All That Whirls Around Me

So. It's gonna be a very unconventional Thanksgiving for me this year. Bill and I are packing up and headed north and from the looks of the up coming weather, we'll be towing our kayaks behind us. Time to get away from work, and everything that is whirling around me. So many good things to look forward to! Kathy Yassas, and Rosemary Tenney, two pillars of the Sherburne community and bless their ever loving hearts, have been working tirelessly to save the Sherburne Inn by organizing a board of directors, developing a website and also looking into historical grants. It's just a beautiful thing to see the community come together to save the heart of downtown Sherburne. After a two year hiatus from Skyway days, I'm back in the saddle, helping a good friend of my daughter organize a show to benefit the Earlville Opera House and the food cupboard of Earlville. Sean Nevison is the brain behind this event which is in its third year called Treasures In The Heart of New York. Local musicians donate their mp3's and all CD's sold go to the local food cupboards. He has raised over 4 grand…which is commendable I think, in this rough economy. A good cause. So the show is tentatively planned for May 4th. I'll be performing a half hour slot with Rabbit In The Rye and a few other bands I'm not quite sure of yet. Looking forward. It's been many years since I played on the old historic stage of the Earlville Opera House. All summer and every Wednesday I've been recording with my dear friend Steven Skollar in the studio of Rich Grant another great friend. These two have been so near and dear to my heart helping me deal with the fact I have a kid dressed in an orange jumpsuit at the Madison County jail. Steve has graciously allowed me to use the painting he has been working on all summer of a toy cowboy which is totally amazing! Just last night I emailed him about writing a song about a cowboy to kind of tie the CD together and he did just that! I woke this morning to find a rough draft of a song called Toy Cowboy and I was floored by the raw emotion the song made me feel. Wow! So my 7th CD, "Wednesday's Riches" will be ready when it will! Hopefully I can get Steve back from New York's clutch back to record before spring…but if not, then the CD will be released in the spring. And lastly…Nick will be busted out on December 23rd to begin his new life. Nick for Christmas. This will be the best Christmas ever.

Unity Hall, Barneveld NY

Erie day here in Sunny South Hamilton...reminds me of the book I read years ago. The Mists Of Avalon. I guess I'm sitting in the preliminary fog of Hurricane Sandy. We're ready. Bill rigged up the electrical work to be able to plug the generator in to our hot water heater, furnace, refrigerator and what not which kinda takes the fun out of being with out electricity! I think I'd rather rough it than to listen to loud obnoxious motor of our gassy generator. Irene left us for 6 days with out power but I fared well with a wood stove and Reverend Ross's old hand pump up the road for water. We've got lamp oil and wood shed full of wood and plenty of food. Bring on Sandy! September 20th I opened for the Jeremy Wallace Trio at Unity Hall in Barneveld. What a gem of a place! With updates of electricity and kitchen appliances down stairs, the place is pretty much the same as it was when it was built back in the 1800's. A small rounded stage with the old foot lights in the floor, kerosene chandelier hanging down from an arched ceiling that warmly lit the wooded walls from trees I'm sure that were cut from the forest of the Adirondack Park right up the road. It was a long day, working the breakfast shift at the Bipolar Hotel aka The Colgate Inn then hanging around home not really being able to get into anything waiting to load up and head to the gig. I played a fine set which was very well received and met some pretty interesting folks!

Hamilton's Great Chocolate Train Wreck Festival

Though a little chilly, the heavy gray clouds held back the rain and gifted us with hints of blue skies over some beautiful, autumn turned, golden trees of the village green. All in all, I'd say The Great Chocolate Train Wreck Festival in Hamilton was a smashing success! I had a great day performing with Steve Skollar, and enjoyed listening to the music of Dove Creek, Bill Staines, Tracy Grammer and Bill Harley. To see the park filled with booths selling just about everything under the central New York sun and happy faces young and old is the most wonderful thing about this close knit community. And, I got to finally meet a pen pal relative from my mother's side along with his wonderful family who traveled down from the Syracuse area and dined us at Nichols And Beal. Here are some shots.

