Wednesday, 31 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Wednesday, 31 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Windy, cold, five degrees highest, 10 below early.  I ironed.  Brink was here to look at hemlock in pm.  Wrote to Ina Belle, coldest day so far.  Went to prayer meeting at Leonard's.  Madalyn went with me.
Comment:  Leonard's is Leonard Reynolds, father of Paul Reynolds and grandfather to Susan's boys, Mark and Steven....Tara, Steve and Mark on the hill.....

Tuesday, 30 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Tuesday, 30 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Windy, 8-30 degrees.  Started to snow early, 630am.  Only a little snow but blustery. Went to Cobleskill and Mother's.  More snow over there.  Drove down to Maude and Almon's.  Ethyl was there in bed.  They brought her over Monday.  Arlie Campbell died.  Water was froze a little in the morning-the first so far.
Comment:  Ethyl Haskins wa my Dad's aunt on his mother's side.  Don't recall Arlie Campbell at all.  "first so far" frozen pipe sounds ominous....ti was always something....

Monday, 29 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Monday, 29 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Sunny, 5 to 25 degrees.  Clifton cut a load of wood.  I washed, had migraine headache.
Comment:  Lots of wood cutting......betcha didn't know this:  January 29, 

1979 I Don't Like Mondays 16-year-old Brenda Spencer opens fire on children in an elementary school playground. She killed two adults and injured eight children and a police officer. She claimed she did it because she didn't like Mondays. The Boomtown Rats hit (1980) was based on this event.

Sunday, 28 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Sunday, 28 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Cold and cloudy, went to church and Sunday School, had dinner at parsonage for George Edwards. LaVerne and Roberta here at night a while.  They's been to Jr's for dinner.
Comment:  Jr must have been Vernon Pickett who we always called Jr Pickett....Jr sometimes took me to the movies in his brand new 53 Chevy.  Bobby Pickett, his brother was a classmate.  Jr was  LaVerne's classmate......to me, back then, it was really a big deal to ride in a brand new car....I was a car addict and knew all the years, makes and models and could tell the different years through minor details of grills, parking lights, etc....I think this was the color Vern had....

Saturday, 27 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Saturday, 27 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Cold, windy.  Clifton and boys cut wood.  Gerald got his car licensed and new tires. Sue didn't take her music lesson.
Comment:  Can't remember which car....Big tobacco ruled in 1962...before the Marlboro Man...

Football's Paul Hornung Selling Cigs...

Friday, 26 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Friday, 26 January 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Cloud, 35, little snow around 1 pm changing to rain. 40 at 9 pm.  Clifton and Gerald cut wood.  Chain saw didn't work.  Gerald went to Middleburgh to bank in pm.  We went down to LaVerne's and Roberta's at night; her parents were there.
Comment:  It was always something with our equipment.   Pretty sure my visit to the bank was for my first student loan.  I know it was for $600 and I took it out because they instituted $400 tuition per semester at Coby Tech where before it was zero, just about $200 in fees per year.....the bank deal was done in the manager's office on a typewriter...so I essentially benefited from a "free" community college deal.   On this day in 1962, the Twist was banned in all Catholic schools because it was "impure".

Thursday, 25 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Thursday, 25 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Cloudy, windy, 30, no snow.  Clifton and I went to Windham in pm.  David and Wayne drove to school.  Schermerhorn boys here at night.  Gerald went to Cobleskill.
Comment:  How the latest TVs looked in 1962

Wednesday, 24 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Wednesday, 24 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Windy, 35, no snow.  Clifton and Gerald cut wood.  I ironed.  LaVerne and Roberta here for a few minutes at night.  Had prayer meeting.  Planned dinner for George Edwards for Sunday after church.  Mother and Norm at Billies.
Comment:  No indication about what the dinner is for...more from the era...Royal Portable Typewriter, 1962....I used one for years.....

Tuesday, 23 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Tuesday, 23 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Partly cloudy, windy, 25 degrees.  No snow.  Clifton, Gerald and I went over to Mother's for dinner.
Comment:  I must be on some sort of break from Coby Tech.....The most risque mag out at the time.....1962 Holiday Issue...I read it for the stories and articles....

Monday, 22 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Monday, 22 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Roads icy in the am but we had school.  I washed, Gerald went to Cobleskill.  Clifton wrote to Marilyn.
Comment:  Dad was not much of a letter writer so this is kinda special, I guess...The US president was John F. Kennedy (Democratic). In that special week of January people in US were listening to Peppermint Twist - Part 1 by Joey Dee & the Starliters. In UK The Young Ones by 

Cliff Richard was in the top 5 hits. The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, directed by Jos Quintero, was one of the most viewed movies released in 1962 .  And the Chevy Corvair and  Corvette were being heavily advertised......

