OBITUARIES: Gross, Fuss

By NANCY JANE KERN

EVERY ABLE-BODIED PERSON should have to work one day in a mid-August, old-time, blazing hot hay field. I thought I had it bad stacking hay bales in a wagon behind a tractor and hay baler as a kid until my maternal grandfather, Frank Wambach, showed me something worse. He and his four brothers had to mow hay by hand with a scythe. He tried to teach me to sharpen and use a scythe, and I did it poorly.

There is a rhythm to swinging a scythe and an art to sharpen the blade with a handheld whetstone. I butchered the grass and often my fingers too. The Grim Reaper carries a scythe, and he might have harvested some of his victims in fields where they were dying of heat stroke. To stay hydrated and keep working, people have used various liquid concoctions. One used by our early settlers was switchel. The origin of the drink may have been New England or the Caribbean and there is something similar from early times in Persia. Various recipes for switchel consist of water, vinegar, and a sweetener like molasses, sugar, honey, or maple syrup. It might have spices, hard cider, or rum added. Our country’s early Congress drank a switchel containing rum, and members purportedly drank often and deeply during sessions and oratory. My maternal grandmother came from a New England English background. She had a recipe for a drink for the men, it was non-alcoholic tea, and she taught me how to make it. She used a heavy, gallon Stanley Thermos jug to hold it. In an old quart milk pitcher, she added boiling water and steeped 5 tea bags and a teaspoon of powdered ginger until it cooled and formed a dark brown liquid. A tray of ice went into the wide-mouthed thermos, then the tea, a can of concentrated frozen lemonade containing sugar, and she filled it to the top with water. We sat it in the shade at the edge of a field, and all drank from the same cup. My mother made my father a large glass jar of iced coffee with lots of our good milk and some sugar. She provided extra cups for others.

Sometimes my grandfather used hand-dug springs near different fields for a drink, and there would be a tin cup hung on a branch nearby. Periodically he would dig them out and clean them up. We all drank from these flowing springs, the water was cold and clear, and no one got sick. We were lucky to have plenty of water on our farms.

Until recently the term switchel was unknown in this area. There is a revival of the drink, like the booming hard cider market, and two companies in Canada are making it as well as the Vermont Switchel Company. The other name for switchel is “haymakers punch” which should also appear on their labels.

By DOUG LAROCQUE, Capital Region Independent Media

IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES; it was the best of times. Inverting the famous opening line by Charles Dickens from “A Tale of Two Cities” perhaps is the best way to describe the high school career of the Class of 2024, be it in New Lebanon or any school in the nation for that matter.

These 29 graduating seniors started their freshman year in the throws of the Covid-19 pandemic, closed schools, remote learning, no sports, musicals or plays and what turned out to be the biggest impact for education, social isolation. Let’s fast forward to June 2024. The pandemic is for the most part in the rear-view mirror and was present only in the speeches given by students, faculty and administrators.

There was one underlying element in the addresses given by the top two academic achievers of this class. “Take a moment to stop and smell the roses.” Valedictorian Gabriel Kalisz spoke those words, as he reflected about the stress of life as a student, class time, exams, outside activities, sports, work etc. Mr. Kalisz said as he navigated through his final days at New Lebanon, he realized the important thing was to slow down, take in everything and everyone around you, enjoy each other’s company and time together here, be it your fellow students, faculty, friends and family. He pointed out that life changes this evening, make it a positive change filled with pleasant memories. Remember, through it all “you have been surrounded by a great community.”

Salutatorian Allison Slater also asked her fellow students to take a moment to reflect on their time together, “cherish this place and the people around us.” She spoke of her excitement and anticipation of this moment since the day she started high school, and the terrible realization that it is now over. She thanked her classmates and in particular the New Lebanon community for so much love and support. “That is what makes saying goodbye so hard.”

Mr. Kalisz, who hails from Canaan, will major in electrical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy in the fall, while Ms. Slater, from East Chatham, will major in biomedical engineering at Roger Williams University in Bristol, RI.

The class chose their advisors, Brooke Dickson and Valene Synakowski, to give their keynote address. Ms. Dickson spoke of the pandemic and the impact it not only had on the students but faculty as well. It was so difficult for the entire school community but she also said of the Class of 2024, to a person, their spirit through the entire time “resurrected us as teachers.”

Following the presentation of diplomas, the switching sides of the tassels and the mortar board toss into the air, New Lebanon has a tradition to etch into the senior’s memories their days growing up, as their alma mater says, “Near Columbia’s eastern borders with the mountains high in sight.” Students and their families climb into their cars for a procession from elementary school, where the graduation ceremonies were held outside on the lawn, to the high school, a few miles away. Led by fire apparatus from New Lebanon and nearby districts and watched over by the deputies from the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office, this parade of sorts is to symbolize their journey through school, from the very first day for many of them as they first stepped through the doors of the Walter B. Howard Elementary School as kindergarteners to their final steps out of the high school as graduating seniors and young adults.

The ceremony was held on Thursday, June 27.