January 12, 1963: The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 12, 1963

Sat Cloudy and rain in the a.m. 30-35 very icy in the a.m. I baked pies set girls hair.  Clifton and David and Wayne went after the truck down by Wyckoff's.  Carol and I took Sue for her music lesson and went to Awana at night Rained nearly all night.  LaVerne and Roberta here for supper.

Comment: Awana is an international evangelical Christian nonprofit organization in child and youth discipleship. "Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed" as taken from 2 Timothy 2:15.^[3] 

January 11, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 11, 1963

Fri Partly Cloudy in A.M. 40 started to rain about 12:30 P.M. Roads icy at night.  Some rain all night.  I washed in A.M. hung a line of clothes out and they got mostly dry.  Fred Oppenheimer was here to look at cattle in a.m.  Had a letter from Marilyn. Everyone out at night but Sue and I.  LaVerne. brought Clifton home.

Comment:  Dad ran his truck off the icy roads somewhere down around Wyckoff's and I think walked to LaVerne's to get a ride home.

January 10, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 10, 1963

Thursday  Beautiful sunny day 46.   I washed curtains in living rooms and kitchen and windows.  Doug and David cut a load of wood in a.m.  Clifton went to Oneonta to cattle sale in P.M. home 12:30  Girls and I went to the prayer meeting at Evelyn Bailey’s.  Gerald called about 10 and said he and Mary Ann wouldn’t be home for dinner.  Mary Ann’s Uncle had died.

Comment:  I think it was Uncle Ed who died.  He was In his eighties and had lived with the Hallenbeck's for awhile after he could not live alone.  He was bent over and shriveled up at the time but I think he had been quite the rake in his youth.  He used to carry a "belly gun" that did not have a barrel but you could shool seven .22 shorts right out of the rotating cylinder.  I still have it.

The Diaries Of Frances Marietta Barber Hubbard

http://gilboahub.tumblr.com/The Diaries Of Frances Marietta Barber Hubbard

January 9, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 9, 1963

Wed Cloudy in A.M. 35 with sunshine in am,  a little sunshine in the afternoon.  Sue was home because of a tooth she had out,  I cut out her blue dress and worked on it.  Clifton and boys cut apple trees at the foot of the hill below the road.  Grandpa (Elmer Hubbard) and Louise left for Florida.   I talked to her before they went.  Wrote a letter to Marilyn,  one to Ella Mae Roth.   Sent Dean’s (Dean Harris, Marilyn's son) birthday card and $1.00.  Sent Roberta a birthday card too.  Paul Rickenburg came to look at cattle, but wouldn’t give what we wanted for them.

Comment:  Paul Rickenburg was "The Calf Man" as posted here:   A quite rough take "talking blues" style.

Gerry Hubbard's SongPoemStories: The Calf Man:

Janurary 8, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 8, 1963

Tues  Cloudy no wind 39 all night about 33 all through the day.  Clifton, Sue and I went to Cobleskill and Mother’s for dinner.  Sue went to Dentist and had 6 yr molar out  Clifton stopped at the Auction at Bartholomew's.  Doug Van Aken here at night.  Clifton came home from the sale with Earl.

Comment:  Seems like a "January Thaw" is in effect.  Doug Van Aken contracted polio in the fifties and it affected only the right side of his body.  The opposite side did all the work and his arm was particularly muscular.  He always walked with a limp but he was always irrepressibly good humored.  He developed a business of finding, refurbishing and selling old US Army trailers and would scour the country to find them.   This is a picture of him and his daughter on Hubbard Hill.

January 7, 1963: The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 7, 1963

Mon  Cloudy about 30 no wind.  I washed and cleaned up the house.  Doug went to Dr’s with David and washed his car in the P.M.

Comment:  David still nursing his damaged hand from the charcoal plant accident where he got his hand caught in a "Brix" press.

January 6, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 6, 1963

Sun Cloudy 25 no wind Girls and I went to church and Sunday school.  Clifton and all the boys but David came to Sunday school.  David went to Sandy’s for dinner.  Gerald went back to school in the afternoon.  Wayne and Linda were here at night.  Howards and Rudys came in the afternoon for a few minutes.  Had induction of Sunday School officers:

Myself  - Supt

Donna Brown - Ass. Supt

Evelyn Bailey - Sec. Treas.

