Drummer, Give Me My Sound: Frisner Augustin

Home , Andy Statman, Dave Tarras, Frisner Augustin, Kenny Kosek, Modzitz, My Own Dance

Fall–Winter 2012 Volume 38: 3–4

The Journal of New York Folklore

Andy Statman, National Heritage Fellow

Dude Ranch Days in Warren County, NY

Saranac Lake Winter Carnival

The Making of the Adirondack Folk School From the Director

The Schoharie Creek, had stood since 1855 as the longest single- From the Editor which has its origins span covered wooden bridge in the world. near Windham, NY, The Schoharie’s waters then accelerated to In the spirit of full dis- feeds the Gilboa Res- the rate of flow of Niagara Falls as its path closure, I’m the one who ervoir in Southern narrowed, uprooting houses and trees, be- asked his mom to share Schoharie County. fore bursting onto the Mohawk River, just her Gingerbread Cookie Its waters provide west of Schenectady to flood Rotterdam recipe and Christmas drinking water for Junction and the historic Stockade section story as guest contribu- New York City, turn of Schenectady. tor for our new Food- the electricity-generating turbines at the A year later, in October 2012, Hurricane ways column. And, why not? It’s really not New York Power Authority, and are then Sandy hit the metropolitan New York that we couldn’t find someone else [be in loosed again to meander up the Schoharie area, causing widespread flooding, wind, touch, if you’re interested!]. Rather, I think Valley to Schoharie Crossing, the site of and storm damage. Clean up from this it’s good practice and quite humbling to an Erie Canal Aqueduct, where the waters storm is taking place throughout the entire turn the cultural investigator glass upon of the Schoharie Creek enter the Mohawk Northeast Corridor of the United States oneself from time to time, and to partici- River. Because it is a “captive river” (in and will continue for years to come. In its pate in at least a bit of the intimate sharing that its waters do not flow unheeded and aftermath, folklorists around the metro- that we routinely ask our subjects to do for are interrupted by the dam at Gilboa), the politan New York area have been meeting our profession. Schoharie Creek in summertime is sleepy to talk about their communities’ responses The Christmas of my youth is an exam- and unhurried. In my little hamlet along the to Sandy and the role that culture plays in ple of a wonderfully layered holiday tradi- Schoharie, summertime visitors clamber one’s response to climate change. Dubbed tion, with religious and secular elements, over rocks to float in the dwindling swim- “SandyLore,” this group has expanded to family and community all intertwined. ming holes, which shrink as the summer include folklorists in other parts of New We were not immune to the Christmas heat intensifies. York State who were hit by earlier storms, of 1960s–1970s. We got caught up in the In August 2011, the Schoharie Valley such as Irene. Climate change and cultural trappings of a rosy cheeked Santa with a experienced mass destruction and loss sustainability were the theme of the 2013 reindeer sleigh led by Rudolph, a real tree of property as Hurricane Irene barreled New York State Folk Arts Roundtable that decorated with colored glass ornaments through the northern Catskills region took place in Schenectady in May. Other and aluminum tinsel, multi-colored lights and down the Valley. Originally forecast initiatives exploring the intersections of outlining the house, and the many TV spe- as headed for New York City and Long cultural sustainability and responses to cials. We kids expected the overload of toys Island, Hurricane Irene caught residents climate change will be ongoing. and gifts, marking up the Sears Christmas unaware, as torrential rains engorged creek Ellen McHale, PhD, Executive Director Catalog as a wish list of our many desires. beds and toppled trees, and strong winds New York Folklore Society I remember being quite shaken when my tore roofs from buildings. The Schoharie [email protected] older brother, home from prep school, la- Creek swelled to over a mile wide through www.nyfolklore.org beled it a “manufactured holiday of corpo- the Schoharie Valley, flooding homes and rate commercial interests.” businesses in numerous Catskills communi- Of course, we knew “the real meaning ties and destroying historic landmarks such of Christmas,” as recited in the final scene as Blenheim’s historic Covered Bridge that of A Charlie Brown Christmas. It reinforced continued on page 2

“Formal sacred rituals surrounding seasonal holidays may happen in places of worship; however, in members’ homes, informal, more secularized rituals may also occur, marking the date as personally significant to the member as well as significant to the entire congregation of their church or religious group.” —Martha C. Sims and Martine Stephens, Living Folklore: An Introduction to the Study of People and Their Traditions (2005), p. 104. VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Contents Fall–Winter 2012

Features 3 Drummer, Give Me My Sound: Reflections on the Life and Legacy of Frisner Augustin by Lois Wilcken 13 Flash Fiction Stories by Joseph Sciorra 14 14 Keeping the Adirondack Arts, Crafts, & Traditions Alive by Jim Mandle 22 Andy Statman, National Heritage Fellow Innovating across Musical Worlds by Pete Rushefsky 30 Rounding up the Memories: Personal Histories of the Dude Ranch Days in Warren County, New York by Annie S. Yocum 38 Hanging on to Tradition by Andy Flynn 22 Departments and Columns 12 View from the Waterfront by Nancy Solomon 20 Upstate by Varick A. Chittenden 21 Downstate by Steve Zeitlin 30 28 Play by John Thorn 37 Good Spirits by Libby Tucker 44 Voices in New York by Lisa Overholser 46 Foodways by Elsie Borden DeGarmo-Smith 47 NYFS News and Notes Cover: Portrait of Frisner Augustin in a Vodou temple in Brooklyn, 1998. See Lois Wilcken’s article, “Drummer, Give Me My Sound: Reflections on the Life and Legacy of Frisner Augustin,” 38 beginning on page 3. Photo by Martha Cooper. Courtesy of City Lore.

Fall–WinterFall–Winter 2012,2012, VolumeVolume 38:38:3–4 3–4 1 1 From the Editor (continued) whate w were learning at our United Meth- Her large, open house Christmas Eve buf- odist Church—in an Advent season full of fets always ended with a reading of Clement Gospel stories, familiar hymns and carols, Moore’s The Night before Christmas by Miss Lulu costumed pageants, and choir cantatas, lead- Kisselbrack, with all the animation one would Fall–Winter 2012 · Volume 38: 3–4 ing to the finale of the candlelight service on expect from a beloved second grade teacher. Acquisitions Editor Todd DeGarmo Copy Editor Patricia Mason Christmas Eve and the birth of the baby Jesus, Everyone left happy, driving off to the can- Administrative Manager Laurie Longfield adored by his earthly parents and surrounded dlelight services at various churches in town, Design Mary Beth Malmsheimer by the gaggle of shepherds, wise men, and wishing each other a “Merry Christmas.” Printer Eastwood Litho angels. Folklife is not neat and sterile. It’s messy Editorial Board Varick Chittenden, Lydia Fish, José Gomez-Davidson, Hanna Griff-Sleven, But it was Mom’s own personal touch that and personal and wonderful. People follow Nancy Groce, Lee Haring, Bruce Jackson, created the magic of the season. Her credo of the ritual but also make it their own. I encour- Christopher Mulé, Libby Tucker, Kay Turner, reaching out to others, caring for the lonely age you to turn the glass upon yourself and Dan Ward, Steve Zeitlin and downtrodden, even though she, herself, think about sharing some of your personal Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore might be grieving for lost husbands. Along traditions with us. is published twice a year by the New York Folklore Society, Inc. with the gingerbread man tradition, she had Todd DeGarmo 129 Jay Street us, at an early age, sending our own home- Voices Acquisitions Editor Schenectady, NY 12305 made Christmas cards and gifts to extended Founding Director of the Folklife Center at New York Folklore Society, Inc. family, including many elderly folk in town. Crandall Public Library Executive Director Ellen McHale Folklorist Lisa Overholser [email protected] Administration and Gallery Laurie Longfield Web Administrator Patti Mason Voice (518) 346-7008 Fax (518) 346-6617 Web Site www.nyfolklore.org

Board of Directors President Gabrielle Hamilton Vice President Christopher Mulé Treasurer Jessica Schein Ellen Fladger, Anna Mulé, Puja Sahney, Gregory Shatan, Connie Sullivan-Blum, Kay Turner, Thomas van Buren

Advertisers: To inquire, please call the NYFS (518) 346-7008 or fax (518) 346-6617.

The New York Folklore Society, in collaboration with Building Cultural Bridges, The American Voices is available in Braille and recorded Folklore Society, and New York State Council on the Arts, presented the workshop, “The Art versions. Call the NYFS at (518) 346-7008. of Community: Building an Arts & Culture Support Network for Newcomer Artists in Central New York State” on May 17, 2013, in Utica, NY. The first presentation above( ) was on the The New York Folklore Society is committed to Karen weaving micro-enterprise project of the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, providing services with integrity, in a manner that Utica, NY. The afternoon included opportunities for artists to present their work in an conveys respect for the dignity of the individuals and informal setting, and to speak about difficulties which are encountered in America below( ). communities the NYFS serves, as well as for their Visit the NYFS website, www.nyfolklore.org/progs/conf-symp/newcomer.html, to see more cultures, including ethnic, religious, occupational, and photos and learn more about the workshop. Photos by Ellen McHale. regional traditions. The programs and activities of the New York Folk- lore Society, and the publication of Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore, are made possible in part by funds from the New York State Council on the Arts. Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore is indexed in Arts & Humanities Citation Index and Music Index and abstracted in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life. Reprints of articles and items from Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore are available from the NYFS. Call (518) 346-7008 or fax (518) 346-6617.

2 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Drummer, Give Me My Sound: Reflections on the Life and Legacy of Frisner Augustin1

by Lois Wilcken

Ountògi, ba mwen son mwen e Sacred drummer, give me my sound, oh n , January 3 1981, I found myself Tanbouyè, ba mwen son mwen e Drummer, give me my sound, ah O waiting for my first lesson in Haitian Ountò, ba mwen son mwen Drum spirit, give me my sound drumming in a narrow hall outside a room Solèy leve2 The sun rises in a residential hotel on Broadway and West

Photo 1: Frisner poses with his Madi Gra band, Port-au-Prince, circa middle to late 1960s. This is the first extant photo of Frisner Augustin, who plays the large drum in the center. Photo: Joujou Foto.

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 3 Haitian Vodou Haitian Vodou serves a pantheon of spirits as diverse as the African peoples who brought them to Haiti. The spirits (lwa) group into nations (nasyon), and the nations fall into one of two major branches, Rada and Petwo. Historically, Rada came from West Africa, particularly the region around the Guinea Gulf; Pet- wo came from the Congo region. Rada and Petwo differ markedly in tempera- ment and expressive style, and we see this in Vodou arts, ritual offerings, and the behaviors displayed in spirit possession. Vodouists may use the words Rada and Petwo to describe spirits, nations, rites, drums, and dances. The spirits of love and feminine power illustrate the Rada/Petwo dichotomy. Èzili Freda Dawomen, a Rada spirit traceable to West Africa, stands for ro- mantic love and luxury. Her color is pink, her element water. We might call Èzili Dantò, a Petwo lwa, the spirit of tough love. She fought alongside her children in the Haitian Revolution, bears scars on her face, and continues to wield a dagger. Her color is red, her element fire.

patience, a skill (or perhaps, an attitude) I had been learning from Haitian performers since taking up the study of their folk arts in September. I hadn’t mastered it yet, because I sneaked an occasional glance at my watch and noted, on the last glance, that it was 45 minutes past rendezvous time. Was it time Figure 1: Flyer for Makandal’s first performance in New York City on Thanksgiving to give up? Just as the thought entered my Day (November 26), 1981. Ti Manno, Tabou Combo, and Farah Juste were top performers of the day. mind, like a drum stroke teasing the listener with an ever so subtle delay, Frisner arrived. 99th Street. I had met the drummer, only in used) conga drum through the subway to He nodded a greeting, fumbled in his coat passing a few weeks ago, backstage at a com- meet with a musician I didn’t actually know. pocket for his keys, then opened the door to munity festival in Brooklyn. On the night be- The memory of my first meeting with his modest room. It was a Dorothy in Oz fore my lesson, however, a new acquaintance Frisner remains as fresh as the snow that moment for me, as I transitioned from the had insisted I take drum classes with Frisner fell later that day. First, he made me wait— drab hallway into a space decked out in imaj, Augustin if I wanted to understand anything well, probably not on purpose. In Haiti, as the word Haitians use for the color prints at all about Haitian traditional drumming. in most parts of the world, clock time does of Catholic saints that they have adopted to He arranged the class for me, and on this not rule in the same way that it does in our represent their spirits, or lwa. Color-coded January afternoon, I braved the threat of a fevered modern world. As I stood with my jar candles illuminated the imaj, which graced snowstorm and dragged my new (to me, but drum in the cramped hallway, I exercised tables and baseboards. I reminded myself

4 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore that I was still in New York and then savored the thrill that comes from having reached the successful end of a treasure hunt. And the lesson hadn’t even begun. And what did Frisner see that day? His new student had carried a chocolate brown conga drum in a black trash bag, probably because she didn’t know where to acquire a canvas sack. The drum called for an examination in his “take your time” mode (as opposed to his “let’s go!” mode) with a studied passing of eyes and hands over the single head of cow skin, the wood body, the metal hardware that holds the head to the body and tunes it, and finally, the interior. Not a remarkable drum, but it would do. He cleared a space, set two chairs opposite each other, and placed the student’s drum and one of his own in front of the chairs. Noting that the student roughly matched his thirty-two years, with a complexion the color of Èzili Freda’s (the sweet Venus of Haitian Vodou) and hair as long as that of Lasirenn (of Haitian mermaid myth), he invited her to sit, and the lesson began. The first drumming style we worked on revealed something about Frisner’s Port- au-Prince roots that I would come to know later. Most Haitians living in New York in 1981 had emigrated from Port-au-Prince; even those with origins elsewhere in Haiti had spent some time in the capital before leaving the country.3 Most, then, who continued in New York to serve the lwa—a Figure 2: Flyer for Makandal’s first performance outside the Haitian communities of spiritual practice called “Vodou” after a New York. The staged Vodou ceremony took place at Soundscape in Manhattan on West African term for “spirit”—served in October 22, 1982. the style of Port-au-Prince, where the dans (a nightlong, “danced” celebration of the lwa) I had not anticipated the tectonic shift him on my drum, sometimes verbalizing opens with a music and dance style called this exercise was about to deliver. Although them with “Tone, squeeze, squeeze, bass, yanvalou. Yanvalou, a word meaning “praise” I had never played any kind of drum, I had tone, tone.” (That’s right, “squeeze”—Fris- in the language of the Fon people of Be- studied music for some years and played ner’s charming way of naming a stopped nin, invokes the Rada lwa, a spiritual nation other instruments. I easily identified the me- tone.) My hands tensed as I struggled to brought to Haiti (and then to New York) ter of yanvalou as a compound 6/8 or 12/8 carve out in real time new neural pathways from the region on the Gulf of Guinea, in full of two-against-three synchronies. For to accommodate the unfamiliar sequence. particular, modern Benin and Togo. Because this student, rhythm, the element of music My struggle did not escape Frisner. He practitioners in Port-au-Prince consider the most commonly associated with drumming, placed his hands over mine. “When you Rada nation cool, balanced, and formal, did not emerge as the main challenge. Tone, play the Vodou drum, relax, and let these they place it at the top of the ritual order, on the other hand, did. I would come to people”—pointing to the imaj along the reserving the more tempestuous lwa for later learn that Frisner paid meticulous attention baseboards—“help you.” in the night. Thus, my own dance through to tone. He demonstrated the sequence of Each of us has at least one moment that the drums of Vodou began with yanvalou. yanvalou strokes and had me repeat them after radically alters the direction of his or her life.