Sunday, 21 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Sunday, 21 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Cloudy, 20's.  Clifton, girls and I went to church and Sunday School.  My first day as superintendent.  Gerald, girls and I went to Clifford's in  pm.  Lorraine and Howard there.  Turned warm and rained before morning.
Comment:  I don't remember the day at Clifford's.....Wonder why Dad didn't go??
Prices ins 1962....I remember buying gas at a Hess station in Albany for 18 cents a gallons around that time.....

Saturday, 20 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Saturday, 20 January 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Sunny, had about 1 inch of new snow, slippery.  Clifton and the boys cut wood.  We went to a ballgame at night, played Greenville.  Sue took her music lesson.  Had horning planned for LaVerne and Roberta and it was called off.
Comment:  They have cut wood about 5 days in a row so far....Mom's "horning" is an example of a very localized idiom.  It comes from "horn in" where the newlywed couple is subjected to a late-night noisy party of hell raisers pounding pans, shooting guns and generally disrupting the couple in their beds.  I've been to a couple, one for Alton Brand sticks in my mind.  Another term for it was "shivaree" which came from the French word "Charivari"...see Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charivari

Here is a vicious "horning" described by Socrates Hubbard for his brother Lorenzo. I can't help thinking that these incidents involved something other than a simple wedding custom........these events seem particularly violent and vindictive with the household literally being under siege....

"We pass over several years.  I am nine years old or nearly nine  Lorenzo is married and is expected home.  He dos not come when expected but a lot of riaters calling themselves horners came and the first thing I know in the ded of night was the defning discharge of musketrey and the blowing of hornes the rateling of pans the ringing of bells with all the diabolicle noises that could be amagoned.  Paul grabed his cloths and ran to Fathers and mothers room  l followed in my night shirt half frightened to death.  The whole familey dressed and sat about the fire  Father would go down and throw water on them when they came up to fire.  After a while they with drew to get dry and then on they came again.  they were led by one Dock Norwood.  I got so sleepy that during the last salley I slipt.  These hornings at wedings were common in that countrey at that time.  I have known them to tare or breake every glass out of a house."

      "A few weeks after Lorenzo did come with his wife and the Diabolical crew gathered again there names was got this time and they were prossicuted.  And each one was fined.  Sometime the next summer Lorenzo came down on a visit that night this same vile crew went into a field of rye that had just been cut and put in shocks they thrashed out every shiefe on the ground and then unbound it and scattered it.  from there they went into our garden pull up corne and everything they could get at.  from there they went into the corne field pulled a wide road to the midel of the field then tore up an half acre or more and made a road out the other side of the feald.  They also tore down a large amount of fence.  It took a long time to write things up agane."

Friday, 19 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Friday, 19 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
David was home.  He and Clifton cut wood.  I felt better, washed and cleaned up in the house.  Gerald came home at night.  Wayne played at Richmondville.  Louise and Grandpa reached Florida.
Comment:  I came home a lot from Cobleskill where I had a cheap room while attending Coby Ag & Tech.  It was about a 35 minute drive and the first years I did it with a 1952 Ford pickup that sure wasn't in as good shape as this...it was 10 years old in 1962 and that was pretty old for a vehicle back then....same  color though....

Thursday, 18 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Thursday, 18 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Sunny, windy cold, 10 above high.  Still didn't feel good.  Wayne was home.  He and Clifton cut wood in pm.
Comment:  Must have been a cold day in the woods...This picture from Visions Of Schoharie County represents how it might of been on that day....

Wednesday, 17 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Wednesday, 17 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Sunny, windy, 20's.  Five below at night.  Clifton cut wood.  Girls and I went to church to prayer meeting.  Cleaned church and took down tree.  I had a sick headache all night.
Comment:  Must have been tough hitting the floors that morning.  When we boys slept in the attic, snow would blow in through the cracks in the walls and any water would freeze.

Tuesday, 16 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Tuesday, 16 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Sunny, windy, 20's.  Went over to Mother's for dinner.  Bought car license and made out blank for mine that was lost.  Got generator for tractor at Mary's.
Comment:  Not sure where or what Mary's is.....interesting she used "blank" for "form", guess that works......with all the crap going on with Bill Cosby, this was a very sad day for him back in 1997...his son was killed by a trio of druggies.....

On this day in 1997, comedian and TV star Bill Cosby's 27-year-old son Ennis Cosby is murdered after he stops to fix a flat tire along California's Interstate 405 in Los Angeles. The 405, which runs some 70 miles from Irvine to San Fernando, is known as one of the planet's busiest and most congested roadways. Construction began on Interstate 405 in the late 1950s, with the first section opening in the early 1960s.

