Web Site: www.toytrainexpo.org
Phone: (570) 326-3019
There are more than fifty other people who bring in their trains, and about sixteen hundred people attend every year. This year’s Expo will feature more than four dozen tables filled with trains of all sizes, shapes, colors, and makes of operating trains.
There will be a senior real-life conductor who oversees everything and has many interesting tales to tell, as
well as a special Thomas the Train exhibition and play set celebrating Thomas’s fiftieth anniversary.
The popular “Loco Races,” in which children are lent locomotives to race, will begin on Saturday at 10 a.m, and Santa will be around both days to welcome the children. Adults are $2, and kids are free, which is very important to Huffman.
For him, it’s all about the kids. His favorite photos and stories about the Expo all feature children. That’s why it isn’t an Expo for buying and selling trains.
He hasn’t been a small child for seventy-five years, but at least now Huffman doesn’t have to wait until Christmas morning anymore to see the trains. And neither do any of his Expo guests.
I realized after a while that the biggest part of retirement is to stay out of trouble, so I got myself into train trouble instead.
F OOD & D RINK
Oh,
My, My, My
Just outside Naples, New York, Monica and her mom bake a pretty pie
Story and Photos By Angela Cannon-Crothers
If you’re driving on Route 21 north just one and a half miles past the village of Naples (home of the World’s Greatest Grape Pie Contest) you’ll see an old gray barn appear amidst the autumn foliage. A large sign written on the side in violet letters announces, “Monica’s Pies, just ahead!”
Seasonal purple flags line the road just before the store, but unlike the majority of area pie makers, Monica’s Pies is open yearround. Walking up from the parking lot, you’ll detect the mouth-watering smell of chicken pot pies wafting through the air, the very soul of comfort food memories.
Monica may have gained her fame
making the locally famous grape pie, but her Concord grape pastry isn’t her only claim to fame.
“I never would have imagined I’d be running a pie store someday,” says Monica, who learned to cook and bake at her mother’s restaurant, once located in Woodville, just a little further up the road and on the lake. Monica has her own childhood memories of spending summers at Canandaigua Lake and helping her parents, John and Katherine Clark, run the Hoyt’s Boat Livery—and a small restaurant where her mother was well known for her pies.
“This just sort of evolved,” she laughs. And evolve it has. In 1983 Monica
decided to sell pies in front of her mother’s home on busy Route 21, as a way to work from home while raising her family. She and her husband, Greg, had a small vineyard of Concord grapes that was falling out of favor with the wineries and had picked up some notoriety as the premier ingredient for grape pie, so they decided that making pies was a way to keep their vineyard and use up the grapes.
Monica got help from her mother and, utilizing her mother’s kitchen, made the fillings while her mother helped make crust and her Aunt Betty peeled apples for the
Monica continued from page 30
apple crumb pies. Business was great for over a decade, so when Monica’s mother decided it was time to sell the house, Monica and her husband purchased what was to become “The Pie Barn” and converted it to a storefront, basement kitchen, and an apartment for her mother.
Today, Monica’s Pies sells traditional Concord grape delights like pies, tarts, grape bread, and canned filling year-round as well as many other seasonal varieties like summer fresh fruit glacé in strawberry, blueberry, peach, and raspberry as well as strawberry rhubarb, key lime, apple cranberry nut, caramel apple nut crunch, pumpkin, and chocolate walnut pies, among many others. She also carries a variety of jams, jellies, and conserves.
“I always wanted to try selling a chicken-pot-pie but I didn’t have enough resources or time,” says Monica, “not until about six years ago.” That was when Monica employed a full-time, year-round worker. With the extra help, she decided she might be able to make home-style chicken pot pies during the slower winter months.
“It just took off,” she says. Monica’s chicken pot pies were soon in such demand that she began selling them year round.
“People call and ask me how I make my pot pies so good, and I tell them there’s nothing fancy in them just simple ingredients like carrots and peas, salt and pepper,” she says shrugging. “People really like them. I sell a ton of them. I even sold out of ’ em on Grape Festival weekend!”
Monica’s Pies was featured on The Food Network in 2002, shortly after they renovated the barn for a store, and business boomed. Since then, the Network has replayed their show several times and Monica’s Pies has also been featured in Better Homes &
Gardens, The New York Times, Country Discoveries, and, twice now, in Mountain Home (“Pies of the Vine,” September 2008).
Twenty-eight years later the business still has a family focus, even as the children have grown and moved on into lives of their own. Monica and Greg still utilize their original vineyards, and family dinners are served nightly, but at The Pie Barn rather than at home.