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 5 interviewe h granted me in 1982, he recalled a dream in which the two Èzili, the lwa who love and nourish, came to him in response to his prayers. They promised to serve him if he would serve them.4 Koridò Djòn took its name from an oungan (male Vodou priest) whose temple lay in the same passage. Frisner trained as a drummer in Kay Djòn (John’s House) and excelled at it. As he entered his adolescence, his favorite lwa, the militant Ogoun, possessed Djòn during a dans and instructed the society to initiate the youth as an ountògi, a sacred drummer. The word ountògi derives from Ountò, the spirit that lives in consecrated drums and animates drummers. The skilled ountògi wields significant power during the dans, guiding the ebb and flow of spirit possession. Through his disciplined study of the drum, Frisner answered the call of the Èzili and Ogoun to serve. Frisner came into his world of Port- au-Prince during the height of an African consciousness movement variously called indigènisme (nativism), noirisme (black pride), Photo 2: Frisner is moved to tears as filmmaker Jonathan Demme presents City Lore’s and négritude (black pride). Adherents called People’s Hall of Fame Award, New York, November 19, 1998. Photo: Martha Cooper. Courtesy of City Lore. the cultural dimension of this movement folklore. Ethnologist Jean Price-Mars had introduced the term into Haitian discourse This was mine. It took me decidedly out of named Frisner. Home was a shack behind with his 1928 Ainsi parla l’oncle (Thus Spoke theory/composition and into ethnomusicol- the city’s Grand Cimitière (Great Cemetery). the Uncle), a book widely considered Haiti’s ogy; it broke up my first long relationship, Andrea’s entire family—two sisters, three first ethnography. Price-Mars took the term lifted me out of Manhattan, and dropped brothers, and their mother—had fallen on from French writer and folklorist Paul Sébil- me off in the Caribbean neighborhoods of hard times, and the younger boys were no lot but acknowledged its coinage by British Central Brooklyn to embark on a 32-year longer in school. When praying before her antiquary William Thoms (p. 49). By the journey with a Haitian master drummer. ogatwa, a personal Vodou altar inside a cabi- early 1940s, Haitian dancers and musicians, What did he mean when he said, “relax and net, Andrea likely invested her hopes in her inspired by the writings of Price-Mars and let these people help you”? Putting it into baby son, her mother’s first grandchild, and others, were establishing troupes that fea- words is never adequate, but let’s say that I asked the lwa to guide and protect him. tured traditional Haitian dances with song heard it as my invitation to ride with the spir- Frisner’s first memories recalled the shack and instrumental accompaniment. Most of its, something I thought I would never hear on Koridò Djòn (John’s Corridor), one the dances had come to Haiti from West and inside the steel and concrete of New York. passageway among many in a labyrinthine West Central Africa, and a few from France; community on the west side of the cemetery. Vodou dances dominated the African side. The Life He lived in the shack with his baby sister and Because virtually all of the troupe directors On March 1, 1948, Andrea Laguerre, his mother while his father, Julien Augustin, had trained in ballet, modern dance, and a poor retailer, gave birth to a baby boy traveled in search of carpentry work. They classical music, the European notion of under a tree outside the general hospital of all slept on the floor, often hungry. Andrea choreography (the composition of move- Port-au-Prince. She had been waiting for a would open the ogatwa when she thought the ment for the theater) determined the Haitian room, but the baby could wait no longer. children were asleep, but Frisner observed folklore performance. Some young dancers Andrea never got the room and simply her praying through her tears and offered up from privileged families crossed over from went home with her first child, whom she prayers of his own. In an autobiographical ballet to folklore, but musicians from the

6 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore same class did not study or perform Vodou but he wanted to create his own group. In music in her Manhattan performance loft, drumming. July 1981, dancers Marie Léotard Sylvain a venue she called Soundscape. In October While Frisner was playing his first Vodou and Smith Desroches came to New York 1982 she launched a “Voodoo Theatre”6 dances, folklore companies were scouting with the band Roots of Haiti. Frisner had series (see Fig. 2) and asked the company Vodou houses for drummers. He was drum- left the residential hotel in Manhattan for to stage Vodou rites—“just as you would ming one day at a house associated with a Haitian neighborhood in East Flatbush, do it at home,” she said. Makandal puzzled Kay Djòn when a troupe director showed where Smith and Marie had settled. The two over how to present the full-scale dans in two up and offered him work. About 13 at the dancers had heard about him back in Haiti hours before an uninitiated audience, but time, Frisner knew what this would do for and easily found him through neighborhood multiple opportunities to resolve such chal- him because his uncle drummed for folklore networks. They explained to him that they lenges arose over the next years as Voodoo companies and came home with money for danced primarily for La Troupe Makandal, Theatre attracted contracts. The company his mother’s rent. Drumming and dancing a company established in a poor neighbor- learned how to play on the threshold be- in theaters and tourist havens made no one hood of Belair in Port-au-Prince, and that tween the temple and the stage. wealthy, but it was a godsend for the poor. six more members of Makandal would ar- By the 1990s all but one of the original It was also a step toward emigration. rive in October. Frisner moved into a small Makandal artists had left the group. All Over the next decade Frisner drummed basement room in East Flatbush with Smith but one had succumbed to the stress of for Viviane Gauthier, for African-American and Marie, and when Makandal arrived in being the first of an impoverished family dancer Lavinia Williams, and for the Haïti October, all of them crowded into that to migrate; families back home expected Chante et Danse company of Lina Mathon- room and another. They looked to Frisner remittances more substantial than a career Blanchet. He toured with the Blanchet group for support and for jobs in folklore. Like in folklore could yield. As Frisner replaced in Puerto Rico, St. Croix, and Acapulco. many new immigrants, they believed that the several artists with outsiders to the culture, Meanwhile, he continued to play for the wealth of New York could sustain them in some reproached him from a concern for au- lwa in Vodou houses, and he formed a Madi their chosen profession. thenticity. This genuinely surprised him. He Gra (Haitian Creole for Mardi Gras) band in Thrilled that the company he dreamed argued that the spirit has no color. In time, his community (see photo 1). At the age of of had landed on his doorstep, Frisner even his white drummers, rigorously trained 24, Frisner contracted with the Vodou djaz promptly introduced La Troupe Makandal in the Augustin drumming style, earned the (Vodou jazz) band Jazz des Jeunes for an to entrepreneur Firmin Joseph, and the respect of the City’s Vodou houses, and the engagement in New York. The entire band group debuted in a Thanksgiving festival at exuberant spirit of the maestro in theaters, decided, before getting on the plane, that Brooklyn College on November 26 (see Fig. schools, and festivals overrode the debate. they would stay in New York. 1). The company stunned the audience with In 1998 the board of directors of City Frisner emigrated from Haiti during the its uniquely bold presentation of Vodou, Lore, the New York City-based organization dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier, when a representational mode that contrasted that documents, presents, and advocates the use of music bands and folklore com- markedly with the more polished mode for urban grassroots cultures, approved the panies as instruments of migration prolifer- of the established companies. They had induction of Frisner into its People’s Hall of ated. Folklore artists entered New York City named themselves after François Makandal, Fame. Frisner received this first major badge during this time and regrouped into new an 18th-century revolutionary and messiah of recognition in an award ceremony held companies that entertained the blossoming believed to possess magical powers. The at the Museum of the City of New York. diaspora in the community festival (festival), Makandal artists—Vodou initiates—had Filmmaker Jonathan Demme, who had re- a variety show mixing local talent with stars mastered a number of mind-over-body corded Makandal for the soundtrack of his from Haiti. Likewise, Vodou clergy and ini- feats. I accompanied the troupe in its perfor- film Beloved, presented the award (see photo tiates regrouped into new sosyete (societies), mances—recording, photographing, and 2). Over the next 13 years, Frisner won the and in October 1973, just 11 months after guarding handbags backstage. Unaware that National Heritage Fellowship from the Na- arriving in New York, Frisner married his I was laying the groundwork for the position tional Endowment for the Arts, the United protectors, the Èzili, in the house of Oungan of manager, I also made printed programs States’ highest honor in the traditional arts; a Emmanuel Cadet, a friend from childhood when the occasion called for it. certificate of achievement from the National who had established a vibrant society in the For one year, Makandal performed only Coalition for Haitian Rights; a plaque of Bronx.5 eH also wed Haitian American Marie for Haitian audiences, but the performers’ honor from the children’s dance company Claire, an initiate in Cadet’s society, and by raw authenticity, which brought out Frisner’s Tonèl Lakay; and dancer Peniel Guerrier’s 1976, he had secured residence. to an extent that other troupes could not, Kriye Bòde award. Frisner drummed in Vodou houses and inspired me to introduce the company to Frisner came into this success on the on stage in festivals throughout the 1970s, producer Verna Gillis. Gillis presented world threshold of his senior years. At this time,

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 7 Photo 3: Ti Makandal Ayiti, a post-earthquake relief effort of Troupe Makandal, gets ready to animate the neighborhood at Carnival time, Port-au-Prince, February 20, 2012. Photo: Lois Wilcken.

too, he began to think about bringing coma, he died of a massive brain hemor- tional notions of authenticity, his conscious something back to his country. After the rhage. We buried him on March 3 in the clouding of the imagined line between the earthquake of 2010, Makandal raised funds, mausoleum he had built for his family in sacred and the secular, and his virtuosic and we delivered tents, tarps, and medical the Grand Cimitière. The previous night creativity. Frisner’s personal qualities—an supplies to the community that raised Fris- we held the Vodou funerary bowou/desounen extroverted character, exploratory curios- ner, the community with which he had kept (separation of the soul from the body) in a ity, and a resolute commitment to his most close ties. Responding to the appeal of a small temple behind the cemetery, sending fundamental values—worked in tandem manbo (female Vodou priest) who had taken him anba dlo (under the sea that houses the with his experiences as a youth in urban Haiti in a number of children after the earthquake, invisibles) until such time as his soul would and as an immigrant in New York to shape Makandal organized Ti Makandal Ayiti be reclaimed and installed in a new place of his unique style. (Little Makandal of Haiti) and animated honor and authority. From the start, Frisner was open to work- the community with a children’s Carnival ing with people outside his immediate cul- (see photo 3). The Legacy ture and community. In interviews he spoke This new work came to a painful h alt What did Frisner Augustin take from New of the “white” (privileged mulatto) Haitians on Frisner’s last trip to Haiti in the winter York, and what did he give to it in return? with whom he worked in Haiti, in particular, of 2012. On the morning of February 24, In addressing this question, I would like to Lina Mathon-Blanchet and her circle—an just after Carnival, we (myself and friends) reflect on three of the motifs that thread his association that his mother initially feared. couldn’t wake him. After four days in a narrative: his tendency to challenge conven- Like most Haitians from his stratum,

8 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Frisner maintained class-consciousness, but that broke Vodou performance taboos to nonetheless drew audience members on- he insisted on respecting an individual’s inner which homogenously Haitian troupes stage for blessings from a very real Èzili light. He easily mapped this early experi- prudently adhered. If “authenticity” was Dantò (the hot Venus; see photo 4). On the ence in Haiti onto encounters in New York partly absent in terms of ethnicity, it was flip side of this coin, Frisner distinguished with a broader diversity of artists, students, dynamically present in spirit. At the begin- himself in the peristil for a style of drum- presenters, and scholars than he had known ning of his career, Frisner, like most folklore ming that exceeded the norm in terms of in Haiti. Eager to plant the beauty of his artists, represented Vodou music and dance theatrics and virtuosity. In sum, he brought culture in whatever soil he stood on, he through the aforementioned koregrafi (cho- the spontaneity of the temple to the stage, opened it to people like myself and to other reography), an arrangement of steps and and the artistry and professionalism of the artists and students while learning from drum patterns derived from the traditional stage to the temple, thus challenging the them in return. His work with ethnically dances but rehearsed and formalized for the sacred-secular split (see photo 5). mixed companies that represented Haiti theater. Makandal peppered its first koregrafi Wherever he beat the drum, Frisner em- drew criticism from presenters who felt he in Brooklyn with blatant displays of Vodou broidered a dense sonic tapestry around the was sacrificing authenticity, and from activ- gesture, facial expression, and feats of mind- traditional pattern. He distinguished himself ists who argued that the jobs should go over-body, and this quickly and permanently for his crisp and precise treatment of tone, to Haitians. As executive director of the became the Troupe’s hallmark. The Voodoo an element of drumming often lost inside company, I found myself in the odd posi- Theater series of Verna Gillis took this pro- the obvious concern for time (rhythm). tion of having to tell an authentically Vodou clivity to another level, dispensing altogether “The drum is a piano,” he insisted, meaning drummer—a real McCoy—that he should with formal stage conventions. The sacred the drum can produce at least as many dif- represent his culture according to standards and the secular merged in this new context ferent sounds as the keyboard. He put the coming from outside.7 In the end, I decided and delivered authentic possessions. In 2007 keys of his “piano” to the task of jazzing to trust Frisner’s judgment. in Tokyo, where presenters had advised us up and lending nuance to the conversations Ironically, it was Frisner’s mixed company that the public was very reserved, Frisner that transpire among the drum ensemble,

Photo 4: The public lines up to receive blessings from a manbo/performer possessed by the lwa Èzili Dantò in Tokyo’s Sogetsu Hall, July 14, 2007. Photo: Shinji Takehara.

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 9 Photo 5: Frisner Augustin’s explosive exuberance energizes a Vodou dance in Brooklyn, 1983. Photo: Chantal Regnault.