At approximately 1 a.m. on January 16, 1997, Ennis Cosby, a graduate student in special education at Columbia University Teachers College who was on vacation in Los Angeles, was driving a Mercedes-Benz convertible on Interstate 405 when he pulled off to Skirball Center Drive to change a flat tire. A Ukrainian-born teenager, Mikhail Markhasev, and two friends were at a nearby park-and-ride lot using the phone. Markhasev, reportedly high on drugs, approached Cosby to rob him but when Cosby took too long to hand over money he was shot and killed. Ennis Cosby was the third of Bill Cosby's five children and said to be the inspiration for the character of Theo Huxtable on the hit TV sitcom "The Cosby Show," which originally aired from 1984 to 1992.

Monday, 15 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Monday, 15 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Warm, 45 degrees, rainy.  I washed, Clifton cut wood in pm.  I wrote to Marilyn. Grandpa and Louise left for Florida in pm.
Comment:  Gotta remember that Grandpa was 80 years olds at the time and they were driving to Florida, probably about a 2.5 day trip at least back then....this is them in Florida, I believe....Elmer, ramrod straight and a newly wed at 80....

Sunday, 14 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Sunday, 14 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Warm and Sunny, 40.  Clifton, the girls and I went to church and Sunday School.  I was appointed Sunday School Superintendent.  Glenn and Barry here for a few minutes.  David and Wayne went bowling, the girls went to B.Y.F. in the afternoon.
Comment:  Glenn Taylor was about 20 at the time and Barry about 22...not sure what BYF was...the only picture I have of Glenn and Barry together......I've  posted it before...Glenn is third from left and Barry sixth from left....

Saturday, 13 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Saturday, 13 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Ten degrees, cloudy, clearing in pm.  Clifton and the boys cut wood.  Gerald had to be in Cobleskill 1 pm for play practice. Carol and I took Sue for her music lesson, roads bare.  Had a letter from Marilyn.  Discovered I had lost my drivers license.
Comment:  A cold day in the woods.. The play  was an adaptation of the Greek tragedy Antigone where Mary Ann played the mother of Antigone and I played a character called Cothurnus who stood around and spouted dire warnings.  Neither of these characters are in the original play but what the hell...we had fun doing it.....here is a high school version....

Friday, 12 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Friday, 12 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Zero degrees in the morning, 23 through the day, sunny.  Clifton went to Cairo.  We went to ball game and LaVerne and Robert's after.  Roberta's birthday.  Her mother and family and Lord's were there.  LaVerne most sick with a cold.
Comment:  I think Dad went to work at Cairo.  He had seniority with the Operating Engineers and was always toward the front of the line when it came to job assignments....Solidarity Forever..Here is a picture of Tommy and Roberta Renz in the Grand Gorge High School band in 1954..Tommy far left, Roberta, third from left.

Thursday, 11 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Thursday, 11 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Cold, sunny.  Went to Cobleskill and up to Mother's for dinner.  Took Sue to Doc Lyons about her ear.  Everett Wood's house burned in the afternoon.  They were at Cobleskill while we were there.  Missionary Meeting at Mary's, didn't go.
Comment:  Everett Wood was the first husband of my Aunt Lorraine.  His house was on Keyserkill Road and I never went by that house on the way to Middleburg without thinking about that.  Jarred Wood was a peer of mine at GHS.  I want to set the ages of the family so we can ponder and marvel about how much younger they were than we are now..  I am now 27 years older than my Dad was in 1962....what happened??
I think my wife, Mary Ann and I are hopefully, a little past the third figure from right in the graphic...where are you??.... and don't forget where you will be ever so shortly.... carpe diem and damn the torpedoes.....

Clifton J, B 1908, 54 in 1962
Frances Marietta B 1913, 49
Clifton Laverne, B 1934  28
Marilyn Ann B 1936 26
Gerald Elmer B 1938 24
Douglas Maynard B 1942 20
David John B 1944 18
Wayne Morris B 1946 16
Carol Sylvia B 1950 12
Susan Frances B 1952 10

Wednesday, 10 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Wednesday, 10 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Cole, 40 and windy.  David went to school.  Sue's stomach still upset.  Clifton was layed off at Albany.
Comment:  Hopefully, unemployment insurance will kick in.  Hard to imagine how we would have fared barring the interstate highway program and unemployment insurance...hmmm, one was passed by a Republican Pres and the other by the Dems....is there hope??

