In His Own Words
Old Days in New Field
I
attended Newfield High School from 1936 to 1939, the year that I graduated
and that was the last class to graduate from the old wooden school on Bank
Street. The following year I took a post graduate course in the new brick
school that is now situated on Main Street and we can thank FDR for that
building. Of course there have been several additions and improvements
over the years. One improvement was a new larger septic system and the
company I worked for delivered the filter sand for the septic system. But
the sand failed to work properly and our company was summened to court for
supplying inferior filter sand, I had no problem proving by my records
that we only delivered the sand that the general contractor had loaded in
our trucks. We only delivered the sand, we did not supply it so we did not
have to go to court and we didn't even need to have a lawyer and my boss
was very pleased with the way I handled the whole matter.
Lets
go back to the old school in 1939. In those depression years Newfield High
School was short of money so the teachers were low paid. This meant that
many teachers moved on to better paying jobs so Newfield wound up with a
lot or young teachers fresh out or college. Miss Howard was one or these
in 1939 and she was my senior year English teacher and near the end or the
semester a girl student asked her, "Miss Howard do you ever reel
disappointed and disallusioned by all the trials and heart aches and
problems or teaching, do you ever feel that you should change your
profession before it is too late to do so?"
Miss
Howard said, "yes I do and when that happens I think or Andy. Having
known Andy I now know the joy and triumph and blessing or teaching far out
weigh the trials and problems or teaching. Having known Andy I reel that I
have to be a teacher for the rest or my life. I have been lucky because
having known Andy I have received my reward early in my career. Every
teacher should have an Andy! He has been a great inspiration to me!"
Now you ask, "What did I do to deserve all this praise." Well
when she came to Newfield she did not know how to teach. She thought she
was a master sergeant in the army and she rode rough shod over the troops
and as a result she had all kinds or problems with them. I felt sorry for
her so I told myself that I would show her how to teach. I would be her
best pupil and I did this with great calmness and composure and I taught
myself how to write prize winning essays. So by trying to help her I
helped myself to be a great writer. By being her best pupil I made her
proud of me and proud of herself and that is why she decided to be a
teacher for the rest of her life.
Big Black Horse
He
will be coming down the mountain
He will be driving a Big Black Horse
He was coming down the mountain fifty years ago
He was driving a Big Black Horse fifty years ago
The
Big Black Horse was wading
Through snow up to his belly fifty years ago
Oh! She remembers me fifty years ago
She remembers the Big Black Horse fifty years ago
She
remembers the deep snow fifty years ago
She remembers the Big Black Horse
Wading in snow up to his belly fifty years ago
Oh,
he was an artist fifty years ago
He painted with brush and paint fifty years ago
Then he painted with stone forty years ago
They called his stone walls works of art forty years ago
But
now he paints with words about things that happened fifty years ago
Now they call his word painting a special gift or something like
that
Now she says he is the same today as he was fifty years ago
Anders
Hansen
Looking Back 68
I
am disabled and 79 years old and I have to visit my heart doctor
periodically so I use the Gadabout bus service. This service is for any
disabled people and senior citizens who need to go to the doctor or make a
shopping trip and it only cost $3. The drivers are all volunteers who want
to do something nice for their fellow senior citizens.
On
my last trip to my doctor I had a new driver. He had an instruction sheet
with my name and how to get to my house and where I wanted to go. My name
rang a bell with him, we had not seen each other in over 60 years but he
thought that he might know me. He helped me climb into the bus and buckled
me into-my seat. When he started driving he began to ask me questions.
" Did you ever belong to the 4H potato club?" "Yes I
did." "Was it Kiwanis sponsored 4" potato club?"
"Yes it was!" "Did you go to the Kiwanis potato club
banquet held at the old Ithaca Hotel at this time of the year?"
"Yes I did and I won prizes for my potatoes." He exclaimed,
"now I know you. You won prizes every year. Do you remember, did we
sell potatoes too?" "Yes, the Kiwanis had an auction. Every boy
had to bring a plate of 5 potatoes and a 10 pound bag of the verity of the
potatoes he raised and after the wonderful banquet all the spuds were
auctioned off so if you didn't win a prize you went home with some money
anyway."
I
always won a prize or two and I got top dollar for my prize winning
potatoes. Everyone had a chance to win two prizes. You could win on the
plate of 5 and also on the 10 pound bag. There were 8 prizes handed out
because they had 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize and honorable mention, and so 4
prizes for the plate of 5 and 4 for the bags. One thing I will never
forget, a professor from Cornell Ag College was always invited to the
banquet to judge the potatoes. His name was Arthur Pratt and we could ask
him questions about raising potatoes. I made good use of this option. I
always won two prizes but not always 1st prize.
One
time I won a nice wrist watch, another time I won a bag of phosphate
fertilizer.
I
raised several different varieties of potatoes such as katadin, russets,
chipewa, blue victor and last of all early rose, a type of red potato. Oh
I must not forget Irish cobbler, I liked them best of all. I never had a
chance to eat many early rose because my class mates wanted to buy early
rose potato seeds from me. I learned a lot from belonging to the 4H club.
I joined the forestry club and I learned to identify all the trees on our
80 acres of forest.
One
day years later when I was working for the county highway department, we
were working on a road in Trumansburg close to a big piece of forest land.
After eating our lunch we had a little time left so three of us went into
the forest to identify the trees. My friends could not identify one of the
trees but I could and I also told them that tree is a southern tree but it
can grow in the north. But it seldom does so we found a rare tree. One of
the men picked a leaf off the tree and put it into his empty lunch box and
sent it to Cornell. A few days later he told me, "Cornell said you
were right and they said everything you told us about the tree was
right." So you see I learned a lot of information from being a member
of the 4H club.
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