10 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore the chorus, the audience, the professional References Cited Library of Congress’ change of subject dancer, the ounsi (Vodou initiate), and, not Laguerre, Michel S. American Odyssey, Haitians heading from Voodooism to Vodou in least, the lwa. At the same time, he displayed in New York City. 1984. Ithaca and London: October 2012. a unique mastery of the temporal by way of Cornell University Press. 7 In making this statement, I acknowledge Price-Mars, Jean. Ainsi parla l’oncle. Paris: the kase, a break from the ensemble’s main that those who argued for Haitian per- Imprimerie de Compiègne. 1928. New formers only sincerely believed that this pattern rich with offbeat phrasing. Frisner’s edition with introduction by Robert Corn- position reflected insiders’ standards. I kase excursions tested the limits of how far evin. Ottawa: Editions Leméac, 1973. can verify that these were not Frisner’s one could go without losing one’s footing, Page reference is to the 1973 edition. standards. i.e., the beat. He traveled farther than most, in the manner of a jazz musician when he Notes or she “loses” the melody. In fact, I propose 1 This article is an adaptation and expansion that these elements of Frisner’s style derive of a paper presented on November 9, to a significant degree from his love of jazz, 2012, at the 24th meeting of the Haitian beginning in Haiti with Lina Blanchet, Jacky Studies Association (HSA) at York Col- lege, CUNY in Jamaica, New York. The Duroseau, and Jazz des Jeunes, and expand- author thanks HSA, which accepted the ing across his work in the United States, Eu- proposal for a panel honoring the late rope, and Latin America with Kip Hanrahan, Mr. Augustin; and which, at the meeting’s Rara Machine, Edy Brisseaux, and, most end, presented his company, La Troupe recently, Haitian American Andrew Cyrille. Makandal, with its Award for Service. She also thanks co-panelists Carolle Charles Reflections and Elizabeth McAlister, and moderator Frisner Augustin’s life and legacy, which Marie Lily Cérat for their feedback and his company intends to archive, developed support. from a life that began in urban Haiti (with 2 The song quoted (in Haitian Creole with Vodou houses impacted by in-migration English translation by the author) belongs from all corners of the nation, and with to the extensive repertory of Haitian Vo- theaters impacted by tourism and modern- dou (the name given to Haitians’ service to their ancestral spirits). A group consisting ization) and continued in New York City, of soloist and chorus sings this particular a cultural capital and a longtime mecca for song at the beginning of a dans (nightlong immigrants. From this heterogeneous and Dr. Lois Wilcken (PhD, Music/Ethnomu- danced ritual) when they pour libations for sicology, Columbia University), a native often fragmented experience, he was able Ountò, spirit of the drums and drummers. New Yorker, has had the pleasure of to actuate through drumming such aspects researching the traditional music and 3 This observation on the author’s part was dance of Haiti in Port-au-Prince and New of his philosophy as the convictions that the confirmed in Laguerre 1984, pp. 25–26. York City’s Haitian neighborhoods. She spirit lives in all of us, that it operates in a 4 Augustin, Frisner, interview by the author, shares her experiences with academic and general audiences. In addition to great variety of spaces, and that Ountò, the March 24, 1982. administering and developing programs spirit who animates the drummer, ought to 5 The Vodou marriage brings a human into with La Troupe Makandal, Dr. Wilcken play with a virtuosity rivaling the masters of a contractual relationship with a lwa. Each has served students from kindergarten through university with educational pro- jazz. vows special service to the other. For the grams. White Cliffs Media Company pub- In the end, however, Frisner began his human, the lwa offers enhanced guidance lished her book, The Drums of Vodou, in and protection. 1992. In 1998, University of Illinois Press passage to the other side not only in Haiti, published Island Sounds in the Global 6 Scholars prefer the spelling Vodou, but also in the very neighborhood where he City, which she co-edited with Dr. Ray which more closely approximates Creole Allen. One may visit French and English grew up. He rests in the Grand Cimitière, pronunciation. Until recently, presenters versions of Dr. Wilcken’s “Vodou Music and one year and one day after the dispatch in Haiti” exhibit at www.lameca.org. She argued that the use of Vodou in public- is currently annotating a collection from of his soul to the waters below, his Vodou ity would confuse and deter a potential her own field recordings for publication community will call him back and install audience. Scholars counter-argued for on the web-based Ethnographic Video for Instruction and Analysis Digital Archive him in his proper place of honor among usage and exposure as the only ways to (EVIADA) based at Indiana University, the ancestors—a fitting tribute to the little change a spelling that played on negative and with Makandal, she is planning an boy from Koridò Djòn who, as his mother online archive centered on the life and stereotypes (the voodoo of cannibals legacy of the company’s late Artistic cried herself to sleep, prayed for and got, and zombies). The efforts of scholars Director, Master Drummer Frisner Augus- the eternal ear of the lwa. have borne fruit, as demonstrated by the tin. The author is shown here with Frisner in a photograph taken c. 1984 at Lincoln Center. Photo by Chantal Regnault.

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 11 Eyes on Sandy BY NANCY SOLOMON

“They’ve closed off the bay to everyone.” they have built garveys, a shallow water flat “Our bay house is gone.” “My father’s boat bottom boat, and harvest killies, a small bait tools, over 100 years old, are gone.” These fish used by recreational fishermen to catch were just some of the things I heard imme- fluke, flounder, striped bass, and other finfish. diately after Hurricane Sandy struck Long They have owned three bay houses since the Island. As if the storm was not fierce enough, late 1800s, the most recent one built in 1954. Sandy struck at high tide during a full moon, These traditions are carried on by John and when the bay is at its highest height. Grace Remsen, with their son John Remsen, As a folklorist, I knew that this storm was Jr., and his family. They have been involved one for the history books. While the Hur- in Long Island Traditions’ maritime programs ricane of 1938 is legendary, Long Island was since 1987, because they believe in the impor- far less populated at that time, and only the tance of educating Long Island residents who barrier islands were struck. Sandy, in contrast, may not be familiar with the ways of the bay. affected more than three million people on When Sandy struck, the sewage treatment Long Island alone, not to mention all the plant in nearby Bay Park, just three miles west residents of lower New York City, including of Freeport, overflowed until February 2013. the Rockaways, Coney Island, Sheepshead As a result, the entire bay in western Long Bay, Staten Island, and other areas. By now, Island was closed to shellfishing until April you have heard of the economic and ecologi- 2013, and many of the species frequently seen cal damage Sandy has wrought, but my goal by boaters and marine biologists were not VIEW FROM THE WATERFRONT THE VIEW FROM John Remsen, Sr., in one of his garveys. in this column is to give you a more intimate evident. In addition, it was unsafe to eat any Photo by Nancy Solomon c. 2004. portrait of how this storm affected people of the finfish or shellfish harvested in the bay. who carry on maritime traditions. Consequently, fishermen like the Remsens in 1954. Like many families, the Remsens’ bay The Remsen family of Freeport is a are not harvesting killies since the fishermen house was damaged and partially destroyed. seventh-generation Long Island family that could not catch fish from local bay waters. Bay houses are small wood frame structures works the bays near Freeport. Like many The Remsens have owned three bay houses built on the marshlands by baymen, duck families in Freeport, they live on a canal where since the late 1800s, the most recent one built hunters, and recreational fishermen, a tradition that dates to the colonial period. The houses stand on pole foundations so that they can be moved easily, and cause no harm to the wetlands. Approximately 35 bay houses stood in the Town of Hempstead before Sandy. Currently there are 14, most of which need repairing. The Remsens used the house for storing traps and tools, and the horseshoe crabs used for bait. Other baymen also used the house as a base for working the surrounding waters. The Remsens have built dozens of garveys for local baymen and recreational fishermen since the 1950s. They have learned how to secure their watercraft when a severe storm is threatened. Despite their long history of weathering storms, their boats floated from the canal to their yard, a height of 10 feet. They are considered fortunate because their The Vanderwater bay house, one of 12 that originally stood on Meadow Island. After boats were not damaged, unlike their neigh- Sandy, four bay houses remain, including this one. Photo by Nancy Solomon for Long bors’ boats. Shortly after the storm ended, a Island Traditions 2012.

12 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore the coast is changing. Seals routinely visit Long Island for the winter, a phenomenon that began in the 1990s. Cormorants, a once rare bird, now fly in flocks throughout the year. Canadian geese are present year round. Many scientists attribute these new develop- ments to global warming. No matter what the cause, these changes will undoubtedly affect the maritime cultural traditions of all places. We can learn from those carrying on these traditions how to survive, using a cultural survival package made of age old traditions. We invite you to share your “tools” and to learn from these experiences how to create a cultural “life preserver.”

The Remsen bay house, built in 1954, was destroyed by Sandy. Photo by Nancy Solomon c. 2009. fully da later, they were able to return their work f lives o baymen. With the bay closed for Nancy Solomon is executive direc- boats to the canal on which they live and shellfishing, it also meant that local families tor of Long Island survey the damage to the bay. Local boatyards could not enjoy clam chowder, clam pie, or Traditions, located in Port Washington, suffered extensive damage to their customers’ clams on the half shell with local clams this New York. She can boats, which means that recreational fisher- past winter or for holiday gatherings. be reached at (516) 767-8803 or info@ men will not be going fishing for a long time It has been clear to many baymen and longislandtraditions. and therefore will not need bait, a staple in the fishermen, recreational and commercial, that org.

Joseph Sciorra is the associate direc- Flash Fiction: tor for Academic Stories by Joseph Sciorra and Cultural Pro- grams at the John D. Calandra Italian [Editor’s Note: “The Poetics of Sociology” is the first of seven stories by Joseph Sciorra included in American Institute, this issue. Read other stories, located through the issue, and similarly boxed.] Queens College (City University of I offer here stories written in the genre that some call flash fiction, micro stories, New York). As a or prose poems. This category of literature is defined by its brevity, not its subject folklorist, he has published on religious practices, material culture, and popular matter, although the parameters of the word count are arbitrary. The Internet has music, among other topics. He is editor of spurred the growth of flash fiction with the emergence of numerous online jour- the social science journal Italian American Review; Italian Folk: Vernacular Culture nals. I have selected my stories with the folklore community in mind. in Italian-American Lives (2011); Sacred –Joseph Sciorra Emblems, Community Signs: Historic Flags and Religious Banners from Italian Williamsburg, Brooklyn (2003); co-editor of Graces Received: Painted and Metal The Poetics of Sociology Ex-votos from Italy (2012); poet Vincenzo There are days in the course of my morning commute that New York City presents Ancona’s Malidittu la lingua/Damned Lan- guage (1990; 2010), and Mediated Ethnic- itself through organized clusters of social groups: a Tuesday of chubby, brown- ity: New Italian-American Cinema (2010); and author of R.I.P.: Memorial Wall Art skinned girls with exposed bellies; “undercover” cops all sporting Yankees gear; (1994; 2002). He has conceptualized and a day filled with tall, skinny gay fashionista hipsters; stunning women in vintage curated several exhibitions, including “Ev- viva La Madonna Nera!: Italian-American clothing and heels eating lunch in the park. Today, in a single car of the F train, three Devotion to the Black Madonna.” As the discontented couples. An individual turns away spurning a lover, and in succession avatar “Joey Skee,” Sciorra is an invited blogger of “Occhio contro occhio,” at another and then another, choreographed like cascading dominoes. www.i-italy.org. Photo by Volney Fray.

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 13 Keeping the Adirondack Arts, Crafts, & Traditions Alive

by Jim Mandle, founder, Adirondack Folk School

must admit that I have had a love af- I fair with the Adirondacks since early childhood. My grandparents had a summer home in Lake Luzerne, New York, and as a lucky grandchild, I spent several weeks each summer paddling, hiking, and being spoiled in these pristine mountains. Years later, I purchased my own camp, eventually making it my year-round home. So, I’ve always had a dream of “giving back” in some way to the Adirondacks. The opportunity arose in 2010 when I learned the town had been given the former bowling alley on the road leading into town and planned to move its current town hall from the historic district to this new building. I was concerned that without the “critical mass” of the town hall, the historic district would die. Thus began my personal search for a suitable use for this empty building situated on six beautiful acres just above Rockwell Falls on the Hudson River—one of the last free-flowing portions of the river. After numerous attempts and presentations to potential candidates, I remembered having visited a folk school in Grand Marais, Minnesota, and the idea of creating a similar school for the Adirondacks became my answer. Several organizations within the Adirondacks document and preserve the history of the Adirondacks, but there wasn’t one that focused on teaching the Adirondack arts, crafts, and culture of the region. Student in pack basketweaving class. Photo by Jim Mandle. All photos in this article are courtesy of the Adirondack Folk School.

14 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Students learn the art how the broomcorn is lashed together as they begin creating their first broom. Photo by Rich Mersereau.

The idea of a folk school is Danish in origins. There, the word “folk” means a people’s school. N.F.S Grunstvig had the idea for this new way of learning back in the early 1800s. A wonderful book called The Land of the Living: The Danish Folk High School and Denmark’s Non-Violent Path to Modernization by Stephen M. Borish traces the history and roots of the modern folk school in Europe. The foundation of folk school education is that of no competition, no grades, learning in small groups, and working and living often with your teacher or instructor. Hands-on learning by doing is fundamental folk school education with open interaction between student and instructor in small intimate groups sharing ideas. And, although the traditions and concepts in our US folk schools are similar, Students learn to make a traditional broomcorn and create three functional brooms in they also encompass their regional heritage one day! Photo by Rich Mersereau.

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 15 in origins—arts and crafts like Icelandic knitting, or outdoor activities like snow- shoeing and making skiis. Another major difference between the Campbell school and North House is that North House does not provide on-campus housing or dining halls for extended living on the campus. The North House model better fit the goals and opportunities that we had as we began planning and creating the Adiron- dack Folk School. By not providing these services, we were able to accomplish one of our main goals of being a “silent economic engine” for the Adirondack region. Our students stay at local motels, B&Bs, and campgrounds, and eat at nearby restau- rants, thus helping to support the regional economy. The idea of learning by using one’s own hands and without textbooks or tests, and without grades or competition, works well for those interested in learning our regional crafts and skills. It is also a means to encourage local residents not to settle for just their daily routine of work and pushing buttons on their remote control each night. As Federik Grundtiz realized, people become better citizens, appreciate life more, and are more enriched when they continue to learn. And learning in a non-competitive environ- ment that doesn’t require tests, where you are learning just for the sheer joy of learning and having fun, can lead to all sorts of wonderful, unpredictable outcomes. I wanted a place where someone like myself could learn how to make Adirondack birch-bark furniture, or an Adirondack Birch bark and twig picture frames have long been part of the Adirondack style décor, and pack basket, and maybe even learn to build each one is different, but all put a smile on the faces of the students when they complete their own frames. Photo by Jim Mandle. an Adirondack guide boat someday. So began the idea for this unique school and, in their creation. The John C. Campbell the area alive as well—wood carving, Ap- with countless hours of help by many vol- Folk School in Brasstown, North Caro- palachian art, and local agriculture. unteers, we were able to transform a vacant lina, was the first folk school in the US The first folk school I visited was the building into a first-class school that is now and is a fascinating story in itself of how North House Folk School in Grand Marais, offering nearly 300 classes for all ages. John Campbell and his wife Olive Dame Minnesota, and like the Campbell school, it The Adirondack Folk School (AFS) is a Campbell traveled the rural Appalachian has its roots in the Danish traditional folk non-profit 501(c)(3) emphasizing lifelong region recording its culture. Olive founded school movement. But unlike the Campbell learning through out traditional folk arts. the school to honor her husband after his school, North House has their core classes AFS offers non-credit, hands-on learn- death and to help educate the people of the in crafts and traditions of the people who ing in all aspects of the Adirondack crafts region in a similar manner as the schools of settled their region. Therefore, you find and culture. Everything from making the Denmark, while keeping the traditions of classes at North House often Scandinavian Adirondack pack baskets, blacksmithing,

16 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore timber framing, fiber arts, woodcarving, bread baking, soap making, gardening, furniture making, photography, canoe building, toboggan building, stone wall building, metal work, painting, ceramics, and more. The original building has been transformed into classrooms, and a new pavilion was built in 2011, all through private donations, a few grants, and the energy of a lot of dedicated volunteers. The Adirondack Folk School is demonstrating that the students here are learning and keeping alive the traditions of our region. They have a keener appreciation of how and why our region was settled and the influence nature has on our lives. It is one thing to appreciate the mountains and the lakes in our backyards for their beauty, but quite another to know the boats, homes, A traditional shaving horse (also made in a course taught at the Adirondack Folk School) and furnishings created in the unique Ad- is used to create these beautiful canoe paddles as students begin with draw knifes, files, irondack style, and from which of the planes, and lots of sanding. Photo by Jim Mandle.

Students learn to make a traditional canoe paddle using primarily hand tools. The students are gathered around a Wee Lassie canoe made in a previous class at the Adirondack Folk School. This canoe building construction is called the strip built method. Photo by Jim Mandle.

