I reread the article of what Dennis sent to me this AM. And a couple of items jumped out at me AASP.
First, I had said in my post above that we talked non-stop for two hours, Dennis in the article is right, it ws FOUR hours. I remember now that they came about noon and left about 4 PM.
He referred to how I and others got into that great swimming pool and there's a story behind that.
Eleanor Roosevelt bought a large double lot from my grandfather for Earl Miller, with whom she was having a "dalliance" as is said, Earl was the head of NYS Police at the time. She wanted Earl to get married, funded the construction of this stone house and that pool in the backyard.
Earl married Simone from Belgium and they had two kids, Skippy, Earl Jr, and Ann. He'd send them away when Eleanor visited and she often would walk down our long driveway and chat with my grandmother and she brought toys for my brother and myself.
The pool. My best friend Jackie and I found out that if we hit tennis balls back and forth on the street and then lobbed them over the fence when Earl was out there mowing the lawn that he's say, Ok you kids, get in here and get these balls and if you want to swim wear your bathing suits. We did.
And when we repeated that scene time and time again, he just gave in and motioned us to go to the front gate and enter. We could have walked down to the Loudonville Elementary school to hit balls b'c there were two courts there, but no pool/
The Beebes lived in a home to the north of the Miller property and another good friend lived there. Her name was Dossie, short for Louise, and we found that we could lob items over the fence into the pool and get in there that way as well. And north of Dr. Beebes home was the home of Dr. Roach who was head of the cardiac unit at Albany Med. They had one coddled son whose name was Jay and I used to babysit him. Turns out he ended up in CA and was the first backer for Sylvester Stallone's first picture, continued with that and became exceedingly rich.
The Pool. It was huge, the shallow end was about 5 ft and the deep end about 15 ft and there were three diving boards at the deep end, going from a short board to a long board.. Nothing better then climbing up the ladder to the topmost one and cannon balling into the deep end with a huge crash. At the shallow end there were two statues with water spouting ou the mouths, and hugel planters with flowers around the pool deck and around the pool shed, caban, whatever.
My best memory of that pool? It was next sold to the Desormeaux and I babysat their kid, then to General O'Hara and his wife. At this point I was in college but home for the summers and one winter they held an open house in the basement. Now often General O'Hara would bring home someone from the Office and he kept smiming trunks there at home for guests.
So I'm home for Xmas. I go to the Open House and there's a line with introductions being made. General O'hara introduced me to the person next to him, he looked familiar, he said Carolyn, we've met before, and without thought I said yes we have, but I didn't recognize you with your clothes on.
Whoops! I love memories.
For those who read the article be sure to look at page 5 where there's a picture of Dennis and someone writing about his newest book, as well as giving his background, which are MS degrees in Latin and Greek and a Ph. D in Criminal Justice. I think I asked where he taught but have forgotten, and now you know why there were so many references, in latin, in the article/
I told Dennis that I too loved Latin and had taken 3 years of it in HS and wanted to get back being able to read it again. Dennis, I have primers here for that and for Russian language, I need to learn more rather then just trying to translate the seed packs from Russia.
I remember that my first latin book was all about Cornelia and her kids and I remember one of the sentences as being.... Cornelia mihi ihre gemmae.... which means her kids are her gems.
But I usually just remember the standard phrases such as>
Hic est viper in herba ( there's a snake in the grass)
Sic transit gloria mundi ( thus ends the glory of the world)
....and a whole lot more from my science studies, but sometimes I couldn't remember the right Latin words and took German in college so something would appear as:
Caesar geht trans flumen mit frumentum... which meant Caesar went across the river with grain.
Off topic, for sure, but great memories of growing up on out street in Loudonville.
Dennis, you and Don are most welcome to drive up next summer as well. Shall I suggest to you what to grow so you can bring up some fruits to share?
This past season was the 3rd in a row that was beyond dismal, actually bordering on tragic. I hope I can convince Freda to care more for my tomato plants next summer, if I'm still around.