“I just go home to sleep,” says Monica.
Monica’s Pies is open seven days a week, year round, and although she has employed some “talented and dear friends” to help in the kitchen these days, it’s still partially a mother-daughter operation. Amongst her kitchen friends is an elderly woman mixing dough into balls. Katherine Clark, now 92, still works every day alongside her daughter, making crusts for a variety of sweet, savory, and always delicious pies.
Angela Cannon-Crothers is a freelance writer and outdoor educator living in the Finger Lakes region of New York.
Finger Lakes Wine Review A Perfect Pair
Story and Photo by holly howell
Yippee! The holidays are here, and that means one thing. I need no excuse for an occasion to serve some spectacular Finger Lakes wines and cheeses. Thank goodness, because there are now so many new ones out there that I welcome as many occasions as I can get.
First of all, the Finger Lakes region has been blessed with a new “Cheese Trail” that meanders its way through the area’s already existing “Wine Trails.”
They say that “what grows together, goes together” and I guess the only way to prove it is to try. So I did. And I am happy to report that I have discovered some exceptional wine and cheese pairings for your holiday table.
Let’s start with New York’s signature white wine—Riesling. There is no doubt that this German transplant has found an ideal new home here in cool-climate upstate New York. The wines can range from bone dry to dessert sweet, and there seems to be a style to please everyone.
Riesling is ultimately cheese friendly, but I have found that it connects particularly well with the locally made goat cheeses, or chevres. Goat’s milk is higher in acidity than other milks, and that translates to a tangier flavor. The crispness of Riesling easily balances the tartness of the cheese, allowing the wine to taste smoother and the cheese to taste creamier. It’s a beautiful marriage.
Lively Run Goat Dairy (www.livelyrun. com) is located in Interlaken, between Seneca and Cayuga Lakes. They have a mouthwatering variety of goat cheeses, from lemon-thyme flavored to rose peppercorn. But my favorite holiday treat is to take a log of the plain chevre, top it with some apricotpeach preserves, serve with water crackers, and uncork a nicely chilled semi-dry Riesling. The 2009 vintage was fabulous. Look for any of them, including Hermann J. Wiemer, Anthony Road, Ravines, or White Springs.
Pinot noir is my go-to red wine for a cheese plate. It is an elegant red that brings out the best in hand-crafted cheeses without overwhelming them in flavor. Although it originated in Burgundy, France, this grape is showing itself to be a real contender in the Finger Lakes. And pinot noir is tailor-made for cheeses with a more pungent or earthy flavor.
Finger Lakes Farmstead Cheeses (www. fingerlakes-cheese.com) near Trumansburg makes a delicious cow’s milk cheese that is called Red Meck. It is a washed-rind cheese, which basically means they wash the rind (with a prepared brine) during aging so that the cheese picks up a bit stronger scent.
This style of cheese originated in the monasteries of Europe, and it is exciting to see this tradition make its way to our local cheeseries. Finger Lakes Red Meck is wonderfully aromatic, and is perfect when paired with pinot. The woodsy flavors of both cheese and wine seem to be made for each other. Look for stellar pinot noirs from Sheldrake Point, Casa Larga, Dr. Frank, or Rooster Hill.
Perhaps the best locavore pairing of all would involve a big wedge of sharp New
York State Cheddar, one of our true claims to fame. We can also provide a nice Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot blend (called meritage), which happens to be a cheddar BFF.
The protein and fat in cheddar cheeses can coat the tongue and tame the bitter “tannins” in these wines that often dry out your mouth. The result—the cheese gets sweeter and the wine gets fruitier. An absolute win-win. Not to mention a party in your mouth.
Sunset View Creamery (www. sunsetviewcreamery.com) in Odessa, New York, makes some incredible farmstead cheddar cheeses, ranging from the mildest six-month aged (Deep Seneca) to the sharpest five-year aged (Samurai Sharp). To match, look for a rich meritage blend wine like Fox Run Meritage, Heron Hill Eclipse, Damiani Meritage, or Standing Stone Pinnacle. Enjoy the holidays, and enjoy a taste of New York State!
Holly is a CSW (Certified Specialist of Wine) through the Society of Wine Educators and a CS (Certified Sommelier) through the Master Court of Sommeliers in England; Contact her at wineanddine@mountainhomemag.com.
hOME & REAL ESTATE
Dream House
A young couple, an old home, and a holiday tradition
By Matt Connor
The Wepeners were never “old house” people until recent years, and, truth to tell, their beautiful old home at 1105 Woodmont Ave. dates more from the Edwardian era than Victorian, but it remains nonetheless one of the signature properties on the 12th annual Williamsport Victorian Christmas house tour this month.