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 17 rary educational methods. Learning should be fun! Creating with one’s own hands is more than the item you make—it is also the pride you feel knowing you did it yourself. The Adirondack Folk School’s aim is not to create new craftsmen, but rather to help people enjoy learning, try new things, and gain a greater appreciation for the world around them. At the Adirondack Folk School, we strive to inspire the hands, heart, and mind. Our mission is threefold: 1) keep the traditional Adirondack arts, crafts, and culture alive; 2) hire as many local artisans and craftspeople as possible as our instructors; and 3) be a “silent economic engine” for the Adirondack region. Now in our fourth year as a year-round school, we are accom- plishing our mission. Over 1,300 students, Starting with hard shell gourds, each student is limited only by their own creativity. From functional objects, containers, or drums, the gourd art class is taught by one of who are residents of the park, or come our enthusiastic instructors. Photo by Rich Mersereau. from states all over the East Coast and farther, now have a greater appreciation for various trees in our woods they were made, Grundtviz hoped for his fellow Danes. I the Adirondacks and its people. The Ad- and why these trees were chosen. One believe, more than ever, in the need to keep irondacks are so much more than beauti- gains an entirely different appreciation of these crafts alive and allow people to learn ful mountains, lakes, and streams. We often one’s surroundings. without the the anxieties associated with so say, “Come take a class at the Adirondack At AFS, you can still learn to make the much of our modern education—making Folk School and take a bit of the Adiron- same items that were everyday objects grades, engaging in competition, and the dacks home with you.” from years gone by. Take, for example, our challenges many feel with our contempo- popular classes in blacksmithing. Although the skills and knowledge of blacksmithing date back centuries and were well known before the Adirondacks were settled, students here learn not only the skills of blacksmithing and working with iron but also learn about the early iron mines in the Adirondack mountains —and how important iron production was in the history of our nation and its quest for independence. Our early ancestors relied on their local blacksmiths to make the tools and everyday items required to survive—everything from their axes to the nails that built their homes—skills still taught at the school. When students walk in the Adirondack woods after taking a class in rustic furniture making, basketry, or creating lamp- shades with local botanicals, they see the world around them much differently. This enrichment and understanding of our sur- The making of Shaker oval boxes is a fun class where each student makes five boxes. In roundings is just the kind of thing that the foreground is a complete set of all the various sizes of boxes that can be created. Photo by Jim Mandle.

18 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Jim Mandle is the founder of the Adiron- dack Folk School (www.adirondackfolk- school.org) in Lake Luzerne. Growing up in northern New Jersey, he spent his summers at Lake Luzerne, which began his love of the region. After earning a BS in education and business from Wilming- ton College, Wilmington, OH, he began his career as an industrial arts teacher. After a few years teaching, he started a marketing communications and design firm, JSMandle & Co., serving numerous Fortune 500 companies for the past 30 years; its creativity has resulted in being awarded 14 patents and numerous awards. Jim and his wife Grace enjoy canoeing, camping, and traveling. Jim’s Hand quilting is a wonderful opportunity for generations to share a craft that is both lifelong paddling interests have allowed functional and often tells a story of the region. Photo by Jim Mandle. him to paddle to many remote rivers, even as far north as above the Arctic Cir- cle. Photo: Jim helping a student build a toboggan. Photo by Lauren Whitton.

Each student proudly shows the pack basket that they made of reed. Traditional Adirondack pack baskets were made of hand-split black ash found in the region. Photo by Jim Mandle.

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 19 Sir David and the Covered Dish Supper BYVi ar ck A. Chittenden

t Word of the recent death o f former Con- energetic DOH commissioner announced kitchens and fine-tooth-comb inspections of gressman David O’Brien Martin was received his intentions to really enforce the law. What food preparation and consumption. back here in the North Country with both followed was pretty remarkable. The covered One editorial elevated the Assemblyman sadness and praise. At his passing, he was dish supper is an important social tradition, to the title of “Sir David,” in a satirical upsate particularly applauded for his successes in especially in rural communities. This custom mythical battle against the giant “Dragon Washington, DC, as the driving force behind was being infringed upon by unaccustomed of Big Government.” The correspondence the creation of Fort Drum—the home of the paperwork and intimidating inspections; its among legislative committee chairmen and Army’s celebrated 10th Mountain Division, as existence was being threatened by forces the transcripts of hearings revealed much of we know it today—and for support of other outside the community who couldn’t—or the political infighting and vote trading that big issues to local dairy farmers, environmen- didn’t seem to—realize its importance to went on within both houses of the legislature. talists, and small businesses. local people. Eventually, only the hotel and restaurant For a politician with a huge, sprawling rural After the announced intentions of the owners association and 11 legislators from district that always needs all the outside help it DOH were more widely known, and a few New York City vehemently supported the can get, these were certainly great successes. permits denied, Assemblyman David Martin department. There was one of David’s earlier legislative fought back. He had grown up with covered After considerable debate in the legislature, achievements, however, which wasn’t men- dish suppers and had attended many while Martin’s bill was passed overwhelmingly by tioned in his obituaries and tributes that’s campaigning for office. With the encourage- both houses. Gov. Hugh Carey, supporting had an even greater social impact for all of ment of a few other legislators from rural the decision of his health commissioner, the North Country—even all of New York districts, he introduced a bill to exempt local vetoed the bill. A subsequent rare attempt to State. That was his championing of a com- rural groups from having to obtain permits override the veto failed, but not before the munity tradition so strong in America that it and otherwise comply with the indicated sec- DOH decided to “enforce” the regulation goes back, at least, to the First Thanksgiving. tions of the 28-page code. The response from by keeping its options open. In the next few Before Congress, Martin served in the New around the state to Mr. Martin’s proposed bill months of 1979, the DOH, working with York State Assembly from St. Lawrence was immediate. His mail showed enthusiastic Assemblyman Martin’s office, developed a County for four years, from 1977 to 1980. support for the legislation and almost unani- policy which, for all intents and purposes, It was during that time that the issue of mous opposition to, even outrage about, the relieved community groups of most of “covered dish suppers” became a hot topic regulations. the demanding expectations of the general in the state. At the time, besides my own love for good regulations. Since 1957, one little noted regulation of food at pancake breakfasts and chicken and Every few years, the issue comes up again. the New York State Sanitary Code stated that biscuit suppers, I was impressed how com- The code is occasionally updated, and newer for “temporary food establishments”: “All or- munity members rose up in defense of their DOH commissioners and inspectors still ganizations, to include the grange, political and traditions. When Martin’s office graciously require permits and inspections. It’s always civic clubs, or religious organizations, may let me study his files, there was a stack, at a political hot potato. We all know the need not hold functions wherein members prepare least six inches thick, of documents on this for protecting public health; but many of us and bring food to a particular location to be subject. The letters from fire chiefs, scout still appreciate the tradition of gathering for shared by other members of the organiza- leaders, ministers, and veterans groups were food and socialization in our communities. tion or the public at large, unless a permit amazing—powerful testimonials to the sig- Next time you go to a firemen’s chicken is obtained from the Department of Health nificance of their community traditions. One barbecue or an ice cream social, raise your [DOH].” With that law, the DOH had the au- woman from Mechanicville wrote to David: glass to fighters like David Martin. And may thority to require permits and inspections for “I have not heard of anyone getting sick at a the covered dish supper live on! any such event. Even though on the books, church supper and I have been going to them the regulation was not regularly enforced for 75 years and still going strong. Church Varick A. Chittenden is professor emeritus except for emergency situations. Community suppers are clean, wholesome food and the of humanities at the groups all over the state continued serving best food ever cooked and all cooked with State University of New York in Canton and the homemade food for their own group or great care.” Editorials in newspapers across TAUNY Center project to raise funds from the public as a com- the state lambasted the sudden demands director for Traditional Arts in Upstate New mon practice. In 1979, a well-meaning and by the DOH for new equipment in church York. Photo: Martha Cooper.

20 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore The Humor Pill Ye B St ve Zeitlin

Let my name be recalled with laughter, or not at all. shifting points?” With 10 years of hilarity Lower East Side, we both started laughing at —Shalom Aleichem behind us, we now believe it may be the seeing one another during the day. “You’re world’s longest running joke. almost too bright,” I said. “It’s like looking When our landlord redid our offices on My friend and ping pong partner, Bob at the sun.” I was there to stock up on hard the Lower East Side, he divided one large Mankoff, is the cartoon editor for The New gummy candies, Jujubes, and she was there office into two. In the process, he made a Yorker and a student of humor. He teaches to purchase Italian candies that could not be serendipitous mistake. He neglected to put a a class in humor theory at the University purchased anywhere else—apparently they light switch in the subdivided office. He left of Michigan. On our way to ping pong, had every flavor but violet, the one she was the switch for my cubbyhole in my neighbor we discuss our various perspectives. Many looking for. Colleen’s office. That meant that whenever theories, he says, “suggest that humor is A few days later, offering her a handful I needed to turn on the light, I had to visit about putting down others. In almost all hu- of Jujubes, I told her that she didn’t realize her office to flick the switch. mor, something or someone is diminished. the fabulous prizes she could claim with Colleen Iverson works for the historic Especially when you’re laughing hard. The her points. Marble Cemetery, keeping records of the teller feels superior both to the butt of the She said, “Could it be a car? I could use dead. What she does with the dead, I can’t joke, and to the listeners in whom he created a car.” be sure—but it keeps her extremely busy, the involuntary response of laughter.” But “Yes,” I said, “it could be a car.” late into the night. I work late as well and if humor is about putting down others, it’s “A real car?” she asked, “or a gummy car. often have to turn on the light in her office. also conspiratorial. There’s you and me, and That could make a big difference.” Colleen has long hair, braided to her waist. then there’s all those morons. “Well,” I said, “it’s a real, full-sized gummy She has a huge winning smile, an infectious But there are also moments of momen- car. Driveable.” chuckle, and a wide expressive face. She tous silliness. My kids, for instance, have When she asked about the car a few days laughs heartily whenever my arm twists into developed the high art of punching one later, I couldn’t resist telling her that she had her office to turn on the light. another in the arm. Once when the two indeed won the car—the life-sized, real, and On one occasion, we joked about which kids were fighting in the back seat, and Ben driveable gummy car. It was manufactured one of us would be the last to leave, and I was sorely to blame, I told Eliza she could especially for her in Detroit and was being began issuing points for the one who left take a free punch, and the “free punch” is driven to New York. earliest and deducting points for the one enshrined in Zeitlin folklore. The kids have “When is the arrival date?” she asked. who worked much too late. The points now evolved arm punching into a work of I told her I would check. The next time we awarded could range from five to 500,000 art. We talk about the music a good punch met, I passed on the bad news—somewhere on a whim. The joke was off and running. makes before smacking against an arm. We in Ohio, a steamroller crossed over into the Colleen was forever bemused—claiming “tenderize” an arm by rubbing it before wrong lane and squashed it, totally flattened she couldn’t grasp the rules, couldn’t tell if punching. My kids talk about the music that it, leaving nothing but gooey, colored liquid it was better to win or to lose points, and comes from the punch. Though the blows oozing along the highway. periodically exclaiming, “Where’s the rule are heavy, they help to keep things light. Colleen and I have never had dinner or book? I want to see the rule book!” Some In humorous riffs, like the one I share with lunch or interactedATE in any other way—but d nights, I would award myself 10,000 points Colleen, it’s as if the humor is a rubber ball we share the perfect relationship. It‘s at own for leaving early; sometimes she would lose that we’re keeping in the air, and our feel- the point where I can open the door of two points for staying late. Sometimes she’d ings for one another are expressed in our her office, and we both burst out laugh- pretend to get it, exclaiming, “I think I’m willingness to play. If Colleen didn’t laugh ing. Our relationship is pure laughter. We getting there, I’m getting there—I wish I one day or in some way suggested, “this isn’t share a light. knew where.” funny any more,” the ball would drop, and One night when I left later than she did, I that would be it. s Steve Zeitlin is the t left her a post-it note, awarding her 200,000 I never see Colleen during the day since founding director of points. she works nights for the Marble Cemetery. City Lore in New York City. Photo by Martha When she saw me again, she quipped, So when I ran into her a few blocks from Cooper. “Oh really—where are they? Where are our offices at Economy Candy, the great those will-o’-the-wisp points? Those shape- old-fashioned candy palace on New York’s

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 21 Andy Statman, National Heritage Fellow Innovating across Musical Worlds

by Pete Rushefsky

his past October, the National En- Statman certainly is deserving of a place tion. He grew up in the heart of two “back T dowment for the Arts bestowed our next to the roughly 300 artists recognized to the roots,” or perhaps one might say, nation’s highest honor in the field of folk before him. “forward through the roots” musical move- and traditional arts on Brooklyn resident However, in other ways, Statman’s award ments with hubs in New York City—con- Andy Statman. represents something new—a sort of temporary bluegrass and the klezmer revival. Even prior to his NEA recognition, Stat- validation of a very contemporary breed of Added to this was a significant immersion in man has long been one of the most cel- traditional musician. Statman came to the jazz and shorter apprenticeships in a variety ebrated traditional musicians in the United genres that he is best known for—klezmer of other genres, including Caucasian and States. A virtuoso on clarinet and mandolin and Hasidic music—when he was in his Greek music. who has long been at the vanguard of both mid-20s and 30s, through a series of trans- However, for this author, the most re- Jewish music and bluegrass, Statman was formative musical experiences and a journey markable aspect of Statman’s music is not one of the most important instigators of of personal discovery. Statman is not the first its cosmopolitan eclecticism but rather its klezmer’s revitalization, a movement that Fellow to have arrived via a musical roots judicious restraint. Whether klezmer or blue- began in the late 1970s. For many years, he journey—fiddler Michael Doucet (recog- grass, traditional or contemporary, Statman was recognized internationally as klezmer’s nized by the NEA in 2007) began studying has an acute sensibility for the boundaries leading virtuoso. As his music shifted from Cajun music in his mid-20s, also, through an of the tradition. But boundaries do not klezmer—a secular form tinged with reli- NEA Apprenticeship grant. constrain his music; rather, his prodigious gious gestures—towards a creative engage- To a greater degree than any other Heri- musicality allows him to explore their full ment with the more overtly religious Hasidic tage Fellow recognized in the past, Statman range, and perhaps, as the NEA asserts, music, the move had a profound impact on has built a career as a genre-pushing, musical expand them. the field of Jewish music. polyglot. The NEA website heralds Statman’s Andy Statman was born in 1950 and grew Since the award’s inception in 1982, the oeuvre with these words: “The culmination up in Jackson Heights, Queens. His parents National Heritage Fellowship program has of decades of creative development, his mu- were both born in the US; however, many recognized leading American masters who sic expands the boundaries of traditional and older immigrant relatives lived nearby. His provide “continuing contributions to our na- improvisational forms.” Indeed, it would father’s father, who came to America from tion’s traditional arts heritage” (www.nea.gov/ be hard to find a better representative of Pruskurov (now Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine), honors/heritage). Typically, these artists have the creative possibilities for music offered lived with them until Andy was seven. This learned their craft through apprenticeships by New York City over the last half-century exposed Statman to an extended immigrant with an older generation of tradition bear- than Andy Statman. family that was proud of their new American ers, and are looked to by their communities Since his early teens, Statman has shown identity. to provide artistic expressions that facilitate an incredible knack for seeking out preemi- His mother supplied a formidable musi- community cohesion. On all of these terms, nent teachers and assimilating their instruc- cal lineage—a line of cantors who Statman

