Looking Back : The Old School

Does anyone here remember the old District 4, one-room school that used to be on the Five Mile Road outside the town of Allegany?

Does anyone here happen to have (in the bottom of the Cambell's soup box in the attic where the old photos are kept) a, or more photograph of the building? Should anyone have such a treasure, would you please share it with me? I was in the First Grade in 1947, so was an alumni of the last class to attend that school.

I'm pretty sure the "memories" I have of the school are products of things my mother told me later, or overhearing conversations about "when we lived on the farm." (McClure Hollow.) I not only remember but I am certain-sure that the year in that one-room-school was my happiest educational experience until I got to college MANY years later.

The only picture I have is the one they ran in the newspaper when the building was being disassembled for transport to Long Island. I remember NO names from back then, not kids, not teachers, not nothing. But I do remember (vaguely) that us kids would find pieces of tombstones, I have no idea what kind of stone it was, but it was white and had sparkles and us kids prospected for them like gold nuggets.

I also do remember, in winter, at recess we'd go "skating" on the frozen creek (crik?) No skates of course, just sliding on the ice wearing our boots (can you imagine the law-suits today?) I do hope someone can/will help me reclaim those memories with a photo(s?)

Thanks, Tom Kinnaird, Florence, South Carolina (where it is 54 degrees on February First.)

Looking Back : Order and the Law

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You Inna Heap a Trouble Boy

Jes'a good ol' boy
Never meanin' no harm.
Beats all you never saw
Been in trouble with the law
Since the day I waz born

Yeah! That would be me!

Well, okay, so I’ve only tangled with the Forces of Law and Order twice in my whole life, but that’s quite sufficient, thankyoueversomuchhaveaniceday!

The second time I ran afoul of the law was far, far from Olean, it happened in a city in Southern California. I was a young Marine, and a loud-mouthed Swab-Jockey (A “Swab-Jockey” is an obsolete term of disrespect, referring to a lower-ranking enlisted slob in the United States Navy.) This loud, obstreperous, foul-mouthed, clod, with his bell-bottom trousers, and buttons of shiny brass made very loud and demeaning, insulting remarks about the young lady I was with.

I remember the charges were: “Drunk, disorderly, assault and battery.” Which is nothing but a foul LIE, I was NOT drunk! (But it still earned me a night as a guest of the taxpaying citizens—if there are such—of Long Beach California, AND cost me a stripe.) Crime not only does not pay, it’s down-right EXPENSIVE!

But the FIRST time I found myself in a revolting development with The Law, it most certainly did involve the LEOs (Law Enforcement Officers) of Olean, New York!

Read on for the rest of the story....

Looking Back : Olean Memorabilia

From Rick Jenks (of Pickup's fame) via the Olean email grapevine...

 Hi, everybody, I've just put a bunch of Olean memorabilia on a website: old matchbook covers, postcards, 1954 Olean Sesquicentennial items, etc.    Take a trip down memory lane! 

Visit:
Olean memorabilia

Rick
Rickjenk@aol.com

Looking Back : Time Enough For Tea

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TEA TIME
Makin' my way,
The only way I know how,
But that's just a little bit more than the law will allow.

“I never done it officer, ‘n if’n ya let me go this time, I swear I’ll never do it again!”

Yeah—I’m breaking laws, smashing icons, and p**ing on The American Idle—I mean “Idol!” (BULL Doo-Doo! The REAL American Idol is sitting in a hole in the Iraqi desert eating an MRE!)

But anyway---I have decided to laugh in the face of danger, disregard what the “experts” say, and even (GASP!) DEFY THE FDA!

I have found a source, and from them I have ordered a full pound of SASSAFRAS ROOT!

I intend for to make me some SASSAFRAS TEA!

When I was a lad, sassafras tea was administered as a Spring Tonic, and, along with the cod-liver oil....(read on)

Looking Back : Reminiscing - Signs of spring.

Reminiscing

First signs of Spring.

For many, it is the Robin redbreast for others it may be the first Crocus, Jonquil or Daffodil. For my family, and me it was the first trip to collect the bounty of edible plants that grew in the area– Marsh marigold, Cattail, Dandelions, and Fiddlehead ferns.

