Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Less Regret Than Expected

Damp Day Doldrums

Actually, with the trip to interview Arthur, I didn't have time to work a horse--just over an hour.

And it was raining. Not hard, but cold and miserable enough to make me want to stay indoors.

Fortunately, my friend Bill drove, so I got to sit in a warm seat in the car playing with the GPS which proved to be wonderfully accurate at guiding us to Arthur's house in Mountainside.

We had a grand time talking to Arthur, getting his opinions and learning about the history of our area as he remembered it. We heard how it was living on a working farm in Central New Jersey from the late 1920's into the 1940's after World War II. Fresh milk cooled in cold water baths, sweet corn picked with a draft horse and long narrow cart, attending school in a one room schoolhouse, picking potatoes in the field, and breathing coal fumes from the furnace in the cellar all became vivid images of the past as we listened and questioned.

We didn't find the answers to every question, but we made some great discoveries and recorded it all for the future.

I may not have worked the Boys, but I had a good night anyhow. :)

3 comments:

  1. GPS in this country takes people trying to get here to the wrong side of the hill, about a mile away.

    C

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  2. i can testify to that! sometimes you ahve to know where you're going before you put the postcode in the sat nav! (i was taken to the wrong side of that hill by a government sponsored internet mapping service... but my satnav would have done the same!).

    did you get arthur on tape? oral history? excellent!

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  3. Oh yeah dont get me started on the AA route finder its had me driving back and forwards up the same road many a time!

    Sounds fasinating:)

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