“We moved to Williamsport from Oklahoma, and we’ve always lived in new houses before,” said Angie Wepener, owner of the Woodmont property with her husband, Verne, a supply chain director at Lycoming Engines, a Textron company. “But we fell in love with this one.”
Built in 1905 by lumber baron John Stopper, the Wepener place has had more lives than a cat. The Stopper family lived in the house about through the stock market crash of 1929, but since then it has, at various times, served as a boarding house for nurses working at nearby Williamsport Hospital, an Eastern Star retirement home, and a Florence Crittendon Home for unwed mothers.
Beginning in the early 1980s the home has been carefully maintained by a series of private owners, including Lycoming County commissioner Rebecca Burke, whom many credit with spending considerable time and resources to restore the property to close to its former glory.
“It was pretty much restored when we bought it,” Angie says, adding that the house had a few distinctive institutional features left over from its Florence Crittenden and retirement home days, like quick release exit doors and a large fire alarm on the third floor. But it’s the unique Craftsman style features
that really make the house a standout on the Victorian home tour. The grand tiger oak entry foyer is dominated by an incredible hand-carved tiger oak stairway, for example.
“It’s just a beautiful old house,” says Angie “It has tiger oak woodwork throughout the first floor. The woodwork is just fantastic. It was really pretty and it had a large playroom for the boys.”
Those boys being sons Harrison, 7, and twins Andrew and Etienne, 4.
“It has many Craftsman features,” she continues. “It has the copper chandelier. The staircase is quite different. I don’t think I’ve ever seen railings like this. They’re all hand made, but not with elaborate carving that you see in
What: Victorian Christmas
Where: Williamsport’s Millionaire’s Row
Phone: (570) 419-4915
Web Site: www.preservationwilliamsport.org
When: November 19-21
some of the Victorian homes. Each spindle is hand-carved, but with nice, simple carvings.”
The 6,000-square-foot, three-story house has twelve-foot ceilings, six bedrooms, and over 100 doors, says Angie.
“The kids are scared to sleep in their own rooms,” she says with laugh. “It’s just because it’s such a big house!”
Visitors to the home tour will also be
treated to features like a “vintage” grand piano, antique upright Edison Victor phonograph, and a nativity set imported from Israel.
Launched in 1999 by three local historic preservationists, Williamsport’s Victorian Christmas has been an important element in the ongoing renaissance of “Millionaire’s Row,” the cluster of late-19th and early 20th century mansions built in the city during the heyday of lumbering in NorthCentral Pennsylvania.
Over the years Victorian Christmas has grown to include events like carriage rides and a Victorian buffet brunch, but the centerpiece
10am–4pm Carriage Rides at Park Place, cost: $5 per person.
10am–4pm 19th Annual Toy Train Expo, Park Place, 800 West Fourth Street, admission: adults $2 children free.
10am–Noon Locomotive Races at Park Place.
10am–4pm Peter Herdic Transportation Museum Open House, admission: free.
remains the house tour, with a “Christmas From Around The World” theme this year, chosen to explore the heritage of the families who lived in the mansions of the city.
For the Wepeners, it’s a wonderful opportunity to present their spectacular home to an appreciative audience.
“We’re not from here, and because of our careers we’ve always moved every three or four years,” Angie says. “I would love to have it forever, but I just know that with my husband’s career it’s probably not possible. So I don’t imagine we’ll be here forever.
“But I would love to pack up the house and take it with me!”
11am–4pm Thomas T. Taber Museum, 858 West Fourth Street, Special Victorian Christmas, admission: $2 adults, children free.
11am–2pm Victorian Soup Luncheon, Trinity Episcopal Church, 844 West Fourth Street, admission: $7.50/person. 11am–2pm Victorian Buffet Le Jeune Chef, Pennsylvania College of Technology, One College Ave, admission: $14.95/person, reservations suggested: 570- 320-2433.
11am-2pm Living Nativity, Park Place, 800 West Fourth Street.
2pm Victorian Tea, Peter Herdic House Restaurant 407 West Fourth Street, admission: $14/person, reservation only, 570-322-0165.
Noon–4pm 19th Annual Toy Train Expo, Park Place, 800 West Fourth Street, admission: adults $2, children free.
