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About Sandy post. (Sandy, Oregon) 1938-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 21, 1972)
8 - SANDY (Or».I POST Thurs D k 21, 1972 (Sac 1) Huckleberry discussion set - ; - - K IV E fV S ; By EDGE G eorge M acA levy Christmas is often a time to rem inisce. In N orthw estern P ennsylvania, n early every Christmas is a white Christ- mas We lived on the banks of the Allegheny riv e r which is variable in width from V* to V« mile wide in its middle 100 mile section. By Christmas, the river would be frozen over except for a lead twentv to thirty feet wide three forths of the way across where the mam channel ran If vou got new ice &* alesfor Chnstmas, you had a P|ace ,0 trY 'h em out River ice never smooth The little * ,nd "PP1« « « ’med to always be frozen right in the surface we couldn t skate too fast and harder work than it should be, but it was fun Many winter mornings would he thermometer sit ting o n - 25 degrees at dawn Snow was usuall-v deeP Chnstmas. and *f new sn° * had faller durin« th^ ™«ht. a favorite Pastime was reading the story <7x?e're hoping the holiday brings you many joys shared with loved ones. It has been a pleasure to serve you. D A N N Y T. STANDLEY District Representative 3115 N.E. 103rd Place Portland, Oregon 97220 Telephone 254 8290 Aid Association for Lutherans Appleton,Wis.Fratemaiife Insurance Life • Health • Retirement I < told by the animal and bird tracks in the snow. The woods, too, were close at hand, cloth ing the sloping ndge behind the house This was the home of white tail deer, ruffed grouse, co tto n tail ra b b its , snowshoe hares, and assorted squirrels The night an im a ls were p revalen t also; raccoons, o possums, and skunks White pines and Canadian hemlocks occurred here and there in small patches to break up the monotony of the bare winter hardwood forest These evergreen boughs, laden with snow, gave a Christmas card appearance to the woods A secondary road invaded the valley at this point, dead ending at the n v e r in the center of the little community. If you came in on this road, there was no place to go except back out over the ridge These secondary roads got plowed occasionally but never sanded Every car wore tire chains all winter By the same token, every road became a bob-sled run. as every road in that part of Penn sylvania is constantly busy going up and down hill and around curves. There isn’t much that is level there until you get a little further west onto what is called the Allegheny p la te a u . The A llegheny mountains aren't high They are mostly a senes of ridges running North and South and are steep sided and closely packed together This makes any road traversing these steep sided ridges a very interesting bob-sled run There was always bob-sledding at Chnstmas. and the whole fam ily participated Some of the farms had horse drawn bob sleds for all the winter hauling when the snow got toe deep for the wheeled wagons and trucks One of the more prosperous farmers who lived on the plateau even had a cutter Perhaps I should ex plain A cutter is a one horse sleigh built for two. It is a light weight very graceful looking sleigh With a good horse, cutters could cover the ground rapidly. It was the custom to use sleigh bells on the har nesses of horses pulling sleds of any sort. A winter hay ride on a big bob-sled was a popular party event with young rural couples I used to envy them when they went by with the sleigh bells jingling, the horses blowing great clouds of steam from their nostrils, and the young people waving Alas, 1 never made that scene - By the tim e my squiring days arrived, the bob-sleds were rotting away in some neglected comer of the b a m . the horses were gone Drums of gasoline and cans of oil sat where the oat bin once stood The Fordsons, the John Deeres, and the Farm alls had taken over No more are there sleighbells on the roads or on the moonlit w in te r fields to announce Christmas is here The first cold snap and the acccom panying heavy snow sufficed to remove the last patches of old brown bark from the sycamores, leaving the trunks and limbs smoothly white This darkened evenly as winter progressed Against a winter sky the pale tracery of sycamore was accented by the still hanging seed balls The sycamores grew well only near the river From a vantage point by our giant sycamore, one could look out over the river to the open channel in the ice. The fngid N or’easters hit New England in December and drove inland our annual winter visitors from the coast The Old Squaw sea ducks seemed always to be Christmas visitors on the Allegheny On the ice shelf at the edge of the open lead they would be sitting in long rows, talking to each other. Do these ducks talk' The Old Squaw is undoubtedly the noisiest species of all the ducks The ornithological name is clangula clangula. and. believe me. they sure can clang The drakes are mostly white with some black accents Their most conspicuous feature is the three long tail feathers which curve downward Even though a very handsome bird, they are not hunted as they are too fishy to be edible Many things were shipped in wooden boxes ra th e r than cardboard in that time These boxes, sturdily constructed of good wood, would often be used by distant relatives or friends for shipping Christmas gifts These boxes were jus, like an aditional gif, to a boy This was real wood, the v e ry stuff needed to make a Go-devil. Did you ever make or ride a Go- deviH They are probably on the way back to popularity now, considering a ll the other contraptions that are being offered for sale to slide on the snow A Go-devil consists