I remember as if it was yesterday, Marie calling on my mother and discussing when it was the right time to go. Marie had to set her schedule up a couple weeks ahead, she was a nurse who worked for St. Francis Hospital – nights. She was a good friend of my mother. Always walking her collie during the afternoons, she had kind gentle words for me.

Once the day of the trip would arrive, we would pack up intending on spending the entire day. I was always puzzled of where we would go, it was swampy and the creek was nearby several feet below the wetlands. It took me a several years to discover that the area we would hunt in was along “Tuna” creek between Limestone and the Junction. We come home, wet and muddy, but happy with the bags of produce we had. If I was lucky, I would bring home a newt or two. Once in awhile, I even caught a trout.

I was reading the postings by another fellow, he wrote of walking North of 21st Street. I use to walk west and South of 20th Street carrying my Marlin bolt-action .22 cal rifle. That was over 40years ago. I didn’t come to understand my dad’s insistance on the bolt-action till later in life. I was able to use .22 shorts for the hunts. There were times when I would simply use a throwing stick or a slingshot for the hunts. Any game that I could bring home was always used. These days, I would be arrested for trespass or hunting without license. Times do change, but the memories remain.

Regards
P.Faulkner

Looking Back : Battle Stations!

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The way I’m “finding my way” around an Olean that’s been gone for fifty years, is to use that Google “Earth” program. In Olean I can come so close that I can read the label on a discarded beer-can in a vacant lot.

So, I use Google, combined with memory, aided by a bit of imagination.

The problem with the Google satellite-view of The Ol’ Home Town is, there are HUGE buildings with larger parking lots where there should be a vacant lot. Or there will be vacant lots where there should be houses. There are roads and streets where no road or street has ever gone before. There are ponds where there should be hills.

Tom Wolfe became rich and famous when he wrote: “You can’t go home again!” Well! The REASON you can’t go home again, is because IT AIN’T THERE NO MORE!

That’s where memory and imagination come in. I have to use my memory so I know what “should” be there, and then my imagination to picture it as it was “when.”

My big fear with “Looking Back” like this, is that I’ll fall into the trap described by Mark Twain, who said: "When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it."

I find all I need do is remember that I’m writing about Olean, to people who live in Olean, and that helps me keep one foot firmly on another Mark Twain quote. "Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish."

I could write with pure, free, wild imagination, being pretty sure you don’t know ME, but I daren’t take the chance that you might be very familiar with the fish!

I believe, when learning to write the essay, this is called the “WHOA! BACK!” factor. (If not, it should be.)

Earlier this evening I was thinking I wanted to tell you of the West Washington Street Flotilla. But the tale kind of hinges around a building supply and lumber company that used to be on West Washington.

For more read on....

Looking Back : It's What's For Dinner

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As a child my family's menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it. ~Buddy Hackett

One of the blessings of Cattaraugus County in New York State is that it has an abundance of skunk cabbage.

Now, I know that skunk cabbage is considered a noxious-smelling weed. To the best of my knowledge it’s inedible. It certainly isn’t what you’d call “decorative,” but skunk cabbage has a unique place in the hierarchy of Western New York herbology.

Skunk cabbage is a sign! A signifier! A herald!

Cutting across the cow-yard, with the last of the winter snow melting and turning dingy brown, we would see the green tips of skunk cabbage peeking through the muddy white mess.

When the skunk cabbage appeared, that meant the delicious wild cowslips (marsh marigold) were close behind.

Cowslip salads! Fresh-picked cowslips blanched by pouring hot, home-cured bacon grease over them and served with fresh-baked corn bread! Cowslips simmered all morning with ham-hocks or bacon (Donated by Pansy the Pig).

At about the same time as the cowslips appeared, in the marshy areas, the delicious, nutritious, delicacy we called “leeks” suddenly abounded. Volunteer Fire Departments, VFW Posts, Societies, Organizations, Clubs, all began the annual ritual of the “Ham & Leek Dinner!”


Read on....