Victorian Christmas Abbreviated Schedule of Events
Stopper House owners Verne and Angie Wepener and their three boys Harrison, Andrew, and Etienne
M ARKET P LACE
Shop Around the Corner Lime Berry Delights
By Angela Cannon-Crothers
To experience Lime Berry in Hammondsport, New York, one need only step inside the yard in front of the gallery proper, which features sculpture and seasonal displays of organically grown produce and flowers. But it’s the interior that transports one to bright sunny places; the energy of the Southwest, the mysticism of the Middle East, and a total immersion in fine art and sculpture.
Additional warmth comes in the form of its bright proprietor, Melissa Carroll.
“It’s always been about friends,” says Carroll, who along with her artist husband, Joe, runs the Lime Berry gallery of fine art. Artist Leland Holiday, a half-Navajo half-Apache Native American, has been represented by the couple since 1995, when he was just twenty-one and first starting out.
Holiday’s expressionistic animals and Navajo figures in acrylic on canvas and wood fill the rooms with vibrant, captivating images. Melissa calls his work “a contemporary, fresh Native spirit,” and adds, “he’s like a stepchild to us now.”
Lime Berry also sells hand-knotted and berry-dyed rugs obtained from an Afghanistan refugee family in Pakistan, vintage Navajo rugs, Navajo jewelry, ceramic sculpture, and handmade polished steel furniture, from over twenty different artist “friends” from around the world.
Because the gallery’s owners have only
recently moved to the area, they are still embracing new local clients as they get to know individual artists.
“We have a jewelry maker from just down the lake, a wonderful elderly watercolorist from Penn Yan, and a couple others now,” says Melissa.
Melissa and Joe Carroll, natives of New Jersey and New Orleans, relocated with Lime Berry just two years ago, putting Hammondsport on their list of great places to live and work alongside other spectacular tourist towns like Taos, New Mexico (where they met); Telluride, Colorado; Scottsdale,
Arizona; and Durango, Colorado, where they left in 2008 to make their new home in the picturesque Finger Lakes of New York.
“We are more venturous than ad venturous,” says Melissa, who says they picked Hammondsport not only because of its beauty and quieter charm, but in the hope of being able to take a couple months off each winter instead of working year-round.
And although many of their friends and family out West (as well as a few locals) questioned their move, Melissa says, “we love the Finger Lakes!”
Melissa Carroll brings a personal warmth to the Lime Berry galleries.
Joe Carroll, a painter, whose colorful canvases include the vibrant Buoyancy of Citrus, just inside the door, as well as a photographer and metal sculptor, now adds winemaker to his list of talents.
Lime Berry Vintage Wines were just released in September, featuring local grapes and fruits and bottle designs with artwork from the shop.
“It’s our newest career!” says Melissa, who credits her husband with the wine venture. Lime Berry wines include a Cayuga White, Pinot Noir, Late Harvest Riesling, and Apple Wine, available locally at the Union Block Italian Bistro and the Park Inn restaurant in
Lime Berry Wine is also being sold at fine liquor stores in Corning, Painted Post, Hammondsport,
The Finger Lakes has stirred the couple’s interest in gardening as well. After renovating the circa 1800s
Lime Berry Wine available at:
Park View Wine and Spirits Hammondsport, New York
Finger Lakes Wine & Spirits Bath on Route 54
Fazary’s Liquor Corning, New York
The Liquor Factory, Painted Post, New York
Shop: Lime Berry
Owners: Melissa & Joe Carroll
Address: 64 Shethar St., Hammondsport, NY
Phone: 607-569-3300
Web Site: www.limeberryonline.com
Hours: April through December, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; January through March by appointment
house on Shethar Street into a gallery, studio, and upstairs apartment, the couple purchased land on which to grow an orchard and planted more than 300 apple, peach, and plum trees this past spring.
They also raise organically grown produce and flowers to sell both in front of the shop and at a local farmer’s market.
Lime Berry is a treat for the senses; radiant and powerful, an eclectic place to browse surrounded by distant drumbeats, purple coyotes, and the echo of Middle Eastern markets. It’s also wildly apparent that the Carrolls haven’t left their friends behind— they are surrounded by the inspiring spirits of dear friends every day.
Although it appears the Carrolls aren’t slowing down at all, with the way things are growing it also looks as if this truly “venturous” couple who like the grape vines that tendril here and there until they find a place with the perfect mix of light and soil may have finally put down some roots.
Angela Cannon-Crothers is a freelance writer and outdoor educator living in the Finger Lakes region of New York.
wasn’t the place to which the soldier was referring. The Fishers had just started their program. They’d only had one hunt so far. But Ed invited Catlin to join the second hunt in December 2008 and to bring someone along.