of a single runner with a post on it. Across the top of the post is a board to use as a sea, We would shape a runner out of the thickest piece of wood and chiiel a groove on the running surface Then we would bend a length of iron rod around the groove and staple it where it came up over the ends of the runner There always were a few odds and ends of iron rod about a farm Once a Go-devil is made, you ride down hill on it At leas, you rode it while i, was running upright which was usually just until you hit the first bump Then the Go-devil slewed out in one d irection w hile you spraw led in the snow in another The only Christmas greens anybody bought was a spng of M is tle to e . H o lly was not available outside the larger cities then We collected ground pme in the woods and made wreaths of it. We never knew Christmas trees were sold E verybody in our country village went to the woods and cut either a white pine of a hemlock Nobody had tu rk e y for Clinstmas, that was a specialty reserved s tric tly for T h an ksg ivin g Ducks were reserved fo r New Y ears Several big roasting chickens provided the Christmas fowl All the traditional Christmas foods were prepared in ad vance There were fruit cakes light and dark, light and dark, plum pudding and c u rra n t pudding; Dozens of kinds of Christinas cookies, hickory nut bread; black walnut cake, mince meat pies; and cider in all its forms, hot and spicy, cold and sweet, and hard There was always a big thick ten pound bar of milk chocolate so hard it took an ice pick and a hammer to break off a piece Hard rocx candy was the only other purchased sweet But there was fudge, penuchi, d iv in ity , fondant in several colors and flavors, and candied orange peel There was the usual nut bowl with the assorted nuts that could be cracked with a nut c ra c k e r. T h e re was also another bowl of nuts, black w alnuts and hickory nuts, accompanied by a hammer and a sad iron. To eat these nuts, you needed a good hammer and a solid sad iron for an anvil to crack them Then, when all else had stuffed you to a surfeit, there was the bowl of apples and pears C risp cold B aldw in apples that had been just brought in from the back yard where they lay under a great pile of straw and snow In the e a rly fa ll they had been carefully layered there in the straw, and then covered with more straw Between the straw and the snow, the extreme cold was insulated away from the center of the pile, so the apples never froze The p ears, they were Kiefers, that hard Oriental pear They were picked in the early fall, still green and hard Each one was c a re fu lly wrapped in paper and laid out on a shelf in the stone cellar. Chnstmas was the tim e to eat the first of these treasures Yes, there must have been a few hardships too, but 1 can't remember them 1 just recall the good things about those Chnstmases past A public meeting on the Huckleberry Planning Unit will be held Jan », 7 30-11 30 p.m at Dexter McCarty School, 1400 SE 5th. Gresham, announced Mt Hood N a tio n a l F orest Supervisor. Wnghl Mallery The purpose of the meeting will be to: Present the basic land suitabilities as developed by the Forest M u lti-D is c ip lin e Team from field inventory, Review the public inputs involvement, wa cannot gel the neceaaary direction to take us y t fff K received to date; Discuss the m anagem ent assumptions, which are the forerunners to the management objectives which are the criteria by which alternatives are developed; Involve meeting participants directly in the testing of the validity of the management assumptions "We encourage people in terested in the management of this 32,000 acre unit to come to to the next step of prepari management alternative! ” f r t f f f c r r r [--*■*■*■* • May holiday blessings !• V . Many thanks for being i able to brighten \i-r i >■ your tree >i>U the meeting and be prepared to participate in the testing of these assu m p tio n s," said Mallery "For without this ooo MORE CONFUSION The Republican party ac tually was the original name of the Democratic party, founded by Thomas Jefferson In 1824 it split into two opposing groups the National Republicans and the Democratic-Republicans, later called simply Democrats o oo FROM ALL OF US AT GRESHAM COOPERATIVE 325 Nf. 242nd Drive Gresham 665-9151 N EED O F F IC E HELP*? CHECK T H E C LA SSIFIEDS C H filS TiilflS B L E S S IN G S COay the spirit of Christmas enrich your life and bring you joy and love. . . today and always. i • » N il '* r m *. * « A IR M A N F IR S T class Ruddy Simpson com pleted basic training Sept 28 at Lackland Air Force Rase In Texas. He has since been at tending electronics school at Keesler Air Force base in Mississippi Simpson and his wife are graduates of Sandy High, and will be living in Mississippi Simpson is the son of Mrs. Esta Simpson, and Scott Simpson, of Welches OLDEST NYC B U ILD IN G Fraunces Tavern, famous as the site of General George Washington s farewell to his officers at the close of the R evolutio n ary W a r. is the oldest building still standing in Manhattan Front th e S ta ff o f U.S. N atio n al Bank Pow ell At Hood G resham 665-11"7! M oy the holidays shine brightly with good cheer, good health, and good fortune for all our wonderful friends and patronsl As we gather with our loved on»' around the Christmas tree, we II be thinking of you and wishing you the very best! NEW YEAR S EVE PARTY (RESERVATIONS ONLY!) CHRISTMAS DAY HOURS 11:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. BOWMAN'S Hood Land's Most Scenic Spot, oM Mt. Hood Highway, 17 m ila i east of Sandy MT. HOOD GOLF CLUB AT WEMME, OREGON Phone Wemme 622*3101 or Portland 224-7158
