The Oneonta Daily Star, December 20, 1955

GILBOA--"Off The Track," a comedy in three acts by Felicia Metcalf, was given by the class of 1956.

The cast included David Kispaugh, Gerald Hubbard, Mary Clark, Betty Snyder, Lucy Roe, Camilla Acello, Cosma DeSalvo, Charles Wyckoff, William Drebitko, Walter Micha, Rose Brainard, Bonnie Brown and Joan Marquit.

Here is a synopsis of the play I got off the Internet: I play Silas Dobbins.

A fascinating group of people are thrown together when a passenger train is derailed and the passengers wait inside for a relief train. The group includes three peppy college girls, a young male law student, a good-natured Italian woman and her two children, and the wealthy, extremely haughty Mrs. Reginald Vanderventer. There is also a nosy old maid, Miss Pidgie McDougal, a peculiar deaf man who has a mysterious old suitcase which he never lets out of his sight (tickling Miss Pidgie’s ever-present curiosity), and an engaged couple. The crowd is thrown into pandemonium when Mrs. Vanderventer discovers that her $10,000 string of pearls is missing, later discovered in Mrs. Guarino’s bag. Bill Lindsay, the prospective lawyer, announces that he is going to hold a preliminary trial and appoints a judge and jury. He will defend Mrs. Guarino. Cleverly, he clears her name and exposes the guilty party just in time for Miss Pidgie to learn about the contents of the mysterious suitcase! One interior set.

OFF THE TRACK
CAST OF CHARACTERS
(5 men, 8 women, extras if desired)

MR. JOHN MORGAN
Station agent, aged about forty works at his desk in his shirt sleeves and vest, wears a
green visor to shade his eyes. He is rather surly at times. Slightly gray, a few lines on
his forehead and at eyes, no rouge.

SILAS DOBBINS Gerry Hubbard
Handy man around the station keeps up the fire, sweeps out, and fills the water
cooler. Aged twenty-five wears old blue overalls and a blue shirt, a railroad cap with
a visor, heavy muddy boots. Hair needs cutting and he needs a shave, lines on
forehead and at eyes, florid complexion.

FLICKIE NELSON
Attractive and peppy college girl aged eighteen. Wears a pretty suit and blouse, long
bob, plenty of lipstick, very little rouge.

BETTY PHILLIPS
Also a college girl, aged eighteen. Clothes, make-up, and hair-do similar to those for
Flickie.

JOAN PARKER
College girl aged eighteen. Clothes, make-up, and hair-do same as for other girls.

MRS. GUARINO Camilla Acello
An Italian woman aged forty good-natured and generous, very fat. Wears a red scarf
over her head, her dress doesn't fit very well, her skirt is gathered all around her
waist, she wears large clumsy looking shoes, and a black coat. Her hair is black and
is combed straight back from her face to a knot on the back of her neck. Her
complexion is sallow-no rouge or lipstick.

ANTONIA GUARINO
Her daughter aged twelve. She has a dirty face and her hair needs combing wears a
plain cotton dress, rusty looking shoes, black hair, sallow complexion, no lipstick or
rouge.

BILL LINDSAY
Attractive and good-looking college student aged twenty, wears a nice looking suit
with sweater, no hat, full of fun a little rouge on cheeks.

MR. OSCAR POZENBY
Aged fifty, hair is gray and becoming bald. He is deaf. He is wearing a badly fitting
suit of clothes. He is quite unsociable heavy lines on forehead and around eyes.

WILLIE WOODSON Billy Drebitkl, I think.
Thin, pale, slight in stature, aged twenty-two wears a nice suit, collar, and tie, very
little rouge.

Many Thanks To Maude Haskins For The News Clipping

Tapping Trees

Tapping Trees

Merel Jr. chopped my finger off when I was eight years old
Betty said her parents almost died when they were told
We thought we’d make some maple syrup that day in early spring
We gathered spigots, augers, hammers, pans, & pails to bring

Out to the woods across the road where lots of maples were
With tag alders and large beech trees, White pine and Douglas fir
Folks used to tap a lot of trees out there when we were young
The biggest sugar bush I knew was Bessie Cleveland’s farm

Ernel Briggs would boil the sap o’er smoky crackling fires
To get that wondrous maple syrup to fulfill our desires
For tastes and smells to make our lives a little bit more sweet
We’d drown our eggs and pancakes in it ‘n make ’em “fit to eat”.

So we gathered some old siding for the fire to boil the sap
The other kids took all the tools to find some trees to tap
Merel Jr. had the axe to swing and I would hold the wood
And move my hand before he hit as quickly as I could

About the second chop or so, all things just went to hell
The axe came down on my right hand and blood began to swell
My right hand middle finger tip hung by a slender strip
The bright white bone was shining through as blood began to drip

Merel Jr screamed and horrified, he grabbed me by the arm
And dragged my through the barn yard crick and up behind the barn
My mother, hearing screams, came out an met us on the lawn
Took Wayne’s clean diaper from the line and wrapped my hand & arm

They took me to Doc Persons, a doc in Lexington
A mustached red faced kind old man, much rumpled and rotund
He took that flopping finger tip and stood it up real straight
And with a splint just wrapped it up with white adhesive tape

Two days later we went back to see that plump old doc
To bar lockjaw, each scrawny arm received 8 tetnus shots
That finger used to throb and ache in weather wet or cold
But all of that evolved away as I got grey and old

Lots of kids got hurt back then on farms their families owned
The most dangerous place for a kid back then was the place that they called home
At Mackey’s Corners, Bobby Mace lost a thumb one day
He got it caught in block and tackle used to draw off hay

I remember him one handed shooting fouls from the line
While the rest of us threw underhand, like Mikan at the time

Now all that’s 60 years ago and if you haven't seen it
When I flip you the finger, you can see I really mean it.

Notes From The Internet:

Tree Tapping - Where It All Begins

Did you know that although Europeans knew how to tap trees, it was the American Indian who discovered how to make maple syrup?

Indians from New England to Canada were producing maple syrup from 1664. The Indians made a sloping cut, or gash, two inches deep and 2-1/2 inches long, in the side of a tree. A knife or wood chip was put into the bottom of the cut so the sap flowed down the cut, onto the knife and into a receptacle on the ground.

The receptacles were made either of bark caulked with pitch or hollowed out logs. By 1765, the settlers changed the Indians' tapping to tree boxing. They trimmed off the bark and chopped a 1/2-inch deep square or rectangular hole into the tree trunk. A sloping trough was put into the tree trunk to take the sap from the hole, or box, to a spout or spile, which led the sap from the trough to a receptacle.

Boring holes in a tree started around 1774.By 1950, the present day tapping was accepted. Spiles are used to direct the flow of sap from the trunk. Originally they were wooden, then the Eureka sap spout, made of galvanized cast iron, took over. It was replaced by metal spiles and buckets and also plastic spiles for plastic or polyethylene tubing.

The Indians used a basket or tub from hollowed out tree bark as a collecting receptacle. They were placed on the snow or ground at the base of the tree. Troughs were used by the colonists until the late 1840's.

Wooden buckets or pails were introduced as early as 1748, but weren't common until much later. Wooden buckets were still used in 1935; then they were replaced by tin-plated buckets because the wooden buckets dried out and leaked if they weren't painted every year.

Bucket covers have been used since 1870 to keep leaves and debris out. Plastic tubing, used since 1965, takes sap directly to a gathering vat or storage tank.