Some Crazy Dutch Woman Stories

I've had some really nice quality time at home as summer winds down. I've turned the ten year kitchen upside down in a clean-a-thon and painted it gypsy gold yellow. Its amazing what a coat of paint can do for your spirits. Nick is trudging through his most humbling time and will come home December 24th at midnight. I can't wait to get him out. One high light of late are a few emails I received from a long lost relative on my mother's side of the family. Sweet little glimpses into my dutch Oma's past I vaguely remember but somehow completely know. Hi Pamme, "Ha Tee Wa" I too recall your Grandmother, Bertha, often boiling water for tea. Related to her tea brewing, my maternal grandmother, Adrianna, was a compulsive tea brewer. After Grandmother's tea kettle, which never contained tea -- only water -- reached the interior temperature of the Sun, a towel would be wrapped around the teapot handle to enable pouring of the super-heated water into tea cups. After long steeping and extended tea bag bobbing and stirring and adding of milk and stirring and sugar and stirring, Grandmother would lift the tea cup off the saucer to sort of spill the tea from the cup into the saucer. The tea-filled saucer was then lifted to her lips, and the tea sipped from the edge of the saucer. This part of the tea ritual involved much noisy slurping. My Mother, Wilma, did the same, but only when in Grandma's company. I recall asking my Mother about the why of that seemingly strange tea ritual. Her very practical answer was that the tea cooled to a drinkable temperature sooner when spilled off to the saucer. Hi Pamme, Another Crazy Dutch Woman story: A friend received a very expensive meerschaum smoking pipe as a gift. The pipe was manufactured in Holland and was accompanied by a several page document printed in Dutch. I stupidly volunteered to have the document translated by an aunt. My Mother could speak and understand spoken Dutch, but she could not read or write in that language. The older aunts could, of course, read and write in Dutch. So, on a later trip to Honesdale, we collected my Aunt Jane and took her to my Mother’s home. We set-up Aunt Jane at the kitchen table with tea (what else?) and goodies and gave her the several page pipe document. I sat with pen and pad awaiting the spoken translation, poised to write down Aunt Jane's every word. Aunt Jane silently read the document for several minutes, while my Mother, my wife and I watched in reverent, you-could-hear-a-pin-drop silence. Aunt Jane then pronounced that the several page document said that, “this is a very good pipe.” That was it. “This is a very good pipe.” Aunt Jane then put the document down, and proceeded to drink her tea. My wife, of course, thought this was very funny. Trust me! Ann will N-E-V-E-R let me forget the incident! Thank you long almost lost relative I so look forward to meeting you!

I've been to at least 10 John Prine shows over the course of the last ten years. So I guess this story begins at Val's house on the Joyce farm and Dill Hill. Valerie Joyce's older sister, Katie was in love with a back woods homesteading hippy by the name of Ben Dill who, some how got transplanted along with his sister Thelma, her partner Eddie and their two children and Ben's younger brother Andy from Maine. Thelma and Eddie lived in a small electric-less house up a tractor path over timothy meadow rise on Dill Hill and Ben built himself a cabin down a wooded path further in the woods next to a sweet little brook in the hills between Sherburne and New Berlin and next door to Pat Joyce's farm. How Ben and Katie met I have no idea but any gal who met up with Ben Dill was smitten with his long, soft brown, wavy shoulder length hair, corn blue eyes, a body to die for and that unmistakeable Maine accent. Pat Joyce, Valerie and Katie's father, not wanting his daughter to run off with a back wood homesteader from the state of Maine struck up a deal with Ben employing him to build a house in which he and Katie could live while Ben ran a green house business Pat had always dreamed about. While Ben was hard at work building his and Katie's starter dream home. Pat a devious lawyer himself, cunningly bribed his daughter Katy into theater school as Katie's second love to Ben was singing and acting. So off Katie went on her father's wing and a prayer leaving poor Ben heartbroken and the multi layered, tarpapered hippy house got passed down to Valerie. Oh and I think Katie got a nose job as part of the stay away from Ben deal. We had many great parties at Val's house when Val lived there for a short time with her first husband she met in Florida by the name of Cozmo. I always wondered why Pat never lured Valerie away from this Floridian as Coz was...well a little cheating f--ker! Valerie and Cozmo ended their marriage after a short stint and after Val found out just who he was cheating with and a few years later Pat sold the property with the farm and Val's house and moved back to his beloved homeland of Ireland. Somehow my first husband, Stephen Roe and I got invited to a party at Val's house to meet the new people who had bought the farm. It was probably through Stephen Joyce, Katie and Val's older brother as he still owned his property up the road from the farm. The farm sat at the end of a dead end dirt road and holds a very special place in many people's heart. The Joyce family had a large victorian on East Main Street in Sherburne. I remember it was the night before my birthday, May 18th, I was baby sitting next door and saw an orange glow in the sky over Sherburne and learned quickly the house we used to play house tag in as the house was huge and had two stair cases was none other than the Joyce house. It had not burned to the ground but was well burned black and gutted. Pat then decided to move his family to the country and bought the farm. One lucky day I was hanging out with Valerie and her father took us out to the farm he had just bought and while carefully picking our way through the rotting boards of what was once the chicken coup, Pat said,"So how do you like your new home Val!" In a million years would anyone ever believe a man could take a run down and forgotten farm and turn it into the most magical place with a singing brook covered by a wooden bridge one would have to pass over to get to the front door of the house. The farm was beautiful! Many, many fine times we had as teenagers sneaking out Val's bedroom window to run away if only for a few hours, up the wooded dirt road to Stephen's house to meet the fella's and party. Many, capture the flag games, many dinners and picnics and many guitar jams. I would go back to that time in a heartbeat to catch the random crazy teenage magic that once surrounded us there. So we met the new owners Mitch and Jesses Drosin and their two children Christopher aka pie boy and his sister Corine. Both pie boy and Corine were the same ages as Aurora and Nick. So they pretty much grew up together. While at the party in making small talk, Stephen asked Mitchel what he did for a living and Mitchel stated that he was a tour manager for someone we probably never heard off and when Stephen asked who and John Prine was the answer...we were floored being huge John Prine fans. So lucky me has been to at least 10 shows over the years.I think the first show was when he was promoting his "Lost Dogs Mixed Blessings" CD and had a full band and tour bus. I got to party with the band on the bus and do everything roadies do! It was awesome! Having a full band proved to be very costly so John downsized to just two band members. On some of his smaller shows and in my second marriage to Bill, we taxied John and his band mates from the airport to hotel and hotel to venue. I remember being the food runner many times for John and hung out many times with him and the gang in hotels after his show. I met Chip Taylor one night as he was an opener for and John but probably my fondest memory was driving John in our large gray conversion van in a blizzard from Syracuse to Buffalo. Last Saturday night after John's show at the Palace Theatre in Albany NY and lucky again with back stage passes thanks to Mitchel Drosin, my daughter Aurora and her friend Sean, Bill and I got to meet again this most incredible song writer. I had but one question for John and that was if her remembered that long snowy ride...and he said...How could I ever forget a New York blizzard. Just like how could you forget a song by a man named John Prine.