Tuesday, 9 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Tuesday, 9 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Cold, 18 degrees, windy.  David and Sue still home.  Halls left for Florida at 8 o'clock. I ironed.
Comment:  Hall's were some of the lucky ones who could escape the winter to Florida.  

Monday, 8 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Monday, 8 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Partly cloudy, windy, hi 34.  David home, sore fingers.  Susan home with ear ache.  I washed, hung sheets on the line, they dried good.
Comment:  Doesn't sound like a fun day....except for Carol and Susan, the family with original mates:
Front:  LaVerne & Roberta, Marilyn & Jim, Rear:  David & Mary, Doug & Ellen, Wayne & Laura

Sunday, 7 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Sunday, 7 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Warm, 38, roads bare.  Girls and I went to church and Sunday School.  Dad, girls and I went to Howard Keyser's 40th wedding anniversary at Mrs. Dugans.  We all and LaVerne and Robert were at Louise's for supper.
Comment:  Seems weird, they are celebrating a 40th and M and I looking at our 50th..what happened....Sister Marilyn's Dean Harris on the Hill:  About 1959

Saturday, 6 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Saturday, 6 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Rainy, 38 high.  David, Wayne and Clifton went to Grand Gorge to have Ralph Yanson appraise the car.  Rained hard most of the night, windy.  Ice storm in Middleburgh and Cobleskill.  Susan had her music lesson at 4 pm.  Stopped at Leonard's on the way home.  Annual church meeting, church voted to get out of the convention, 7 -14 with 3 blanks.  David smashed his finger in car door, he and Wayne stayed at Schemerhorn's all night.
Comment:  Leonard's must be Leonard Haskins, Dad's first cousin on his mother's side and a close friend in his youth.  The convention is the Southern Baptist Convention and I remember this incident.  I think they got out because they thought the convention too liberal.  Certainly not the first time anyone of us smashed a finger in a car door.  Wonder why it doesn't seem to happen now? Different design?

And on the west coast, in 1962 someone is having a birthday...Marna, Jim, Dean, Patty....

Friday, 5 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Friday, 5 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Windy, warmer.  Washed, went after groceries at night, Doug, the girls and I.  Clifton home late.
Comment:  Dad out on a bender again......Patty, Dad, Mom, Marna, Carol, Aunt Ina Bell, Susan...somebody has a suitcase packed, must be Ina Bell's.....early sixties...

Thursday, 4 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Thursday, 4 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Windy, 35, early am.  Five above at night.  I ironed.  Carol was home.  Wrote to Ella Mae.  LaVerne started work on charcoal plant.
Comment:  Terse day..the charcoal plant was Timberland and he became the manager in short order...The US president was John F. Kennedy (Democratic). In that special week of January people in US were listening to The Lion Sleeps Tonight by The Tokens.  

Top #5 songs in the USA

• Joey Dee & the Starliters - Peppermint Twist - Part 1
• Chubby Checker - The Twist
• Elvis Presley - Can't Help Falling In Love
• Neil Sedaka - Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen
• The Lettermen - When I Fall In Love

Wednesday, 3 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Wednesday, 3 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Snow squalls, 22 degrees.  Grandpa and Louise were here for supper and prayer meeting.  Cotte ran into the back of our car when Clifton went to work down around Guilderland.  Jammed the bumper.  Wayne was home with a cold.  Made mincemeat.
Comment:  Do people make mincemeat any more??  The  girls set up the diary....note the telephone number...I will never forget that number..would make a pretty good password now.....

Tuesday, 2 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Tuesday, 2 January, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
Sunny, 18 degrees.  Kids back to school.  I washed and cleaned woodhouse.
Comment:  Back to normal....The birthday tracker.....

Monday, January 1, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries

Monday, January 1, 1962, The Frances Hubbard Diaries
We went to Earl and Lillian's for Grandpa and Louise's 1st anniversary.  Howard's family, Clifford, Evelyn, Bonnie, Merel and Ella, Rudy's family, all of us, Irene & Bob (Armlin)& Dolores, David Roger's girl Lorraine.  Called Marilyn and talked to her and Jim and Doug. Gerald went back to school.  Uncle Erwin Haskin died in December, '61 at the age of 100.
Comment:   That must have been quite a gathering and I missed it by having to go back to start my 2nd year at Cobleskill Ag & Tech.  Bob Armlin has only a few years to live.  He will shot dead by a friend as he was trying to shake a raccoon from a tree on Ferris road near where he lived.  1962 will prove to be an interesting year.  I will meet Mary Ann in a business class because we were seated in alphabetical order, (Hallenbeck, Hubbard) and will also have lots of close calls hauling milk, ice, clinker and bark for Prospect Dairies and Timberland Charcoal.  Stay tuned.......