Joyce Bailey - Point System Sec.


Comment:  I went back to Cobleskill Ag and Tech for the final classes for my two year Associates Degree In Business Management.  Later in the month, I would start at SUNY @ Albany for a degree in business education which would take another two years.  I would attend with Roger Cohn and Mary Ann Hallenbeck.  Here is Mary Ann and me when we graduated.

Howard and Lorraine Vaughn and Rudy and Winny Blakesley were my uncles and aunts.  Lorraine and Winifred were my father's sisters.  I have a posting about Uncle Rudy @
 http://gerryhubbard.blogspot.com/2005/02/uncle-rudy-barry-taylor.html

January 5, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries: 53 Years Ago Today

January 5, 1963

Sat.  Cloudy very light snow 20’s no wind.  I baked in the a.m. Mrs. Mayo (?) came to see boys in am about coming to S.S. (Sunday School). I ironed in PM.  Girls and I went to annual business meeting at church at night.  Boys all went out.

Comment:"Boys all went out."  You damn betcha...where did they go?  Prowling the bars probably:  The Waterfall House in Gilboa, The Prattsville Tavern And Prattsville Hotel, The Rendezvous in Gilboa above the dam, or a fast run to Grand Gorge, Stamford or Roxbury.  We would sometimes cover hundreds of miles bar hopping through the mountains getting home after the bars closed at three, sometimes five or six in the morning.

January 4, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 4, 1963

Fri. Cloudy very light snow.  I washed again, men cut wood in the a.m.  Gerald went to Mary Ann’s about 3 P.M.  Carol went home from school with Linda and I went to a ball game.  N.Y. conservation man came.  (Mr. Scubner(not sure of name hard to read) from Gloversville) sold mountain.  Dolores called and said Louise was sick in bed and the house at the camp was a mess with broken water pipes and paper falling.

Comment:

The "camp" is Ferris Camp that Claude Ferris developed for the "city people", mostly hunters, to come up to and stay.  There were several cabins and also an empty swimming pool where Claude & Louise's two-year old son had drowned in many years ago.  After the drowning, they never filled the pool again.  Ferris Camp was a "beer joint" and was one of the first places in the mountains that had a television.  It was small, black and white with about a 12" screen that set high up in the corner of the bar very close to the ceiling. 

 One of my first memories of television was when my Dad took me and the other kids, Marilyn & Laverne, to see the Billy Conn-Joe Louis fight on June 19th, 1946.  Joe Louis won.  I was 7 years old.  

Dad said that Legs Diamond had visited the camp once to encourage Claude to sell his bootleg liquor and that Claude had been very scared of the famous gangster and had quickly complied with the request.

 The camp later became a Christian bible camp after Claude died. 

 Claude was relatively well to do and I remember once when my dad went there with me when I was about fourteen to borrow some money from Claude.  I seem to remember that Claude loaned him $200.  I remember that Claude was in the barn milking cows when Dad was talking to him and Claude was very jovial and respectful.
Delores was Claude's daughter about a year younger than I.  She married  Donald Armlin and he was shot and killed by a friend after he climbed up a tree to dislodge a treed raccoon.  His friend shot at the raccoon and missed but hit Donald in the chest killing him.  I heard that he climbed down from the tree and died along side of the road.

January 3, 1963 The Frances Hubbard Diaries: 53 Years Ago Today

January 3, 1963

Thurs Cloudy warm 30.  Finished a letter to Marilyn.  Did a lot of ironing.  Gerald and David went to Schoharie in am. for license for Gerald's  car.  Clifton and Doug cut wood.  Didn’t go to prayer meeting at church didn’t feel very good.

Comment:
In the winter it was cold as hell and every week the boys as well as Dad would go to cut some firewood.
With that old Farmall and Mall chainsaw we’d find a tree and make a fall and cut it up as quickly as we could.
For the winter wind and chill was bearing down,
As we struggled in the that cold and muddy ground,
Then we loaded up a half a cord and shivered while the tractor roared and took us tired half frozen homeward bound.