22 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Andy Statman. Photo: ©2009, Bradley Klein, www.twangbox.com can k trace bac to 18th-century Poland, from Music played an important role in the Stat- Andy Statman is quite precise in recalling Tomaszów Mazowiecki, a small city in central man household. Statman’s parents shared a music that influenced him. He remembers Poland. In the New World, several members love of music with their children and fre- being captivated by a compilation of re- of this family became prominent entertain- quently played records spanning Broadway, gional bluegrass produced by Mike Seeger ers. His grandfather’s first cousins, Willie big band, classical, jazz, and early rock ‘n’ for Folkways, as well as specific recordings and Eugene Howard (originally Lefkowitz), roll. They owned a few Jewish records as by the Greenbriar Boys and the Country were two of the first openly Jewish stars of well, of artists like clarinetist/comedian Gentlemen. Vaudeville and Broadway, hugely talented Mickey Katz and Abe Schwartz’s klezmer Around 1963, Statman started taking up actors who became involved in the nascent ensemble. bluegrass banjo, learning from Julian “Win- talking pictures industry. Another cousin, Statman’s brother Jimmy, eight years older, nie” Winston, recognized then as New York’s Sammy Fain (originally Feinberg), was a re- was a guitarist and harmonica player who premier banjoist (Winston would go on to nowned Academy-award winning composer became involved in the city’s old-time music serve a short stint in 1965 with Bill Monroe’s for movies and popular music, and Sammy’s scene. As Jimmy began to listen to Dave Van Bluegrass Boys). In between lessons, Statman brother, Harry Fain, was an accomplished Ronk and the New Lost City Ramblers, the would play for hours at Washington Square violinist and arranger. younger sibling’s ears piqued. Park in Greenwich Village, where one could

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 23 younger musician home with recordings of mandolin breaks to learn, instructing him to “call when he got stumped.” Statman worked through each, lick by lick, using a tape player that could play at half speed. It was tedious at first, but soon he became proficient at using the machine to reconstruct what he heard on the recordings in minute detail—discerning whether Monroe or Wakefield had used seven or nine strokes in a tremolo! Attendance at live shows played an important part in Staman’s growth as a bluegrass musician. When he was 15–16 years old, he would meet a group of older, collegiate bluegrass aficionados (including banjo player Peter Wernick) on Canal Street, and they would drive out to venues in the hinterlands of New Jersey and Pennsylvania that regularly presented major bluegrass acts. Stages like the Starlight Bar and Grill in Manville, New Jersey, and the outdoor Sunset Park in Chester County, Pennsylvania, catered to displaced Southerners and truck drivers. One of Statman’s first paid gigs came in 1965 at a country music bar on Long Island frequented by a similar clientele of Southern transplants; he played that night with banjoist Tony Trischka and guitarist Joel Diamond. By 1967, Statman had reached a point where he felt he had mastered the canon of bluegrass mandolin. At the time, he believed that the “heaviest” part of bluegrass’s sound Andy Statman with country music star Ricky Skaggs at the Derech Amuno Synagogue in was expressed through singing, and he felt Greenwich Village. Photo: ©2007, Bradley Klein, www.twangbox.com limited by not being a singer. He was also hearing new sounds on the radio, including encounter a number of simultaneous jam NYU student and playing with the Garrett music by the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and the sessions—bluegrass, old-time, singer/song- Mountain Boys (the band took its name from world of jazz. In particular, he was excited writer, etc.—juxtaposed around the park’s a mountain near Grisman’s hometown of by free jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler. Soon, ever-broken central fountain. Passaic, New Jersey). A protégé of mando- Statman was inspired to learn sax with Rich- Soon, he was seduced by the recordings of linist Frank Wakefield and folklorist/musi- ard Grando, a leading figure in New York’s mandolinists—particularly, Everett Lilly and cian Ralph Rinzler, Grisman was “living the avant garde jazz scene. Curly Seckler of Flatt and Scruggs’s band, as bluegrass life”—at age 21, he was performing In 1970, he was invited to join a progres- well as singer/mandolinist Earl Taylor. These regularly with Red Allen and the Kentuckians sive bluegrass band, based in Ithaca, called were musicians who had taken inspiration (Wakefield’s old group). Country Cookin’, which featured Trischka from Bill Monroe’s mandolin style, but man- Grisman owned an extensive archive of and Wernick on banjo, guitarist Russ Baren- aged to create their own sound. 78s, 45s, and 33s, as well as tapes of live berg, fiddler Kenny Kosek, and bassist One evening in spring 1965, Jimmy Stat- shows, and he took Statman under his wing. John Miller. Soon after, he joined David man was playing at a “hoot” (hootenanny, In addition to recordings, Grisman would Bromberg’s bluegrass band that was touring or folk music party) at Hunter College, provide Statman with an aesthetic sensibility, nationally. Next, he became a member of which Andy attended. It was there he first steering him towards recordings of Monroe Breakfast Special, a group that incorporated met mandolinist David Grisman, then an and Wakefield. Grisman would send the musicians from the former two bands and

24 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore playeds date up and down the East Coast’s (Tarras was recognized with a National that of Europe as a source of inspiration growing bluegrass festival circuit. Heritage Fellowship in 1984). for their peoplehood. And Jews had long Now a wind player as well as a mandolin- Actually, Tarras and his contemporaries been suburbanized and assimilated into the ist, Statman’s ears opened to the sounds of didn’t want to be known as “klezmers.” In American mainstream. the City’s rich ethnic musics. In addition to Yiddish, “klezmer” connotes an “untrained” After touring nationally in 1976 with revisiting the klezmer records that his parents folk musician, in contrast to a classically- Vassar Clements, Statman came back to an owned, Statman would borrow recordings trained “muzikant” or “muziker.” The musi- apartment in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, from the library, listening to music from cians would refer to the music they played where Tarras had recently moved. He began around the world. He also heard amazing as “Jewish wedding music” or by the names to visit Tarras three times a week, and the sounds broadcast on Ethel Raim and Martin of particular dances like “the freylekhs” or two spoke by phone daily. Tarras became Koenig’s radio show on WBAI (Raim and “the bulgars.” like a grandfather, and gave Statman his first Koenig were the founders of the Balkan Arts By the time Statman met Tarras, klezmer clarinet—up to that point, Statman had been Center, later renamed the Ethnic Folk Arts was on life support. The music’s long decline transcribing Tarras’s music for saxophone Center, and today known as the Center for occurred for a number of reasons. In 1924 a and mandolin. Traditional Music and Dance). change in immigration laws greatly restricted According to Statman, Tarras saw himself Through a mutual friend, in 1973, he the replenishment of Yiddish speakers from as much more than a traditional klezmer musi- began a fertile musical partnership with Eastern Europe. The trauma of the Holo- cian. He had built a career on radio broadcasts, Walter Zev Feldman, who was then playing caust and the birth of the State of Israel in studio dates, and concerts in the Catskills, in Persian santir (hammered dulcimer) and Near 1948 caused American Jews to look toward addition to the normal bookings of wedding Eastern percussion. Statman began seeking a new modern Israeli culture rather than business. Like a Jewish Bill Monroe, Tarras out a number of masters of maqam-based music for lessons, including Arme- nian kemenche/tar player Andrinik Aroustamian, Mountain Jewish kemenche player Zevulon Avshalo- mov, Greek cimbalom player Paul Lemberis, a Roma- nian-Jewish mandolinist named Martin Kalinsky who also played balalaika and domra and later, Epiorti Greek clarinetist (and NEA National Heritage Fellow) Periklis Halkias. In 1975 Andy Statman found the teacher who would shape his transfor- mation into a klezmer musician. Dave Tarras was then living in the Canarsie neighborhood of Brooklyn. Born in Ternovka, Ukraine, in 1897, Tarras came to New York in 1921 and became the dean of Ameri- can klezmer music, the individual most responsible for developing a uniquely American klezmer sound Cover of Jewish Klezmer Music, released by Shanachie Records in 1978. Original photo of Zev Feldman and Andy Statman by Wren De Antonio used in cover design. Courtesy of Shanachie Records.

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 25 had composed a corpus of melodies and form the nucleus of a revival of Yiddish Statman began performing privately for created a new style that transformed klezmer culture. Video excerpts of Tarras performing various rebbes (not to be confused with a during the mid-20th century (sadly, Statman at the first of these concerts in November rabbi or clergyman, a rebbe is the spiritual believes Tarras had only rare chances to per- 1978 can be seen on Center for Traditional leader of a Hasidic community). He recorded form this material live, though much of it was Music and Dance’s Archive web page, www. albums of Breslov and Lubavitch Hasidic recorded). Tarras was tuned in to a variety of ctmd.org/archives.htm. music, marketed in the Hasidic community. music, including jazz and “society” music, and The project launched Statman’s career Statman also became an associate of the enjoyed listening to the Beatles. Nonetheless, in Jewish music, but he was never in it to Bostoner Rebbe of New York, Chaim Av- during their lessons, Tarras was an exacting “revive” klezmer. It was an art that brought rom Horowitz, as well as the Rebbe’s son teacher in issues of Jewish phrasing, orna- great satisfaction, and the working condi- Yonah Horowitz. Statman calls the Horowitz mentation, and tone. It was clear that Tarras tions—performing for concerts, weddings, dynasty (including Avrom’s father Moshe), wanted Statman to have the tools necessary and bar/bat mitzvahs—were more favorable “prolific and innovative composers” of to become his protégé and for Statman to than playing into the early morning hours nigunim. Much of the Hasidic music Stat- cultivate his own klezmer sound. at smoky clubs. Statman released a series man has recorded has been learned from In 1978, Statman and Walter Zev Feld- of albums on Shanachie. The first was the the Bostoners. man worked with the Balkan Arts Center to seminal 1978 Jewish Klezmer Music album with For the past 25 years, Statman has found a create a tour featuring Tarras’s trio, Statman Feldman (now on a Romanian tsimbl, the East home in the Modzitzer Hasidic community, and Feldman, as well as Yiddish singers Feigl European version of the hammered dulci- at whose shul (synagogue) on Coney Island Yudin and Ethel Raim (Raim, the Center’s mer). After Feldman decided to devote more Avenue he davens (pray/take part in the cofounder, was prominent as a vocalist for of his time to academic scholarship, Statman service) most every Shabes (Sabbath). The her work with the Pennywhistlers). Thanks recorded two klezmer albums with a larger second Modzitzer Rebbe, Shaul Yedidya to the support of the NEA, the project also band called the Andy Statman Klezmer Or- Eleazer Taub (1886–1947), was one of the produced a studio recording of Tarras’s trio chestra. The Orchestra recordings included most famous Hasidic composers. One of (which included Sammy Beckerman on ac- tunes that Statman had commissioned Tar- Taub’s innovations was the creation of intri- cordion and Irving Gratz on drums). Titled ras to write. In the early ‘80s, the Orchestra cate, multi-section nigunim, which he called Music for the Traditional Jewish Wedding, this became quite busy, touring folk festivals, “operas.” Taub’s musical “secretary,” Ben would be Tarras’s last studio effort. The tour colleges, synagogues, and Jewish community Zion Shenker, has been another important was a surprising success, finding capacity centers, and even debuting at the Berlin Jazz musical mentor to Statman. Shenker is still crowds of seniors who came to hear a man Festival in Germany. very active in the Modzitz community as a that had played at many of their weddings. By the mid-1980s, Statman began to lose ba’al tefile (prayer leader), and Statman de- There was also a smaller crowd of young interest in klezmer. Living in Brooklyn, he scribes him as perhaps the most important musicians who came out to these concerts; began meeting Hasidim from the various contemporary composer of nigunim. along with Statman and Feldman, they would communities. They would give him tapes— Andy Statman has had a huge impact here was a huge, new repertoire of spirtual on Jewish music and continues to innovate melodies known as nigunim (singular: nigun). across musical worlds. For many of us in- Most nigunim are wordless and are sung by volved in klezmer music, Statman was the individuals or groups using vocables, which first artist whose albums shook our souls. vary from community to community (the He has been a major influence on every 18th-century founder of Hasidism, Yisroel klezmer revivalist of note. His beautiful ben Eliezer, or “the Baal Shem Tov,” believed melody “Flatbush Waltz” is the most famous that melodies could transcend the spiritual composition to have been produced by the limitations of language). Master singers in the klezmer revival, now a standard heard at Hasidic community are like walking archives weddings, concerts, and communal events of hundreds or even thousands of nigunim, worldwide (this author has even witnessed and they infuse these melodies with incredible a performance of “Flatbush” by a Chinese tam (taste) and spirituality. True to a recurring ensemble in Chinatown). In the mid-1990s, theme of his career, Statman was again drawn he was featured alongside violinist Itzhak to vocal music as a model for instrumental Perlman on two recordings, a series of tours, performance. Gradually, Statman’s religious and an Emmy-winning PBS documentary practices followed his musical explorations, In the Fiddler’s House that significantly raised Andy Statman. Photo: ©2009, Bradley Klein, and he adopted an Orthodox lifestyle. klezmer’s profile in the US. When Statman www.twangbox.com

26 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Schroon LakeLake Arts CouncilCouncil 20092013 Boathouse Concert Series Concert Schedule SchroonConcerts @ 8PM Lake, NY Concerts518-532-9259 8 PM • schroonlakearts.com • $12, students $5 518-532-9259e-mail: [email protected] schroonlakearts.com Julye-mail: 7 Ameranouche [email protected] - Gypsy Jazz July 14 Barefoot Boys - Folk of NYS July 21Boathouse Dan Berggren & EdConcerts Lowman - Local June 25Songs Acoustic Eidolon July 28 Tanglefootnew acoustic - Canadian Roots Aug. 4 bore’al tordu - Maine Acadian July Aug. 11 9 Woods Brian Tea Co. Patneaude - Celtic and folk Aug. 18 Saratoga Jazz Faire Quartet - 16th century Celtic July Aug. 25 16 Crossing Jamcrackers North - country folk Children’s Program July 23 FREEAl BerardAugust 8, 11 AM Cajun“GREEN-uP” Combo Peggy Lynn & Dan Duggan July20th 30Adirondack Red Molly Folk Music folk Festival & roots AugSunday, 6 August Sean 9 • Noon-5Tyrrell PM—Town Irish-folk Park Andy Statman and Dave Tarras, 1978. Photo: Barbara Statman. FREE ADMISSION AugRoy Hurd, 17 Frank Chris Orsini, JoanWestfall Crane, Dan Berggren, Peggy Lynn, traditionalDan Duggan, Trish acoustic Miller, John Kirk, Ed Lowman & Sara Milonovich turnedo t Hasidic music, it exposed thou- Letterman), Nashville stars Ricky Skaggs, Béla Children’sOPEN ProgramsJAM SESSIONS ... FREE MondaysSing-along 7-10PM At the with Boathouse sands of klezmer musicians and millions of Fleck, and Byron Berline, as well as fiddler Patti & Dave listeners to an entire world of melodies that Bruce Molsky. In many ways, it’s the loosest Sunday, July 28 @ 1 PM for most was previously terra incognita. And album he’s put out since some of his early The Hampstead Stage Co. many of us have been inspired by his ex- mandolin recordings, as this band of world- “The Secret Garden” Thursday, August 8 @ 1 PM ample to explore Hasidic music as a pathway class virtuosos attack a wide-ranging album to a heightened Jewish spirituality. of originals with a spontaneity that leaps 24th Adirondack Statman tours frequently for concerts, from the headphones. Folk Music Festival festivals, and workshops ranging from Jew- Now a grandfather and the patriarch of Sunday, August 11 ish music to folk to jazz to bluegrass. When his own large family, recognized by his na- Noon-5 PM — Town Park FREE ADMISSION not on tour or observing the holidays, he tion as a cultural treasure, Andy Statman just Atwater & Donnelly continues to play twice weekly with his trio in continues to get better. Roy Hurd & Frank Orsini a long-standing residency at the tiny Charles Patti Casey & Bob Amos PossumHaw Street Synagogue in the West Village, and is Pete Rushefsky is the executive director of the Center for Traditional Music and Patchouli still active as a wedding musician. Dance (www.ctmd.org). Special thanks OPEN JAM SESSIONS With his trio (featuring Jim Whitney on to Ethel Raim for her help in editing this Mondays 7-10 PM ~ piece, and to Andy Statman for his gen- at the Boathouse bass and Larry Eagle on drums), Statman erous time spent in interviews. For more recently released Old Brooklyn, which brings information about Statman’s recordings a number of old friends aboard, including and performance calendar, visit his website www.andystatman.org. Paul Shaffer (of the Late Show with David Publish in Voices! The Women of Washington Heights See page 29 for by Joseph Sciorra submission guidelines. The women of Washington Heights know the mellifluous cooing of Arabic. In the bodegas along upper Broadway, where Puerto Rican men once greeted them with the honeyed salutation “mi amor,” the new owners now welcome them with the endearment “habibti.” This affectionate “my love” from those who hail from Egypt, Yemen, and the West Bank has altered the local geography so that now when las dominicanas in their tight jeans and chancletas go out for a carton of milk, they tell their menfolk, “Voy a habibti. Vuelvo orita.”

