Talk of trains mixes with talk of nature’s mysteries, scary spiders, and hard cider

The Old Men of the Mountain traveled to Gracie’s Restaurant in Voorheesville on Tuesday, Aug. 27. This is the old Voorheesville Diner, which was taken to the ground and rebuilt.

Though the restaurant is now completely different, the trains are not. Four trains went past while the OMOTM were there and these trains were rolling by at a pretty quick pace. With watching something that large, the OFs tried to estimate their speed and they came up with about 50 miles per hour or faster.

An intellectual mood

From last week, we continued the OFs discussion on the paranormal. We discussed animals and their sense of what is going on around us before we humans know it. The OFs discussed the homing instinct of many animals and birds and how those that are newly born (especially birds) fly away thousands of miles in the fall, and in the spring, manage to find their way back to the same nest. How do they do that?

Before the advent of the 20th Century, science did not acknowledge the vitality of trees and plants. The OFs discussed some of Cleve Backster’s work on plants, and brine shrimp.

Then there was Jagadish Chandra Bose, an Indian plant physiologist and physicist, and his study on plants. One study backed up his other study on plants having life, and sending out electrical impulses (at least one being able to be recorded) that they are going to die before they do. Interesting information like that.

Like an apple knows it is going to picked before it is; also that it is going to fall off the tree on its own accord before it falls. The OFs were in an intellectual mood this Tuesday.

The OFs also mentioned the information in these books is very surprising. One was that mothers of some animals (if not all, but that is only a guess) know if something happens to their offspring and indicate this knowledge by twitching.

Cleve Backster used brine shrimp to prove this and then graduated his research to include rabbits. The Russians used dogs. The scribe thinks the internet or the library is in order on this one.

Train trips

The OFs watched the trains go by and talked of some of their train trips. One OF mentioned taking a train excursion to Alaska and back and said that was quite an experience.

The OF said that the trip to Alaska was smooth and neat; however, they had to pull over every time a freight train went by. Apparently, the freight trains have the right of way. Also, he said, when they were in the plains part of Canada one day there was nothing to see but sunflowers — the whole day. That was kinda boring.

The OF noted that the return trip was completely different. He related that the train swayed back and forth, and clickety-clacked the whole way. The OF said a little better than half-way he told his wife he wanted to get off and fly the rest of the way home. The OF claimed the reason the trip is so long is the passenger train does spend a lot of time sitting on the side tracks waiting for the freight trains to go by in both countries.

Abundant apples

The OFs who have land, and old apple trees, are commenting on how many apples they have on them this year, and these apples are mostly worm-free. The OFs used to think these apples were useless except for feeding deer during the winter.

Now they are finding out they make really good cider — especially hard cider. Like anything else, the fad is catching on so that there is even a cider press on the market that can be used on these smaller sweet apples.

Some of the OFs have checked their old trees and say they are loaded and they may try making cider because of the quantity of apples they see. They will use their old presses to do it.

One OF said that, in the fall, there is nothing like warm cider doughnuts, and hot mulled cider, with pumpkin pie and whipped cream.

“Almost a meal,” another OF said.

A third OF said, “It isn’t fall yet, let’s enjoy the summer; it is short enough as it is. It seems like I just got the boat out, let alone used it.”

Spider scare

A different OF changed the subject completely as the conversation on apples started to peter out; he brought up the subject of spiders. The OF told about sitting down in his living room peacefully watching Rural TV when a blood-curdling scream came from the upstairs bathroom.

The OF said he jumped out of the chair as fast as he could.

“At my age,” he said, “that is not too fast because I have to push myself up and out by the arms of the chair.”

To which another OF added that he has to sit in chairs with arms, too, because he can’t get out of chairs with no arms or chairs that are too soft.

Anyway, the OF hollered upstairs, “What’s going on?”

And the wife screamed back breathlessly, “S P I D E R!”

The OF said, when he got upstairs, his wife told him that, when she went to wash her face and brought the washcloth up, a huge black spider, about the size of a quarter, fell out of the washcloth onto the top of the vanity.

She said she quickly grabbed a shampoo bottle and whacked the spider; however, she missed him and got only half of this interloper. When she took the bottle away there was half a spider running across the vanity, and the other half squashed flat with one leg moving.

“It took awhile for her to calm down,” the OF said.

It is noted that every time this story is told the spider gets bigger and soon it will be the size of a silver dollar.

Those OFs who decided breakfast out was better than making their own, or shaking the wife out of bed to make it for them, and decided to go to Gracie’s Kitchen in Voorheesville instead, were: Miner Stevens, Roger Chapman, Harold Guest, Wally Guest, Pete Whitbeck, Warren Willsey, Russ Pokorny, Mike Willsey, Gerry Chartier, Lou Schenck, Herb Bahrmann, Mace Porter, and me.