Looking Back : Perseverance

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Living on a hard-scrabble farm in McClure Hollow, up the Five Mile Road back in the Forties and early Fifties, as winter wore on, fresh vegetables, especially greens, became more and more of a memory (almost a myth really.) Us kids didn’t have to be told to: “eat your greens!” By February and March we were starved for greens.

Now, make no mistake The A&P in Olean had displays of green veggies for sale. There where plenty of greens and other vegetables we could buy in the stores in Olean. We weren’t really in danger of contracting scurvy, pellagra or rickets, BUT! To buy this green scrumptiousness, the stores expected us to pay money. So, the first sign of cowslips, leeks, burdock, or anything else that was green and edible, and FREE was cause for celebration.

The Great Depression had been declared over and done with quite some time before, but in the farming community around Olean that would have surprised a lot of folks. And, it seemed that in Olean itself, about once a month THIS plant or THAT plant was out on strike.

So, while the Great Depression was officially just a historical item, economically an financially there were a lot of people who were just as broke now, as they where when we had a Great Depression to blame hard times on.

Something I’d like to make note of about folks back then in the hills and hollows of Cattaraugus and Alleghany Counties (Folks I knew and was familiar with.) “Poverty” was something that happened in places like India and China. “Poverty” did not exist in America, and it most certainly did not happen where “we” lived.

For the rest of the story....

Looking Back : Manifest Destiny

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Most everybody knows the 630 foot steel arch in St. Louis Missouri celebrates Saint Louie as “The Gateway To The West!”

Well! Would you think I’m hitting the old Genesee Cream Ale a bit too hard If I suggested there really should be a duplicate arch in Olean, New York? In fact, Olean would be justified if, at the base of the arch, on the ornate plaque proclaiming “Olean New York, Gateway to the West,” It read instead; “Olean New York. The FIRST Gateway to the West!”

Yeah! Olean! The First Gateway to the West! We’re Number One! We’re Number One!

In 1804, when Major Hoop became the big land-owner in our part of Western New York, (20,000 acres—over 31 square miles) the big attraction for having and holding the property, was Olean Point. Maj. Hoop had dreams of Olean being a center of trade and commerce.

For the rest of the story....

Looking Back : Pepsi, Coke and a Nickel Difference

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Pickup's was an icon of the Olean of our childhoods. You can read its early history here.. to learn how Estes Pickup outfoxed the mob and the diner "landed" on N Union St. Here is another great contribution by Rick Jenks, OHS ‘59, son of one of the owner of Pickups


If you plotted a circle with a 75-yard radius, its center in the middle of the North Union Street crosswalk from Montgomery Ward’s to Sun Drug, you’d find the front doors of three teen hang-outs within it. “Paul’s” served Coca-Cola and so did “the Crystal”; “Pickup’s” had Pepsi. Each place had its resident personalities: Mr. Georgantas at the Crystal, Paul (of Paul’s) Psathis, and Freddie Jenks and “Duge” Pickup at Pickup’s. Paul’s had Mazey waitressing versus Big Barb at Pickup’s. Mrs. Georgantas quietly worked the kitchen and made chocolates, doing the behind-the-scene work at the “Crystal Confectionary”.

I recall the rush felt when I first entered Paul’s. I was in eighth grade and had just been dropped off at Jaekle’s downtown stable (behind Jo-Jo’s Café) from a hayride. I had a “date”, too. She was only in seventh grade, but was known as a great kisser. I don’t recall that I had the courage to find out. Walking into Paul’s and easing into a booth was a rite of passage, a visible statement that you were, in your own mind, as cool as a high-schooler. Briefly.

For the next three years, I was found at the Crystal or at Paul’s, after school and early evenings. It was where you lined up rides to Cuba Lake Pavilion, got the freshest gossip or discussed why Regina Corrigan wouldn’t permit one word to be uttered about ‘evolution’ in her biology class. It’s where romances began, bloomed and ended (usually theatrically) for all to witness. Nobody alive remembers the food, but many remember the places. A few of us remember how teenagers “discovered” the “Crystal”.

Read on....