January 2, 1963: The Frances Hubbard Diaries: The First Car I Bought

January 2, 1963 Frances Marietta Hubbard Diaries

Wed Cloudy warm 8 above kids went back to school.  Clifton and Doug fixed water pipes over kitchen, they were still leaking a little.  I did a big wash and washed the windows; Tired out at night.  Read a nice long letter from Marilyn.  The boys went to Midd in P.M.  Gerald bought a car (Opel) for $87.50.

The 1954 Opel For $87.50

The dealer wanted a couple of hundred for it but the engine had what I thought was a knock and so was very leery of the car.  While David and I were taking it for a test drive, we ran into Donald Tompkins who was very savvy about cars and equipment.  He determined that the “knocking” was a bent push rod and could be fixed very easily.
 Donald helped me take the valve cover off the engine, pulled out the 8” push rod, hit it with a ball peen hammer a couple of times to straighten and reinstalled it.  Donald did the repair on the street in Middleburg with tools he carried in his truck. 
 The car ran perfectly. We took the car back to the dealer and  I dickered for awhile until we agreed upon $87.50 and I bought the car.
 I ran the car for about 3 years.  It was super in snow, plowing through 8-10 inch snow drifts on Rt 30A  while driving to Gloversville to see Mary Ann .
We ended up dragging it over in the woods and junking it after I broke a rear axle somehow.  I loved that car

January 1, 1963: The Frances Hubbard Diaries

January 1, 1963

Tues Cloudy very cold 2 above.  Windy very light snow flurries Earl and Bob (Segeritz) were here for dinner.  Mother called in the afternoon.  Water pipes above kitchen broke.  LaVerne and Roberta here for supper.  Wayne was at mothers (in Richmondville)  in the P.M.  Gerald came home from Mary Ann’s.


Comment:  Earl married late in life to Lillian Segeritz who had a son, Bob. 
 From LaVerne:  After they married Earl did renovation work on the house she owned, fireplace etc. Lillian owned horses, Bob, Lillian's son and Earl cared for them, Earl was injured, broken foot I think, by one of them. He was laid up for some time.
Lillian and her first husband had Harley motorcycles, they would ride over cross road to Otis's and turn around.

"Water pipes above the kitchen broke." The phrase belies the hassle that frozen water pipes and even frozen fuel lines to the oil burner in the living room entailed.  This meant  a lot of work in freezing cold to get the pipes thawed and the water and fuel flowing.

Here is my Tribute To Uncle Earl:  https://hubbardfamilymusic.blogspot.com/2011/03/uncle-earl-born-august-1-1910-died-may.html

Hubbard & Clarks Christmas Eve 2010

Tom O'Hara And The Deluge

In the spring of 1948 there was a short but very heavy deluge of rain in the area of Hubbard Hill.  I remember getting up in the morning and seeing a swiftly moving brown stream of water in the ditch in front of our house and, later, the three to five feet deep canyon the water had carved.  This was in a ditch that was usually dry and even in the heaviest storms in my memory,  only swelled the stream to about a foot of water.

Across the road and barnyard, the creek behind the barn was a rushing torrent and all this water was coming from the just the very top of the watershed.

Lower down the mountains and rolling hills, the Flat Creek valley accumulated all this water and more as it drained the whole area around Hubbard Hill and fed if finally, into the Gilboa Dam or, the Schoharie Creek flowing into Middleburg.

We drove down through Flat Creek to get a look at the damage and I remember lots of water in the flats around the Merel Hubbard and Pickett places. Further down the road where the grade increased, the road was partially washed out with a deep and wide gully cut through by the rushing water.  Out in the middle of that creek,  caught on a large rock in a cluster of small trees and sitting there crookedly, was a brown coupe that was owned by Tom O’Hara.

It seemed that the previous night, Tom had been seeing my first cousin Betty at Merel Hubbard’s farm and decided to drive back to Prattsville during the storm. The flood somehow got his car.

I remember him talking about it and I asked him how he escaped.  He said he had climbed through the trees out of the creek and, at the time, the branches he used seemed about the size of his fingers. He held up his hand with spread fingers to show me.  He was kind of laughing while he said this and I can still see his face as he described his escape.  