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 27 y

a Who Remembers Pushball? BYJ Ohn THORN l

P I had always believed that James Nai- devils in Toledo, Ohio, in 1923. Soon he was smith was the lone true “inventor” of a playing county and state fairs in Michigan, major sport, when he nailed peach baskets Indiana, and parts west. The Chicago Tri- at opposite ends of the overhead track at a bune of February 18, 1925, reported that, gymnasium in Springfield, Massachusetts, on “Country people will not attend an agri- December 15, 1891. As a physical education cultural exhibit unless they are assured of instructor, he felt that his students needed plenty of entertainment.... Auto push-ball a vigorous indoor game for the winter is a new form of amusement offered that is months, and so—boing!—basketball. meeting with favor.” A while back, in December 2006 at Heritage Did Beam invent auto pushball as well as Auction Galleries, one might have purchased the auto thrill show? Almost certainly not, Naismith’s crudely scrawled manuscript as an article in the Washington Post of May detailing that first basketball game—for the 9, 1922, features an image of auto push- sum of $71,700. Too rich for my taste, as just ball—the only other one I have come across one week earlier I had purchased, much more besides my poster—at San Francisco, and modestly, a magic carpet to a whole lost world Beam appears not to have taken his show to of sport: auto pushball, a vehicular variant of California. “The latest sport to be inaugu- Even after his thrill show days were done an earlier game nearly as obscure. rated on the Pacific Coast is auto pushball. (he played the Orange County Fair in the late I y was on m way out of an antique shop In it one gets many a thrill, for it is more 1940s and early 1950s), he continued to book on Main Street in Catskill when I spotted a exciting and hazardous than polo. Six autos acts for county fairs through the Ward Beam cardboard poster depicting three 1930s hot are needed to play the game, three of them Agency in Goshen as late as 1973. rods maneuvering around a huge ball. There constituting a team. The same rushes apply Pushball’s pioneer, Moses G. Crane, is wasn’t much left of it—mice had had their that are used in polo. The game originated known today instead as an inventor and way with it long ago—so the proprietor, in San Francisco.” manufacturer of the fire alarm box. What who said the placard had come from a barn Auto pushball was tame entertainment bit of whimsy drove him, as a member of in Coxsackie, let me have it for eight bucks. when contrasted with the staples of the the Newton Athletic Association in 1894, to Bringingt i home and prowling the internet, Beam show: demolition derbies, leaping devise the game of pushball is beyond my I was able to reconstruct the wording as: buses, flaming barriers, and sundry death- defying stunts. The August 6, 1931, Amherst reconstruction. However, he did not live to B. WARD BEAM’S New 1933 (NY) Bee contained this telling advertisement: see its rapid progress in the first decade of INTERNATIONAL the next century, as he committed suicide CONGRESS of Wanted: Single man, not over 25 years, July 7, 1898, in Newton. DARE-DEVILS to drive automobile in head-on col- Photographs survive of teams grappling Auto Push-ball lision with another car at the Albion 10 OTHER THRILLERS! with the six-foot-diameter leather-covered Fairgrounds in connection with the ... JULY ball weighing 50 to 100 pounds, reminiscent Congress of Daredevils on August 19. of the giant breast chasing Woody Allen Must crash with another car at 40 mph It turned out that Beam was more than a and give unconditional release in case through the fields in Everything You Always Greene County Fair performer. He was a of injury or death. Name your lowest Wanted to Know About Sex. Pushball made thrill show racer and entrepreneur, even price. Write B. Ward Beam, Albion, N.Y. its public debut between the halves of a more important historically than many Harvard-Brown football game played at names that may have greater resonance Beam’s traveling shows continued into the Soldiers Field in Cambridge on October today—Barney Oldfield, Aut Swenson, 1950s. From his 1917 draft card, I learned 19, 1895. The student newspaper of the Earl “Lucky” Teter and his Hell Drivers, that he was born November 18, 1892, had a Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Jimmy Lynch Death Dodgers, Jack wife (Gertrude) and two children as of that in its report of the game that day, added, Kochman’s Champion Hell Drivers, Joie time and was a student at an aviation school “Although the game is said to be conducted Chitwood’s Chevy Thunder Show. All that in Celina, Ohio. He died on September 2, on carefully studied scientific principles, Beam did was to invent the auto thrill show, 1979, in Goshen, New York, survived by a the first impression on the spectators was when he launched his Congress of Dare- subsequent wife, Elizabeth. irresistibly comical.” continued on next page

28 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Addingo t the comic effect, in 1902, pushball was played on horseback in Berlin and Submission Guidelines for at Durland’s Riding Academy in New York, Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore where basketball on horseback had also made its debut that year. In the following Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore is Style year pushball was played for laughs at Madi- a membership magazine of the New York The journal follows The Chicago Manual of Style. Folklore Society (www.nyfolklore.org). Consult Webster’s Third International Dictionary for son Square Garden. At some universities the The New York Folklore Society is a nonprofit, questions of spelling, meaning, and usage, and avoid game replaced class rush as the favored ritual statewide organization dedicated to furthering gender-specific terminology. cultural equity and cross-cultural understanding Footnotes. Endnotes and footnotes should be clash between freshmen and sophomores. through programs that nurture folk cultural expres- avoided; incorporate such information into the text. Oddly, pushball continued to flourish into sions within communities where they originate, Ancillary information may be submitted as a sidebar. share these traditions across cultural boundaries, Bibliographic citations. For citations of text the 1940s in military training environments. and enhance the understanding and appreciation of from outside sources, use the author-date style Revived in Australia in 1971 as “sogball,” folk culture. Through Voices the society communi- described in The Chicago Manual of Style. cates with professional folklorists and members of Language. All material must be submitted in the game featured a vinyl-covered ball that related fields, traditional artists, and a general public English. Foreign-language terms (transliterated, punctured within minutes. The game was interested in folklore. where appropriate, into the Roman alphabet) should Voices is dedicated to publishing the content of be italicized and followed by a concise parenthetical described by one of the organizers of the folklore in the words and images of its creators and English gloss; the author bears responsibility for the intra-varsity contests as the “stupidest oc- practitioners. The journal publishes research-based correct spelling and orthographics of non-English articles, written in an accessible style, on topics words. British spellings should be Americanized. cupation possible, involving the greatest related to traditional art and life. It also features number of participants.” stories, interviews, reminiscences, essays, folk poetry and music, photographs, and artwork drawn from Publication Process All the same, it sure looked like fun, which Unless indicated, the New York Folklore Society people in all parts of New York State. 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Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 29 Rounding up the Memories: Personal Histories of the Dude Ranch Days in Warren County, New York

by Annie S. Yocum

Dedicatedo t Wild Bill Liebl (1932–2013)

“From this valley they say you are going I will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile, For they say you are taking the sunshine That has brightened our pathway awhile.” [from the folk song, “Red River Valley”] Happy Trails, Bill. Until we meet again. drove over the river and through the I woods, in order to get on a horse and take a trail ride that took me over the river and through the woods. The trail in the woods is nestled within the Blue Line that separates the Adirondacks from the rest of the world. The Adirondacks provided Postcard from Northwoods Dude Ranch in Lake Luzerne, NY. Courtesy of the Folklife Cen- a perfect backdrop for the trek. As a man ter at Crandall Public Library, Glens Falls, NY. helped me onto my steed, I noticed that he was dressed like a cowboy. He had the complete outfit—the hat, chaps, boots, and spurs. This all seemed to be somewhat out of place in upstate New York. I shelved the thought quickly as it occurred to me that it was prudent to focus on staying atop the horse. When the ride was over, I got a chance to speak with the cowboy. The cowboy had an easy, friendly manner. He told me that he was not the only cowboy in the area, and that the ranch was one of many. He told me there had been many dude ranches over the years, and Warren County, where we were, was known at one time as the “Dude Ranch Capital of the East.” I had been to the Lake

George area many times over the past 20 An early postcard showing the main lodge at Hidden Valley Dude Ranch. Courtesy of the Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library, Glens Falls, NY.

30 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore people that lived through the heyday of the riding. Some of the cabins Woodward built dude ranches. Each person that I spoke with were set aside for the ranch, and others were had a name of someone else who could help sold. He found he had more demand for the me. I was given access to personal photos, sale of the cabins than he could build. collections of brochures, and postcards, Rocky Ridge Dude Ranch was also built leading to scans of over 300 images. I was and put into operation by Woodward. The given locations of dude ranches, some still Stony Creek Dude Ranch followed closely. standing and some just footprints where After Woodward started up each ranch, they had once stood. he would sell the ranch and show the new The first dude ranches were built in the owners how to successfully run it. In 1939, late 1920s by a man named Earl Woodward. he built his fourth ranch, called Hidden Mr. Woodward, a native of Ohio, moved Valley, which was soon dubbed “The Cadillac to Warren County in the 1920s. He started of Dude Ranches.” I had the pleasure of a logging business and soon became talking with Bill Liebl (“Wild Bill”) and interested in real estate. He bought a hunting Tom Lloyd, who were both cowboys who lodge and called it “Earl Woodward’s.” The worked the ranches during the 1950s. They Adirondacks has a long history of summer gave me names of ranches, small and large, boarding houses and hunting camps, and along with names of bars and dance halls even though the US would soon be in that were well known in the area. Both men the throes of a monumental economic also called square dances and played a bit of depression, his lumbering and hunting guitar and piano. A postcard showing a cowboy showing off lodge businesses thrived. A couple of years They told me about the music for the for the dudettes at Rocky Ridge Dude Ranch. Photo courtesy of Hadley/ Luzerne Historical later, he sold the hunting lodge and bought square dances and how they were called, Society, Lake Luzerne, NY. property along Rte. 9N in Lake Luzerne. which was half French and half English. He renovated an existing farmhouse on They listed the movie stars and well known years, and this was the first I had heard of the property into an Adirondack-style cowboy singers that played the dance halls or this. lodge. He subdivided the surrounding area, visited in the area. As I collected postcards, Over the next year, I returned several started building log cabins, and called it the photos, and brochures, I found that even times to the ranch. I enjoyed the peace and Northwoods Lodge Inn. Horseback riding the Rockettes from Radio City Music Hall in quiet of the area and wanted to find out was added to the activities of hunting, New York City put in an appearance. more about the cowboys. At the time I was fishing, and canoeing, and soon the lodge Each account, oral or written, stated that nearing completion of a college degree and was renamed Northwoods Dude Ranch. ranch owners began importing real western was obliged to research and write a paper Old logging trails were repurposed for trail cowboys from Montana, Arizona, Texas, and for a capstone project. I chose the subject of the dude ranches of Warren County. I had gathered a bit of information, made a contact or two, and generally thought I was making good headway. I would soon come to realize, though, that the scope of the project was much more that I had envisioned. After finishing my paper and graduating, I continued doing research. I contacted historical societies, libraries, and town clerks’ offices to arrange interviews and visits. The manager of the Double H Hole in the Wall Camp in Lake Luzerne gave me a tour of the ranch. He was thoughtful enough to invite the local expert on the area’s log cabins for my visit. Chris Boggia, the owner of the Circle B A postcard showing the fun that could be had at the Hitchin’ Post. Yes, people did ride Ranch in Chestertown, gave me names of their horses to this watering hole! Courtesy of the Folklife Center at Crandall Public Li- brary, Glens Falls, NY.

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 31 Oklahoma. These western cowboys generally took lead positions such as Head Wrangler or Corral Boss. They led trail rides, managed the barn, answered endless questions about the horses, and kept the dudes from making ungraceful dismounts. Chatting up the female clientele was insisted upon by the ranch owners. The cowboys were obligated to behave as if they were single, even if they were married. The western cowboys would generally head back home in the winter, and most returned the following summer. Throughout the area, it was not considered spring until the cowboys returned. Don Baxter, a local cowboy who started Don Baxter leads a herd of horses through town to their new home at the Painted Pony working for the Painted Pony Ranch in Lake Ranch in Lake Luzerne. At least one local cowboy told me that leading a herd of horses is much harder than leading cows. Photo courtesy of Hadley/ Luzerne Historical Society, Lake Luzerne during the ‘50s, happily shared his Luzerne, NY. memories with me over the phone. Don is considered one of the best bronc riders in the area and a very ambitious man—not content just to be a dude wrangler, he was a competitive rider in the rodeo circuit throughout the US. Don worked the rodeo circuit in the ‘50s and went on to become the 1958 Florida Champion Saddle Bronc Rider. The rodeo at Painted Pony, started in 1953 by Don Baxter, is certified by the Rodeo Cowboys Association and is the longest running weekly rodeo in the US. One of the cowboys Don worked with was from the west, and like others, went back home for the winter. Don decided to go with him. Don returned to Lake Luzerne Postcard showing the opening parade at the Thousand Acres arena. The first rodeos were held at Thousand Acres in 1948 or 1949. Courtesy of the Folklife Center at Crandall Public in the spring along with fresh horses for Library, Glens Falls, NY. the ranch. He brought them as far as he could by train, unloaded them at the station in Hadley/Luzerne, and then led the herd right through town, up Rte. 9 to their new home at the Painted Pony. I was told by Jan Letteron, town historian in Hadley/ Luzerne, that the streets were lined with onlookers and children who were let out of school to watch the spectacle. During the mid 1940s, the number of vacationers during the six-month season (May to October) was close to 24,000 each year. The dude ranches developed a loyal clientele who came back season after season. Several ranches in the area offered a free honeymoon vacation to those who married

Postcard from Boulder Greens Dude Ranch in Warrensburg, NY. Courtesy of the Folklife after meeting and falling in love at the ranch. Center at Crandall Public Library, Glens Falls, NY.