Both Catlin and his buddy harvested a nice Potter County buck that year.
“The success was great,” said Catlin. “It’s good hunting, I won’t lie, but the success of the place what really makes it is the impact on the soldiers.”
“The whole county pools behind that organization to support just you, and it makes an impact far greater than any hunt. I saw a county that was rallied behind what Ed Fisher was doing.”
Catlin said the other wounded warrior hunts in which he’d participated in Maryland and Virginia were limited to the ranch or farm or hunting club that wanted to sponsor the event.
“It’s really admirable they want to do that, but... no, this was far greater,” said Catlin. “We went into Coudersport and Shinglehouse, and people knew what Ed and Lew Fisher were doing.”
In addition to the communitywide support, Catlin said, there’s a camaraderie at L.E.E.K. that’s often lacking elsewhere.
Many of the wounded soldiers are missing limbs.
“People look in shock and awe at the injuries; they can’t take their eyes off,” said
Catlin. “They’re just being real people. They have a genuine heart for this and want to help, but when the actual sight is in front of them, they can’t handle it. It can overwhelm them.”
“There are so many military people at L.E.E.K., they’re not overwhelmed by it,” he said. “They’re treating you as the person you are.”
That fosters a true hunting camp atmosphere, where the injuries recede to the background and the personalities blossom. People harrass each other— hosts and soldiers alike tell off-color jokes, see what braggadoccio they can get away with before they’re called out on it.
“You can just see everybody pulls together,” said Catlin, “Little jokes, picking on somebody…and what I’ve noticed is you feel like a real person at that point.”
“That’s the piece I see every time I go there,” he said.
Catlin is now the official chaplain and videographer for L.E.E.K., and has made the trip up from San Antonio, TX, where he’s now stationed, four times since that first hunt.
Catlin interviews the soldiers at the end of the hunt, and he asks them what their favorite part was, how it affected them.
“Some guys are almost in tears,” he said. “I don’t see that on a lot of those I go to…I do this for warriors all across the nation.”
L.E.E.K. continued from page 10 See L.E.E.K. on page 44
Left to right: Wounded soldiers Brad Garfield, James Foltz, and Josh Kimberly at L.E.E.K.
At L.E.E.K., Catlin said, “Spiritually, emotionally and mentally, you get fully recharged…It’s real therapy.”
Part of that therapy comes with the recognition that even a young man with no legs might soon realize he could get out into the woods, up into a stand and if he was lucky bring home venison.
Since that first hunt he organized for the wounded warriors, Ed and Lew have transformed the camp into a hunting preserve geared specifically for wounded veterans. It is now a 501(c)3 non-profit, and with a donation from ConocoPhillips, the Fishers have renovated another building on the property to be a fully handicapped accessible barracks for wounded warriors.
They’ve expanded the hunting to include spring turkey and fall pheasant. They now include fishing along the Oswayo and in their stocked pond. They also plan to build a larger barracks so soldiers can bring their families if they choose.
Ed wanted to acknowledge the efforts of three individuals Dave Gibble, Ken Martin and Darren Norton who have helped make the summer and fall hunting seasons a success. Gibble volunteered all summer and completed a number of construction projects at L.E.E.K. Martin and Norton coordinate the involvement of land owners and hunting guides for the wounded warrior hunts.
He also says none of it would be possible without the extraordinary people who live in Potter County, the people who extend generous and patriotic hospitality to young men they’ve never met.
“I say thank you, but sometimes I feel that’s inadequate,” says Ed.
Over fifty soldiers have now watched the early morning frost dissipate under the rising sun or waited in the late afternoon dusk for a buck to venture close.
“We don’t tell them what they can’t do they’ve heard that too much,” says Ed. “We’ve had guys who never hunted before, who say ‘I didn’t know I could do this!’”
From the time we evolved opposable thumbs and learned to get our protein the active way, joining the hunt has been a rite of passage into the tribe, into the privileges and responsibilities of adulthood, into the mysteries of death and life.
For wounded warriors in Potter County it’s a rite of passage back into a normal life.
Facilitating that is incredibly fulfilling, says Ed.
“I feel good when I give back,” he said. “I love helping them, but it also helps me.”
Sharing his father’s dream with young men challenged like his father was to build a normal life despite loss of limb, makes the camp in God’s Country a continuation of his legacy and spirit.
“It’s all about moments in life,” he said, “doing something for somebody else.”
Potter County native Donald Gilliland is a reporter for the Harrisburg Patriot-News. This is his first article for Mountain Home L.E.E.K.