In thinking about it now, his easy manner must have belied the truly harrowing experience it must have been when he felt the car, caught by the flood waters, moving off the road into the deluge and, the subsequent wind and rain driven escape.

In my mind, his story conjured up an image of him desperately opening the car door and scrambling back to safety through the finger-sized branches at the top of the trees above the rushing water.  To a nine year old boy, this was a heroic tale of danger, bravery and adventure and I never forgot it.  This only added to his degree of  “coolness” that I did not encounter again until James Dean came on the scene.

By the way, I believe this was the same car they used for their wedding get-away in June of that year.

Tom Ohara and Betty Hubbard's Wedding Reception

I well remember Tom Ohara and Betty Hubbard’s  wedding held at Uncle Merel’s farm on a very nice day in the summer.

Tommy had a very cool brown two-door coupe, I think it was a Chevy and of course, it was in impeccable condition.

As the reception was going on, several of the younger men at the wedding commenced to rigging the car for the drive-away.  They tied lots of tin cans and streamers to the under carriage of the car.  They then also somehow attached a large fire-cracker that would somehow explode when the car drove off.

I remember Tom and Betty emerging from the front of the house and making their way to the car parked under the trees along Flat Creek Road.  They were showered with rice;  noise makers and hand clapping accompanied them.  They were laughing and grinning.

I was standing close to the car and when they approached, I said, “Boy, you’re really starting off with a bang”.  Some of the people groaned.

As they drove off there was a very loud bang and the streamers, cans and junk attached to the car rattled off with them.

After they left,  several people including my sister Marilyn, told me that I had given away the surprise.  

I thought I had just expressed a clever pun.....

Swinging In The Barn

I was working around the west end of the barn one day.  It must have been about 1952.  Wayne was about six years old.

Something caused a disturbance and I remember Wayne walking down the road in front of the barn saying over and over “I think I’m going crazy” and he was obviously very distressed.

When we asked him what happened, he said that he had been swinging on the ropes in the barn and on one swing, he had crashed his head into one of the upright beams in the barn.

We used to take the hay ropes and tie them off on one of rafters, then stand on one of the large horizontal beams,  probably about 15 feet high, swing off the beam, arc up then drop into a pile of hay in the mow or stacked on the barn floor.

I remember Wayne being very pale and disoriented for quite a while.  I’ve often wondered if this accident contributed to the rather tortured life he seemed to lead.

A Darker Shade Of Blue, The Ballad Of Patty Russell

Hubbard Family & Friends: Remember When The Music

Hubbard Family & Friends Picking & Singing; Many Generations

You Should Have Seen It In Color

Hubbard Hill In Black And White
Photographs Remind Us Of What We Now Think We Once Were......

Natura non contristatur: A Horse Story

A Horse Story

Conesville—Mrs. Gamalia Hubbard met with a singular accident not long since, which might have proved very serious.
She was reaching in the horse manger after eggs, when the horse caught her hood and hair between it’s teeth and jammed her head against the manger with such force that her eyes were badly injured; so much so that for a short time she supposed that she had lost the sight of one eye; and they are still badly swollen and discolored.
..Gilboa Monitor, April 8, 1886

This was Margaret Ann Christiana, (1849-1933), married to Gamalia Hubbard, (1852-1883), who died of appendicitis when he was 31 or so. She was called Anna.

They met while both worked for Col. Zadock Pratt in Prattsville, of Pratt's Rocks fame. He started a leather tanning business in the area.

On April 24, 1882, they bought land on what is now known as Hubbard Hill. The middle part of the our homestead was the original log cabin that Gamalia and Anna lived in. Previous to that, they lived further up the mountain on the old foundation behind David's campsite.

Their children were Elmer, my grandfather, & John, who had no children. Gamalia & Anna are buried in Grand Gorge Cemetery.

She was apparently a much loved grandmother of Elmer's children and I remember my Dad talking about his visits to her.


This incident happened about 3 years after her husband's death, when she was about thirty seven years old. Elmer, born in 1882, was about one year old when his father died and about 3 years old when this incident occured. It also must have occured on Hubbard Hill.