32 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore I spoke with cowboys, ranch owners, and vacationers who now live in the Warren County area after visiting the ranches as children or adults. Some bought ranches and left the city life behind. Many of the western cowboys who worked the ranches still come back to the area to spend their summers. The dude ranch era was and is still a large part of life in Warren County. The stories about the rodeos that started in the late ‘40s were recalled with pride. Cowboys from the ranches came together to put on “the show.” It wasn’t seen so much as a competition but as a way for each one of them to show off and have some fun. Each Friday evening the rodeo arena at Thousand Acres was packed to the 2,000-seat capacity. The population of Stony Creek swelled on rodeo nights, as the residents of Stony Creek were outnumbered, almost 2 to 1, by the spectators. There was also a weekly Cowboys of the Sunset Valley Dude Ranch parading down the street during a 1950s rodeo in the late 1940s at the Warrensburg Mountain Days celebration. Wild Bill Liebl is on the lead horse to the left. Photo courtesy of Fair Grounds. Bernie Gray, Gansevoort, NY. With the same sense of pride, there were parades held during Dude Ranch Days in atmosphere for the workers, providing even hosted large banquets. When I asked Warrensburg, the annual Mountain Days in them with room and board. There was no Lorrette what it was like to cook for these Stony Creek, and other town celebrations. tolerance for foolish behavior or pranks by banquets, often with 100 guests or more, The cowboys from the ranches dressed in the general staff. she responded, “Oh, it wasn’t that difficult. their finest western clothing, washed their I spoke with a woman who owned a I just made more of what I already making.” horses, and held their banners high as they ranch with her husband in Indian Lake, just The cooks and chefs at the Warren County strode down the streets of town. over the Warren County line to the north. dude ranches made three meals a day for the The work for the local men and Lorrette Monsko is a delightful woman who guests, whether it was for 30 or 100 people. women was hard. Whether cowboy or has fond memories of the time she spent As at all the ranches, the food was all fresh chambermaid, it was six days a week, rain there. Wilderness Lodge was one of the and homemade. or shine, 90 degrees or 50 degrees. Not smaller ranches in the area, accommodating I spent a great deal of time with “Wild one person I spoke with, however, voiced 30 or so guests at a time. Lorrette and Bill” Liebl. At 78 years of age, he was still a complaint. Bea Evens knows a great deal her husband Walt did almost all of the full of spirit. Working at Sunset Valley Dude about how the ranches were run in the work on the ranch and managed to bring Ranch in Stony Creek during the 1950s, he 1940s. A New Jersey girl, Bea was a guest at up their three children at the same time. led trail rides, trained trick horses, played the Rocky Ridge dude ranch and returned In the fall they would offer hunting and guitar, sang and called square dances. He for several summers to work in the office at the ranch. Bea met her husband at the The Smell of Cigars ranch, and they decided to make Lake by Joseph Sciorra Luzerne their home. Bea states that those She was known in her Bensonhurst neighborhood as someone who possessed special who worked as waitresses, waiters, or chambermaids were not to mingle with the powers to interpret dreams and see into the future. Decades ago, she told me, the guests—that was the responsibility of the Virgin Mary answered her repeated prayers and saved her son from an illness the cowboys (Bea was interviewed by Katie doctors had proclaimed incurable. She led me to her bedroom where she maintained Wynn, an intern in the summer of 2012 her home altar, a multi-figured assemblage of concentrated holiness. Nonchalantly, she at Traditional Arts in Upstate New York). revealed that her late husband visited her regularly at night to chat, the pungent smell The ranch owners fostered a family-like of the cigars he loved in life announcing the arrival of his spectral presence.

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 33 Group photo of vacationers at the Thunderbird Dude Ranch. Most, if not all, ranches would have these photos taken and sell them as souvenirs. The Head Wrangler is in the center (with the broken arm). Photo courtesy of the Hadley/Luzerne Historical Society, Lake Luzerne, NY.

also took his responsibility of flirting with from the party for a little private time. Bill Bill competed in the local rodeos until the ladies very seriously. was never quite clear about what occurred he got married, and his wife decided that Wild Bill was a wonderful storyteller. at this secluded place, but I suspected there Bill’s days of riding bulls were over. The He effortlessly took the measure of his was a fair bit of canoodling going on. last bull that Bill rode was named “Vanilla audience and captured their attention. He The very next day, Jean came down with Milkshake.” stretched the truth where he saw fit and left a bad case of poison ivy. The rash was so I met another cowboy named George plenty of room between the lines when the bad that Jean ended up in the Glens Falls Rafferty. He worked at several of the ranches narrative called for it. hospital for three days. Not surprisingly, in the Lake Luzerne area and still returns One day Wild Bill took me to Sunset Jean never came back to the ranch. After every summer to catch up with his friends. Valley. He told me about a woman named returning home, she contacted her lawyer, One of the ranches he worked at was the Jean (not her real name) who came to but the lawsuit never came to fruition. At Purple Sage. At this ranch there was a tiny Sunset Valley year after year, staying for a this point during Bill’s tale, he paused. He woman named Bitsy who worked as the month at a time. Bill gave her private riding held that pause longer and a bit longer. He cook. There was a rumor going around the lessons, and the two became quite close. As was waiting for me to take the bait. I did. ranches that George and Bitsy were having Bill and I stood looking out onto the lake I asked him whatever became of Jean? an affair. George smiled as he reminded me that borders the ranch, he continued: One Without missing a beat he told me, “Oh, she that cowboys take great pleasure and pride night there was a campfire party on a small became a nun.” He immediately turned and in teasing each other. One morning George island in the middle of the lake. Wild Bill walked away, telling me he had to see a man ambled over to the kitchen to watch Bitsy and his lady friend decided to wander away about a horse. cook. What he witnessed that morning was

34 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore the last thing he expected to see. Bitsy had a habit of chewing tobacco while she cooked. The shock and revulsion that overtook George was closely followed by repulsion. Bitsy had another bad habit of using the griddle as her spittoon. George told me he was pretty thin by the end of the summer. Another story was told to me by Chris Boggia, owner of Circle B Ranch in Chestertown. The Boggia family bought the ranch in 1960. They left their home in Queens, NY, piled their belongings into the back of an old pickup truck and headed north. By the time Chris was 15, he had full responsibility for the summer season of trail Postcard from Hidden Valley Dude Ranch. Young women from New York City, Boston, rides. One summer Chris had a dead horse Hartford, and Montreal, to name a few, came by the thousands for the chance to meet a real cowboy. Courtesy of the Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library, Glens Falls, NY. on his hands. He knew that the carcass would soon have a disastrous effect on his business. This large and very heavy problem trailer. The lions at the zoo had fresh meat needed a quick solution. There used to be a for dinner. small zoo right behind Martha’s Ice Cream Chris Boggia was also interviewed by in Lake George. Chris had nothing to lose Katie Wynn, telling her about a horse that and everything to gain, so he called the doubled as a babysitter. Spencer and Ruth zoo and soon loaded the dead horse into a LaFlure owned and ran the Flying L Ranch in Chestertown. When their son Spencer, Jr., was very young the LaFlures would leave him on the front porch with a horse named Miss Income. Each time Spencer, Jr., made an attempt to crawl off the porch, Miss Income would pick him up by his diaper and place him back on the porch. Spencer LaFlure had another Chris Boggia, owner of Circle B Ranch in Chestertown, Trick Horse named Billy Boy. NY. Chris is on the left, walking and Tom Filkins, to the right is helping a rider mount a horse. This photo was They delighted spectators year taken in the mid 1970s. Photo courtesy of Chris Boggia, after year at the local rodeos. Chestertown, NY. Spencer LaFlure, like most ranch owners, was very knit. The cowboys all knew each other and active in the community. He would help each other get a job if need be organized rodeos and parades and work together to organize rodeos. The and sponsored benefits for general atmosphere of amiability was not the local 4-H and Kiwanis immune to a little friction now and again, clubs. In addition, he served though, as this next story illustrates. on the Town Council in There was a cowboy named Tex who Chestertown and was active lived and worked in the Lake Luzerne area. in promoting conservation of Tex was not a big man, but everyone knew the Adirondacks. that he was not the man you wanted to get Wild Bill showing off for the ladies with his horse, According to Wild Bill, the tangled up with in a fight. One night, Tex Brownie at the Sunset Valley Dude Ranch, Stony Creek, cowboy community was closely NY. Photo courtesy of Bernie Gray, Gansevoort, NY. was with Sally at the Hitchin’ Post, a local

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 35 Pictured is Betty Jane Baxter, daughter of the Painted Pony’s owners, Spencer LaFlure with his Trick Horse, Billy Boy, performing at a 1949 Walter and Betty Isaacson, and wife of fellow wrangler Don Baxter. rodeo at the Warrensburg Fair Grounds. Photo courtesy of Spencer Betty Jane took great pride in looking the part of the cowgirl. Rumor LaFlure, Jr. had it that she had 12 fancy western outfits made to order and 40 others for general wear. Courtesy of the Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library, Glens Falls, NY.

watering hole. Tex and Sally were having a ever after in Arizona. Names have been rally called Americade is still held at the good time drinking and dancing. Tex and changed to protect the innocent and the not Roaring Brook Ranch in Lake George every Sally were married, only not to each other. so innocent. year. Fires and state auctions marked the end As luck would have it, Sally’s husband, Boots, Jim Cavanaugh was born in Montana for more than a few ranches. A few ranches walked into the bar and saw what was going and after serving in Korea, settled in the became private neighborhoods. Hidden on. He was incensed at the betrayal he saw Adirondacks in 1955. He started out at Valley, the largest of the dude ranches, was before him. Everyone knows that carrying Hidden Valley, and then in 1957, he started a sold at auction in 1992 to Charles Wood and on with another man’s wife is against the 40-year career with Thousand Acres Ranch Paul Newman. The ranch now functions as cowboy code. Boots left the bar, shouting a as Head Wrangler. one of the “Hole in the Wall” camps for promise of retaliation. Soon Boots was back I was told by Wild Bill that Jim worked critically ill children. in the bar. His weapon of choice was not very hard to keep the Thousand Acres rodeo Talking with Wild Bill, Chris Boggia, and a gun, but rather in pure Adirondack style, one of the biggest and best in the area. others, I came to know a piece of history he was wielding a chainsaw. He threatened Jim organized the replacement of barns that I never knew existed. Happy times are to cut a hole in the dance floor and bury and stables and expanded the arena. Jim recalled with great sentiment and a yearning both Tex and Sally in it. Boots’ friends Cavanagh is well remembered by everyone for this simpler time. In each voice there talked him into going home, chain saw in in the Warren County community for all the is also pride, knowing that their hard work tow. Tex and Sally are now living happily good that he did for the ranches. helped to shape this wonderful place in The dude ranches declined in the 1970s time. ADDIRON ACK COWBOY and ‘80s. According to the ranch owners, the cost of insurance was becoming Annie Yocum is a Visit Annie’s Facebook page, prohibitive. People wanted a more family- historian and “Adirondack Cowboy,” (https://www. like atmosphere rather than the singles genealogist facebook.com/AdirondackCowboy?fref=ts) whose passion vacationland of years before. Swimming, is to preserve dedicated to “…those who rode and tennis, and golf quickly became more the legacy wrangled at the Dude Ranches in Warren of the dude popular than horseback riding. The County, NY—past and present.” There ranches Adirondack Park Agency that was formed in Warren you’ll find more photos and memories in the 1970s brought additional obstacles County, NY. from the dude ranches. Look for details Annie lives in for the 1st Annual “Ranches, Rodeos and in the form of environmental regulations. New Milford, The larger ranches were able to expand their CT, with her Wranglers” History Day, scheduled for family and Sunday, July 28, 2013, at Painted Pony business by offering year-round activities visits the dude ranch country every chance Rodeo in Lake Luzerne, NY. and marketing their facilities as corporate she gets. The photo here is of the author at age 4, dressed in a cowgirl outfit she conference centers. A weeklong motorcycle received for her birthday.

36 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore g Children Who See and Hear Ghosts oo

BY LIBBY TUCKER d sp

While gathering material for my book and other parts of the world. Some people communication with spirits. An eight-year-old Haunted Southern Tier (2011), I collected many think that children’s openness to new experi- boy named Antonio, interviewed by Theresa irit stories about children who had encountered ences makes them more capable of seeing Caputo, the star of TLC’s popular reality show spirits of the dead. These were not morose, ghosts than adults; others think that children Long Island Medium, said that he liked to talk creepy-looking children like Cole in the popu- just have wild imaginations. Belief is, of with his great-grandparents, who passed away s lar horror movie The Sixth Sense (1999), but just course, a key factor here. A parent who be- before he was born. Antonio has become average kids who talked about communicating lieves in ghosts may be convinced that a child fairly well known as a child medium, but he with ghosts. It was, I learned, not unusual for has had an extraordinary experience, while a has many other interests. He loves sports and kids to talk about having close encounters with more skeptical parent may think that the child hopes to become a professional baseball or relatives and others who were no longer alive. has come up with an imaginary friend. soccer player when he grows up. I had known about children seeing ghosts In New York State, children’s encounters Some people choose career paths related for a long time, because when I was in first with ghosts have a long, well-documented to their encounters with spirits as children. grade, I had a strange experience of my own. history because of Margaret and Katherine Yesterday, during Civil War Day at the Phelps Sitting on a bed in my best friend’s room on Fox, who became international celebrities after Mansion in downtown Binghamton, I partici- the top floor of her family’s old house in demonstrating their communication with spir- pated in a Victorian séance led by Vicki, a psy- Washington, DC, I looked up and saw what its in a small house in the hamlet of Hydesville chic medium and minister from Binghamton’s seemed to be the head of an old man floating in 1848. Relatives and neighbors gathered to Spiritualist Church. Ten of us sat around a in the air. Gray and opaque, the head hovered hear Margaret and Katherine respond to what 19th-century table covered by a black table- for a moment, then vanished. Was it an opti- appeared to be spirit rappings. Soon these two cloth, talking about relatives and friends who cal illusion or a ghostly apparition? I did not young women became famous mediums who had passed away and might, as spirits, be trying know and never told my parents what I had drew large crowds. Years later, Margaret con- to send messages. After the séance ended, one seen. Years later, however, I enjoyed telling fessed that she and her sister had made rapping of the participants asked Vicki how she had my folklore students about seeing the old noises by extending the joints of their toes. become a medium. “I was only four years old,” man’s head and learning that a number of my Shortly after making this confession, she took Vicki said, “when I started to see spirits. I’d be students had had similar experiences. it back. In 1916, the Fox family’s home was outdoors with my dad and ask him, ‘See that Two of my students told me that they had, moved to Lily Dale, New York —a Spiritualist man up on the hill?’ My dad couldn’t see him. I as children, seen their much loved grandpar- community in Chautauqua County—where it was the only one who could.” Her explanation ents shortly after those grandparents passed remained a point of pilgrimage until it burned reminded me of other stories I had heard from away. Andrea, a junior from Long Island, had down in 1955. Today a photograph stands at people who had had startling experiences as seen her grandfather standing in the shower the place where the home once stood, remind- children. Some people had continued to seek stall of her bathroom soon after he died. He ing visitors to Lily Dale of the experiences of contact with ghosts, while others had not. If I didn’t look at her, just continued taking his these two little girls. had not seen what appeared to be an old man’s spectral shower and then faded away. Since Since 2010, I have been fortunate to know head when I was in first grade, would I have Andrea had felt very close to her grandfather, Nicole Rose, a wonderful young woman from become a folklorist who studies supernatural she was glad to see him, though she didn’t tell Horseheads, NY, who demonstrated an ability experiences? I might have become a librarian most people what had happened for fear that to communicate with spirits as a small child. or a lawyer—and then I would never have had they would think she was strange. Similarly, Nicole’s mother, Josette Berardi, has written the chance to hear so many intriguing stories Steve, a sophomore from upstate New York, a very interesting book about her daughter’s about good spirits. saw his grandfather engaging in an everyday communication with her great-grandmother Libby Tucker teaches activity—eating a sandwich at the kitchen and other spirits: The Man at the Foot of the Bed folklore at Bingham- table late at night. His grandfather looked (2011). Trained as a medium at Lily Dale’s ton University. Her book Haunted Halls: up, smiled, and then swiftly vanished. Like Trilogy Institute, Nicole has given many Ghostlore of American Andrea, Steve did not tell other kids what had psychic readings. She has also visited two of College Campuses (Jackson: University happened. “They might have thought I was my university classes and helped my students Press of Mississippi, weird,” he explained. understand how mediums perceive spirits. 2007) investigates college ghost stories. Her Stories about kids seeing and hearing ghosts Another New York child has recently most recent book is have been told in the United States, Europe, become a television celebrity because of his Children’s Folklore: A Handbook (West- port: Greenwood, 2008).