All Family-ed Out

Busy weekend and I'm all family-ed out! Saturday we traveled to my old childhood stomping grounds for my father's oldest brother's birthday. Uncle cowboy Ken has reached the age of 80! The party was at my cousin Nikki's house right up the road on Swan Hill where I lived until I was 12. It's always so melancholy to visit the grounds and woods I used to roam so freely. My Aunt Loretta and Uncle Ken and Uncle Bill for the

last two years have been pouring over the old slides that my grandfather had taken over the years. What a photographer gramps was! Luckily when the house burned down the box of slides were the only thing salvaged. So I now have a DVD of hundreds of shots from my Swan family! Priceless! Sunday was the reunion on Lake Lorraine at the cozy yellow cottage my Aunt Ro owns. Not the best turn out but great food and the people I love the most were there. I learned that my mother's father, my grandfather Nick, helped my Uncle Milton in the construction of the camp and then died soon after and never really got the chance to enjoy it. Aunt Ro had a few great stories about my Oma. When ever Oma came to the cottage and turned in on the road that surrounds the lake, she would beep the horn on her tan volkswagon three times informing Aunt Ro she was here and to put tea water on! Once on a return trip to her home on Ridge Street in Honesdale, Oma was cruising along and kept seeing full cans of beer on the side of the road. A beer truck had lost several cases off the back of his truck and Oma and her little dog Pepi, picked up every can. By the time they got back to Honesdale, the back seat of her car was filled with beer cans! Oh Oma! She was something! Aunt Ro said as long as she had a vase of flowers on the table and a pork chop and a cup of tea. She was happy. My last memory of Oma was of her sitting at the kitchen table in the house on Foote Hill Road. I was about sixteen at the time and taking an interest in family history. Grandpa Nick died when I was like two so I never knew him but have a strange memory of the day he died as we were there. I guess I kept running through the hedgerow into the neighbors yard and he kept running over to retrieve me. He died of a heart attack in front of the kitchen stove. My mother would sometimes tell me that her mother and father didn't always get along that great. Oma had a hard life. She was the oldest of many siblings. I'm not sure how many, and worked on the boat her father worked on saving money to be able to get the rest of the family over to America as the nazi's were doing some pretty horrible stuff. Oma got all her family over safely then married Jacob and had a baby. Sadly both the baby and Jacob died and she ended up with Jacob's brother, Nicholas. And I think I have problems! So I'm quizzing my Oma at the kitchen table wanting to know more about Nick and she answered in a soft and quiet voice in english and as she went on about him her voice got louder and louder cursing out Nick in full blown Dutch! It was pretty funny actually. I wish I had more time with Oma. She was an incredibly strong willed woman as both my grandmothers were and both extremely beautiful! I wish I learned to speak Dutch. I remember when I was a little girl I was alway saying a word that sounded like this. Ha-Tee-Wa over and over and my mother never knew what I was saying. Years later it dawned on me seeping myself a teabag. I was saying Hot Tea Water. As my Oma was always putting on the water for tea.

The Old Brown Homestead

After recording the Crackle radio show and since we were in Bill's family's neck of the woods we went exploring to find the farm Bill's grandparents had back in the 40's and 50's. We found it! A lovely and well maintained farm on Rose Brook Road. I was in awe of this fairy farm heaven tucked away on the edge of the Catskill mountains. I got a head full of stories as Bill recalled playing basketball in the huge attic of the two family home. Of his grandmother picking mushrooms in the field across the road from the house and how her husband marveled at the fact that no one got sick and died eating the mushrooms as his wife, Katherine knew nothing about them. Bill remembers many summers where they hayed the fields with horse drawn carriages and fishing from a bridge not far down a corderoy road. Those were the days. And now here I am blogging about two people who lived off the land nearly 80 years later. Two people I've never met who have inspired me in the life they lived as told by their grandson, my husband Bill. I'm sure they never would of dreamed in a million years that pictures of their farming hay day would be viewed in cyber-space. Their names, proof they lived, carved on the tombstone of their joint grave.