Interesting that she outlived her husband by fifty years....... Also interesting to think about how many of the current generation would have died of appendicitis had we been unlucky enough to have been born a hundred years earlier.

Thanks To Bea Haskin For The Information

Reprise: Hubbard Hill Memories

I was born in late September and some things that I remember are a pair of new red rubber cowboy boots.

In the Catskill Mountain sunshine, I remember like in dream time how I ran the fields with happy shouts & hoots.
And in the summer on a sultry day,
While my mother worked the windrows making hay
I was still a baby on a blanket neath a shade tree and I played & napped the afternoon away.

When my father brought the horses then they stacked the hay in courses on a steel wheeled wagon that my grandpa made
As I rode down in the haystack and my father held the horses back, my mother sang a hymn or softy prayed.
And in the barn the dust and hayseed swirled,
As I reveled in this fascinating world,
Then my mother brought us all a drink from the hand pump by the kitchen sink while barnyard sounds & smells around us curled.

In the winter it was cold as hell and every week the boys as well as Dad would go to cut some firewood.
With that old Farmall and Mall chainsaw we’d find a tree and make a fall and cut it up as quickly as we could.
For the winter wind and chill was bearing down,
As we struggled in the that cold and muddy ground,
Then we loaded up a half a cord and shivered while the tractor roared and took us tired half frozen homeward bound.

In the springtime we would load manure from piles that we had to store because we could not get through winter snow.
When I think of all the jobs I’ve had and some of them have been real bad, well that job has to be an all time low.
'Cause the springtime winds could blow it in your face,
And every load turned out to be a race,
Between the spreader breaking down or getting stuck in muddy ground and leaving the whole rig there in it’s place.

The third time Wayne drank kerosene from old Coke bottles he had seen sitting on the shelves in the wood shed,
Grandma Bessie said to Mom, "I know you mean nobody harm, but if he keeps doing that, he’ll soon be dead".
Doug’s eye got hurt while hunting from a car.
When Marilyn burned her hands it left some scars.
Merle Jr chopped my middle finger, thoughts of all that blood still linger, those are things that made us what we are.

When LaVerne turned over that old milk truck on Earl’s hill when black ice he struck, what happened after always makes me smile.
As I drove the Farmall to the spill I hit that same damned icy hill and skidded almost to the milk can pile.

To turn that old truck upright took an hour.
And on the road the milk began to sour.
Then I put that Farmall in low gear and towed that wreck till almost near the barn where we just stared at it awhile.

In the fall we’d often kill a pig and hang it from a tripod rig and gut it out to take inside to treat.
When mom would cook the tenderloin with home made pancakes we’d all join in dining on a meal called “ fit to eat”.
And the rhythm of the family filled our veins,
And the autumn breezes hummed in soft refrain.
Then we laid on the grassy lawn to look at stars until we’d yawn then go to sleep and start it all again.

Sue could take a .22 and hit the nail heads that popped through that old wood shed roof baking in the sun.
And we shot rats and dogs and chipmunks, hunted squirrel and deer and woodchucks, some for food and others just for fun.
And we hunt 'coon on Autumn rainy nights,
With dogs and guns and beer and big flashlights.
While that hound dog pack was barking "treed", we’d crash half drunk through brush and weeds, to get that scared raccoon in our gun sights.

Susan sat with a BB gun while all us kids were having fun looking at Bonanza on TV.
A big gun fight at a mountain shack and Susan thought she'd fire back, she hit an outlaw with one brass BB.
The television set just buzzed then died.
While Susan grinned and looked around wide eyed.
And we stared at that tiny hole till Carol dropped the popcorn bowl then we all laughed until we almost cried.

Thanksgiving came with hunting season and lot’s of family found a reason to come “up home” to join in meals and song.
We gather around that old piano, Dad sang bass Mom sang soprano and uncles , aunts and cousins sang along.
And the old time Christian hymns would soar and chime
With harmonies so sweet and so sublime.
Then all the men went to hunt deer while all the ladies helped to clear the table for the meal at supper time.

Of the windows in that old farm house, some faced directly west and south and all the family many times a day,
Would check that eighteen mile view to guess the weather coming through and then you’d usually hear somebody say,
“When the rain comes it’ll be to wet to plow",
Or “The snows too deep there’ll be no school bus now",
And those windows from that farm house knoll were also windows to our souls and taught us love of hills and life somehow.

In this age of space and cell phones with those idiotic ring tones I return to those old times on Hubbard Hill.
And of often think of going back but now the house is just a shack and so I know I probly never will.
Still thoughts of friends and family gently bind,
As I think about those pure and peaceful times.
So when I need a quiet spot to go when troubles are a lot I go to Hubbard Hill just in my mind.
So when I need a quiet spot to go when troubles are a lot I go back to the Catskills in my mind.
So when I need a quiet spot to go when troubles are a lot I go back to my old home in my mind.

Frances Marietta Barber Hubbard, Mourned By Many, Loved By All.

Mother of: Clifton LaVerne, Marilyn Ann, Gerald Elmer, Douglas Maynard, David John, Wayne Morris, Carol Sylvia & Susan Frances

Born: Oct 27, 1913, Died: June 1, 2005, 845 am EST.

Services At The Flat Creek Baptist Church, Gilboa, NY at 1100 am. Tue, 6/7/05.

"May Angels Prepare Her Way Into Paradise"...John Irving, "A Prayer For Owen Meany"

Mothers & Their Children

Happy Mother's Day 

A Confession About Dad: 101 Years Old Yesterday

Solidarity Forever

An Operating Engineer was what my dad was called
He ran the big equipment, and I guess he drove them all
Dozers, graders, drag-line cranes, he worked ten hours a day
From spring through fall, six days a week, he drew good union pay

He’d usually come home close to dark, all sunburned, cloaked with dust
Us kids would all race down the hill, to greet him, to be first
He’d stop the car and pick us up, on fenders up we’d ride
We hung from running boards and doors, rising like the tide

Euclid scrapers, high-speed pumps, he “sloped” with Cat D8s
Through parts of west New England and all through New York State
He worked the New York Thruway and Route One-Forty-Five,
Milking cows at four am to keep the farm alive

In summer’s dust and searing sun his lips and hands would crack,
And he’d rub in Bag Balm Ointment that he carried in a sack
In winter’s numbing wind and cold, he stood ten hours a day
To watch an air compressor pump water from a quay

We’d go to work with him sometimes when work sites were nearby
And ride the big equipment, it was dusty, hot and dry
LaVerne and I and sometimes Doug would go and spend the day
With diesel fumes & roaring “Eucs” as dozers pushed away

And though he had his issues, he was held in high regard
And I never heard him once complain ‘bout working so damned hard.
When someone said I looked like him at a Hill reunion chat
Tom O’Hara softly said, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with that”.

And though I’m not religious, as all friends will attest
Here’s a spiritual iota to which I must confess
Sometimes when summer’s thunder clouds are roiling up on high
I think of Dad on his big D8, “sloping” in the sky...
Sometimes when summer’s thunder clouds are roiling up on high I think of Dad on his big D8, “sloping” in the sky.

100 Years Ago, 1908 Was A Leap Year Starting On A Wednesday

On Sunday April 27, Clifton John Hubbard Was Born
On Sunday, February 1, Mary Carbonelli, Mary Ann’s Mother Was Born
On Monday, July 14, George Vincent Hallenbeck, Mary Ann’s Father Was Born

Mass productions arrives as the first Model T rolls of the assembly line. It sold for $850 & a Cincinnati mayor said woman aren’t physically fit to operate a car. 200,000 cars from 24 manufactures were sold that year.

· The Air Age arrives as Orville Wright was awarded a $25,000 contract by The War Department to build the first military airplane. He builds the plane and uses it to makes the 1st one-hour airplane flight but it ends in a crash and his passenger, Lieut. Thomas Selfridge, became the first person to die in an aircraft accident.

· The Great White Fleet was sailing around the world and at the time, the event was a logistical and technical triumph for the US and President Teddy Roosevelt
· The first Mother’s Day was held in Philadelphia, cellophane was patented, Ex-Lax Co. is founded and the Geiger counter was developed

You Should Have Seen It In Color

Photographs Remind Us Of What We 

Now Think We Once Were

Hubbard Hill Blue Berrying

The memory of that day is priceless; but not as priceless as the memory of the blueberry pie and muffins Mom fixed for us that weekend.  That wonderful lady could sure bake a pie!  

For those of you who were not there, we went up with little tins for gathering and the kids were putting blue berries in their shirts. So after working for about a half hour and with us all eating as many as we picked, there really weren't too many berries.  

Then someone (can't remember, who) came upon a large pan of blue berries that someone had picked and left behind.  Boy, were we proud of the great job we did when we got back to the house!  Comment by Mary Ann Hubbard

This One Is Gonna Be Trouble...

Craig Hubbard's New Music Site

Take A Look: All Original Music.....

http://craighubbardmusic.com/

The Children's Christmas Curse

Christmas time at the Baptist Church, at six years old I had to work to learn my solo hymn for the Christmas show.

“Away in a manger, no crib for a bed” were words I’d drilled deep in my head but what came out that night I still don’t know.

‘Though I practiced hard to learn that tune and words, the stage fright made it all just lights and blurs.

As I ran off to find my pew, deep in my heart I really knew, a show biz job was one I’d never do. 

Little kids, most scared to death, would mount  the stage and lose their breath and stand  like deer in headlights on the road.

When  mother’s prompting did not work, they stared and stammered, some with quirks, then ran for safety in a panic mode.

But some cool kids stood there serene and calm, and spoke their “piece” without a hitch or qualm.

Their folks were filled with joy and pride, while I looked for a place to hide. That Christmas show was stress I can’t abide. 

When I think of  a Christmas show, I think of all those kids that know they’re probably going to blow their Christmas “saying”.

It doesn't matter what they do, rehearse and practice, do voodoo, their cool & calm and memory’s just not staying.

They take the stage all brave but all alone, and most will wish that they had just stayed home.

And they’ll look back through all the years of loves and laughs and smiles and tears and think of standing, frozen like a stone. 

So now when Christmas comes around, I see the joyful sights and sounds and think of that cold night in that old church.

The clearest memory I recall was standing like beneath a pall as mind and body left me in the lurch.

Now I buy gifts and gild the tree and be the dad I’m meant to be but stay away from hymns and bible verse.

‘Cause in my mind I’m still that boy and that night’s end sure brought me joy as I got through the children’s Christmas curse.

 

 

 

 

Happy Holidays 2008

Hello Dear Friends & Family: 

We have cycled once again and are about to enter another Christmas Holiday season.  The year has been kind to us, giving us many opportunities to visit with friends and family.  Of course our favorite times have been spent with our little grandchildren, Hayden who was four in October and Elise, who turned one in June.  

David, Craig, Brinton, Hayden and Elise will all be here for about 8 days this Christmas.  This will probably be our last Christmas in Madison, so we intend on making it a wonderful celebration!

David is attending graduate school, working toward an MBA in International Business with emphasis on the Pacific Rim.  He is studying Chinese and, although he is intensely busy, he is enjoying it very much.  

Craig is still with Sun and is fortunately working on a project that appears to be "sustainable"!  (We have never really understood what it is that Craig does at Sun).  

Brinton is still enjoying her work as a member of an Internal Medicine group at Providence Hospital.  

Hayden is loving his first year at Montessori School.  Elise is learning Spanish from her beautiful Mexican nanny.  

Gerry is healthy, fit and stays busy with work, writing and music.  I am still working at real estate, but with the slow economy, am able to take more time to enjoy life in dozens of ways I had almost forgotten.  Life is good. We hope that life is good for all of you.  May 2009 be filled with family, fun, love and laughter

 

Happy Birthday Mary Ann Hubbard On 08/08/08

August angel, shining bright......

How’d you raise those rowdy kids

And they turned out the way they did

And since the time that we joined hands

Good hearted woman, good timing man

Loved your parents, loved mine too

Met all problems, saw them through

May we see you old & gray

Grand kids ‘round you every day...

August angel shining bright

Dilemma

Dilemma
“To be or not to be”,
The question Hamlet asked
Ahead, a dismal future,
Behind, a tortured past

Flights of time’s sharp arrows
Caused much travail and tears
And did not dull or lose their sting
As he worked through his years

“Not to be” is quite a risk
Of “if” and “where” and “when”
And all these risks are far beyond
Our paltry human ken

So when I think about it,
I guess this is the “why”
We all desire heaven,
But no one wants to die.

Surprise!

A woman swimmer from Toledo is recovering after a pelican apparently diving for fish slammed into her. The Fire Department Chief says he had never heard of a diving pelican colliding with anyone. The swimmer needed 20 stitches. The bird died. The Plain Dealer, Sunday, May 11, 2008

The Spring Lot

The “Spring Lot” was three acres out southeast across the road
Beyond the “crik” with minnows, frogs, the barnyard with its loads
Some years we’d plant Sudan Grass, tall, billows, green, in waves
In other years, we planted corn. Between the rows, dark caves

Lairs, from which we’d “hide n’ seek” and hunt for dangerous game
The rustling winds and dank dark earth held fears we couldn’t name
The lot was close and in full view of folks from our front porch
And through the trembling grass or corn, light flickered, as a torch

One day I lay beside the spring in warm and tender sun
And overturned a rock to watch the insects’ frantic run
I pondered their perceptions in a world I couldn’t see
And wondered if their eyes and minds could see that it was “ME”

The “ME” who made the calls about their right to live or die
I thought that this was how we were when looked at through God’s eyes
And then I saw wild strawberries, a sweet and tangy taste
And left that rock turned over, the insects to their fate

I often think, if there be gods, they must be like a child
Playing in a “Spring Lot” while we skitter, scared and wild
They'll never know the why, the what, the wonder of our days
'cause all they see are strawberries and blithely move away

South Mountain

South Mountain loomed, its camel’s hump a background for our days,
Was always there, foul wind or fair, it seemed to draw our gaze.
Its deep, dense woods with square hay-lots embedded in its hide,
Hid narrow roads that tunneled through just barely one-car wide.

Before electric lights came in, in nineteen forty six,
That mountain brooded in the night as by the River Styx.
My Dad and Uncles talked of ghosts, strange beings wrapped in white
That roamed those steep and winding roads on windy, rainy nights.

They spoke of driving home one night late from a Windham dance.
The drinks, the rain, their lights through trees, all put them in a trance.
The whole car saw this white-robed girl who walked the road that night,
And they never wondered why she walked or if she was alright.

Till several miles down the road they turned and started back,
And all they saw in headlight-glare was empty, narrow track.
No sign of footsteps, gaps or trails, or paths that she could take,
Just glistening leaves and swirling trees and nothing in her wake.

They drove on home to Hubbard Hill and put up for the night.
Their sleep of dreams with spectral themes and vague and floating fright.
They told this story many times,  with lots of sheepish grins,
And wondered why they drove on by and where their minds had been.

South Mountain still holds sway today, the hay lots all grown in,
The mountain face all forest now, its woods more dark and dim.
My Dad and Uncles all gone now, I miss their tales and talk,
And wonder if that lonesome wraith still walks her lonesome walk.
I wonder, does that lonely girl still walk her lonesome walk?

Expectations

Dad, Mom, David John, Wayne Morris, Douglas Maynard

1947 Gilboa New York

Ruminations At 70

I’m looking at their picture and am wondering if I had
Ever met the expectations of my mother and my dad
When looking back a past events, it seems it went quite well,
Though my mother and my sisters always said I’d go to hell

‘Cause I didn't have much faith in those things I couldn’t see
And that’s why the Flat Creek Baptist Church saw less and less of me.
As the magazines and books I read took me ‘round the world
And then at twelve, I recognized those things out there called girls.

About sixteen, the cigarettes and beers were all the rage
As I watched James Dean and Elvis rock the movies and the stage
Through high school and first college my folks helped me do alright,
Though the switchblade from Ft. Wayne caused my Dad a sleepless night

When he saw it in the attic on the dresser by my bed
And he asked me what the hell was going on there in my head
After that, I joined the Army, then college and career

And wife and kids and family and now old age is here

When I think about my parents, my emotions ebb and tide

And I hope I didn’t scare them much on my erratic ride
And ‘though they never said too much no matter what I did
I think they felt the same as I when watching both my kids
I hope they felt the same as I when watching both my kids…….