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 37 Hanging on to Tradition

By Andy Flynn

npredictable weather has been the By the time February rolls around, we all while it does get warmer, a high of 30 or U only constant since Day One of the need a break. We’ve slogged through three 40 degrees is no comfort for those afflicted Saranac Lake Winter Carnival. months of winter, and there’s at least two, with cabin fever, especially if it continues Even with global warming breathing maybe three, months left. That much cold to snow. down our necks, Mother Nature will always and darkness eats away at our spirit, so we Rooms get smaller with cabin fever. play a lead role in the annual Winter Carnival start searching for more ways to smile. We People get on our nerves more easily. We production. She sets the stage, dictating start searching for hope. eat more, sleep more, gain weight. We swear the amount of snow and ice, the timing of We can’t rely on Groundhog Day for more. We pray for sunshine, daydream out the winter thaw, the temperature, and any hope. It’s a sham. Who can believe the little the window, watch more TV, add tropical storms that come our way. rodent, whether he sees his shadow or not? scenes to the desktops of our computers. Perhaps the only force that can match Even six more weeks of winter is too good We plan vacations. Mother Nature is the spirit of Winter Car- to be true. It’s more like eight weeks, maybe I guess if you’re looking for a cabin fever nival—the spirit of Saranac Lakers, their ten. With that prospect, it’s no wonder cure, Saranac Lake is the spot. After all, this ability to adapt, improvise, and overcome people turn to the bottle this time of year. community was founded as a health resort the meteorological challenges thrown their Cabin fever sets in. People start to go a and remains the region’s health care center. way. For no matter the weather, they will little batty, more so come March when we’re Adirondack Health, based in Saranac Lake, always find ways to have an outrageous promised warm weather because the vernal is the largest employer in the Adirondack amount of fun at their mid-winter party. equinox means spring is literally here. And Park. People travel from all around to see

“Space Alien Invasion” was the theme of the 2012 Ice Palace. All photos by Andy Flynn.

38 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Lake artists, they continually rely on their creativity to get the job done, designing the Ice Palace and its various ice carvings to fit the theme. While many lament the threat of global warming and say that the Ice Palace will someday be doomed as the centerpiece of Winter Carnival, I have my doubts. Builders had trouble with a mid-winter thaw as early as 1898, the first year of the Ice Palace. So dealing with warm temperatures during the Winter Carnival is nothing new. And I believe this tradition will continue in one form or another. I have faith that future generations will honor the Ice Palace tradition of past generations. They must. Parents line up their children for the annual Innertube Races at Mount Pisgah during the If global warming does hit this neck of 2012 Saranac Lake Winter Carnival. the woods, and ice harvesting becomes more challenging or impossible, it will be our doctors and go to the Saranac Lake walks around saying, “Happy Carnival” for interesting to see how Saranac Lakers adapt hospital. Health care is our business, our 10 days. Wear your Garry Trudeau-designed to climate change. Maybe they’ll simply culture, our tradition. Winter Carnival button, like a hospital pa- move the date of the Winter Carnival to It was the doctors and patients here tient wears a plastic wristband, as if to say, later in February to ensure a stable ice at the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium, a “Yes, I’m suffering from cabin fever, but supply. Maybe they’ll import ice from world-renowned tuberculosis treatment and I’m taking the cure here in Saranac Lake.” Canada, like they do with some of the research center, who started the Winter Car- One way we embrace winter is to harvest parade bands. Either way, I think it would nival more than a century ago. They formed ice and build something with it—an Ice be heartbreaking to lose the Ice Palace the Pontiac Club in November 1896, held Palace. With the influx of transient tuber- as the traditional centerpiece of Winter a fancy dress “winter carnival” on Pontiac culosis patients, many of whom decided to Carnival. If that time comes, and these Bay a few months later, and launched the stay in Saranac Lake, this village attracted party planners have the same passion for community-wide Pontiac Club Carnival in artists early in its history. Some were paint- tradition as we currently do on the Winter 1898. Their prescription of fresh mountain ers, musicians, and photographers. Others Carnival Committee, they’ll find a way to air for the TB treatment was also prescribed were architects. make an Ice Palace. for the treatment of cabin fever. Borrowing the Ice Palace concept from One longstanding tradition at Winter So instead of finding ways to forget about other winter carnivals around the world, Carnival is the act of keeping secrets. It winter and all the nasty weather Mother Saranac Lake initially had local professional starts with the Ice Palace and continues Nature throws at us, Saranac Lake’s cure architects design the Ice Palace and profes- with the royalty selection and Gala Parade. for cabin fever is to embrace it. Throw a sional builders construct it. Over the years, Members of the Ice Palace Workers Local party. Get outside. Have fun. Create an volunteer designers and construction crews 101 design the Ice Palace each year—the atmosphere where the entire community took the reins. Yet, like the other Saranac structure and all the elements, including any outbuildings (such as the Ale-E-Inn in This Is Not Your War 2012 for the Space Alien Invasion theme), by Joseph Sciorra ice sculptures, and lighting. It starts with a spark of inspiration, and that can come at The first time we met, he sat in the wooden chair he had brought from Vietnam as war any time. The trick is getting the idea on booty. In a boozy voice that I became familiar with over the years, he launched into a paper as soon as possible before it’s lost. story about a Christmas Eve spent in the jungle where, as staff sergeant, he had led his Any piece of paper will do, according to reconnaissance team to hunker down for the night. At some point during the long wait for daylight, a voice in perfect Puerto Rican Spanish called out, “Boricuas! This is not your war! former Winter Carnival Committee Chair- You should be home with your wife and children eating arroz con gandules.” When the familiar man Don Duso, who was interviewed in sound of the cuatro’s traditional opening notes of a holiday aguinaldo cut through the dank 1999 by the Canton-based Traditional Arts air, he had to restrain his men from dropping their weapons and walking into the jungle. in Upstate New York.

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 39 “A s design i established one way or another,” Duso said. “Sometimes we’ve had a professional architect draw the design. Other times, it’s been a napkin at a dinner. This year’s design was done on the way back from Washington, DC, on Amtrak coming up through from New York by one of the guys that was coming up through. I guess it was just done on a scrap piece of paper and elaborated on a little bit.” The design of the Ice Palace is secret until it’s complete. The suspense of “What will they do this year?” keeps people interested. They drive by the state boat launch and watch the volunteers build the Ice Palace, day after day, all the while curious about the design. People watch the prog- The Lawnchair Ladies perform their routine during the 2012 Gala Parade. ress on the webcam from home or work. They’re addicted. They find it necessary to Yet, even as Mother Nature intrudes and Palace and more sculptures. A thaw and less give their co-workers, family, and friends throws in a warm spell or two, the Ice Palace time equal a smaller Ice Palace and fewer progress reports on what they’ve seen. As will most likely change from its original sculptures. Some years, like in 2013, just the Ice Palace goes up, it becomes a hot design. It all depends on the thickness of having an Ice Palace is a miracle. topic around the water cooler. “I hope it’s the ice and the construction time available. And when people, who have no clue as to really big this year,” they say. Thick ice and more time equal a bigger Ice what challenges the IPW 101 volunteers face,

Residents and visitors enjoy the 2013 Ice Palace during the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival.

40 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore The Palace Guards pose during the 2012 Gala Parade on Main Street. complain about a smaller Ice Palace—well, somebody who knows me pretty good will Todd Weber, of Malone, explained what that just hurts. Their expectations are too say, ‘Just forget it because she’ll never tell.’ they mean by “attack.” high. They don’t realize that the design has to I really enjoy knowing what a lot of people “We block them on the street, usually be a secret; in the end, even the builders don’t don’t know.” in front of Sears, and bang on our shields know what the Ice Palace will look like until The Committee only prints “?????” next and make a whole bunch of noise and sur- they’re finished and the lights are turned on. to the names of His Majesty King and round them and swat sword tips with them,” Another Winter Carnival secret is the Her Majesty Queen in the Winter Carnival Weber said. “And the year when we did the selection of the king and queen. The public program book. Once the announcement Lawnchair Ladies, they went at us with the submits nominations, which are reviewed is made at the Coronation Ceremony at lawnchairs. And they were mean, too. They by past kings and queens, who vote on the the Town Hall, Martin emails the bios of tended to go low with those things.” royal couple. Only Winter Carnival Com- the king and queen to the Winter Carnival As the parade announcer at the reviewing mittee member—and past queen—Barb Committee website team and the Adirondack stand, I’m in charge of keeping the Palace Martin knows who the king and queen are Daily Enterprise. If you want to be among the Guards’ secret until the attack commences. until the announcement at the Coronation first people to know the names of the king Todd lets me know ahead of time so I’m Ceremony the first night of Carnival. It’s a and queen, you have to attend the Corona- prepared when it happens, and I can an- big job keeping that secret, but she loves tion. It’s tradition. nounce the battle. every minute of it. A new tradition at the Gala Parade reveals Along with the royalty and Ice Palace, the “Actually, it’s not hard at all, not for me another secret. The group of “Vikings” Gala Parade is one of the biggest Winter anyway,” Martin said. “I’ve always been a known as the Palace Guards chooses a dif- Carnival traditions. Along Broadway and really good secret keeper for one thing. And ferent float or walking unit to attack each Main Street—from Ampersand Avenue it’s just fun. The first couple of years, people year. They’ve been doing it since 2009, when to LaPan Highway—the parade becomes would totally try and get it out of me.... they attacked a pirate ship. A year later, they a community unto itself. Spectators and Now people will say, ‘Who is it?’ And then attacked the Lawnchair Ladies. Head Viking participants fuse into one organism. Seen

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 41 2012 King Tim Fortune and Queen Kelly Morgan, after the Coronation Ceremony at the Harrietstown Town Hall in Saranac

The Rotary Dancers perform their final routine of the evening during the 2013 Rotary Variety Show at the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival at the Harrietstown Town Hall.

42 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore from, space it looks like a wriggling worm. we haven’t always had an Ice Palace. We rebel against Mother Nature by playing Up close, it’s nothing but a big party. Cos- haven’t always had royalty, a parade, or a outside. It’s when we give a big toast, “To tumes. Music. Dancing. Smiles. No matter theme. Heck, there were many years in the your health.” the weather, the spirit of Winter Carnival 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s that we didn’t even is felt more at the parade than any other have a Winter Carnival. So the fact that it Andy Flynn is an author, editor, and publisher living in Saranac Lake, NY. He is time during the 10-day festival. This is when was resurrected in 1948 and has continued currently the assistant managing editor at Saranac Lake cures cabin fever. The spirit annually shows that Saranac Lakers need Denton Publications in Elizabethtown, NY and owns/operates Hungry Bear Publish- lures us to the stage, like at a revival meeting, Winter Carnival and refuse to let go of ing (http://hungrybearpublishing.blogspot. pushes our foreheads and declares, “You that heritage. com). He publishes Adirondack books and are healed!” Of all the Winter Carnival bits and the Meet the Town community guides. Andy is the author of the six-volume “Ad- Annual events at the Winter Carnival pieces, there’s really only one tradition here. irondack Attic” book series and works with come and go. Some have staying power, and No matter what the event looks like, the the Adirondack Museum to produce the monthly Adirondack Attic radio program we look forward to them each year. Others simple act of holding a mid-winter festival on North Country Public Radio. Andy have a good run and disappear. Since 1897, is the tradition. It’s when we collectively has also worked for the Adirondack Park Agency, Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Lake Placid News, Plattsburgh Press-Republican, WNBZ 1240-AM in Saranac Lake, North Country Public Radio, and Adirondack Mountain Club. He volunteers as a mem- Editor’s Note: This article is an essay ber of the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival Committee. The author shown below at the from the book, Saranac Lake Winter Ice Palace in 2010. Photo by Dawn Flynn. Carnival Memories by Andy Flynn, soon to be published by Hungry Bear Publishing, Saranac Lake, NY. His latest book, New York’s Adirondack Park: A User’s Guide, is available on the Amazon Kindle platform.]

Wedding Cookies by Joseph Sciorra Darting around the wedding hall with my cousins, I skittered between the adults who had gotten up to dance at the end of the main course. I was seven, maybe eight, and the exhilaration of this unfettered moment of distracted grownups took my breath away with squealing delight. With sweaty kids in hot pursuit, I darted as if my life depended on it. But racing for the exit, I tripped on someone’s feet and flew into the long dessert table that lined the back wall. The table legs buckled, and one by one, the trays of homemade cookies that my mother and aunts had lovingly baked for the better part of a week for this glorious occasion came crashing to the floor, the din of metal and ceramic plates puncturing the horrified silence.

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Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 43 k The Dawnland Singers INTERE VI W BY Lisa Overholser

or “Our old ones will be here with us as long as the research of traditional Native American were finally able to come together in 2009 to Y Earth abides….” culture, with hundreds of publications among record this CD. The following is information them. Rounding out the group are John Kirk, a taken from a phone conversation with Joe The Dawnland Singers released their CD talented multi-instrumentalist who also helped Bruchac about their project:

ew Gwsintow8ganal [Honor Songs] in 2009, as a way with some of the arrangements on the CD, of paying honor to people whose stories de- and Ed Lowman, bass player. Both John and Honor serve telling. It is the second CD by the Dawn- Ed have become “adopted Abenakis” and are Gswintow8ganal, means “Honor Songs” N land Singers, a Native American performance featured prominently on Honor Songs. in the Abenaki language, and the tracks pay group that was formed in 1993, when they were Presentations by the Dawnland Singers typi- homage to important people and events in in featured at the Abenaki Cultural Heritage Days cally include new and traditional northeastern Native American culture. As Joe Bruchac says,

s in Vermont. The core of the group consists Native music mixed with Abenaki storytelling. “We wanted to remind people of those who of Joe Bruchac, an Abenaki storyteller and Shortly after coming together as a group and deserve to be honored.” Such people include author, along with his two sons Jesse Bruchac recording their first CD in 1994 (called Alno- well-known figures like Jim Thorpe (on the (a teacher of the Abenaki language who cre- bak), they performed at many sites and festivals ballad-like Track 6), an American athlete who ated the first Abenaki language website) and in the Northeast, including the Champlain Val- was born on Indian territory in Oklahoma oice James Bruchac (an animal tracker who is also ley Festival, the Old Songs Festival, The Eighth and was raised Sac and Fox (his native name V the director of the Ndakinna Educational Step, Caffè Lena, and Kanatsiohareke. They was Wa-Tho-Huk, which translates as “Bright Center), and Joe’s sister Marge Bruchac (co- even opened for the Grateful Dead and Bob Path”). Thorpe attended an Indian boarding ordinator of the Native Studies program at Dylan concert in Highgate, Vermont. As their school as a youngster, and although he went University of Connecticut/Storrs Campus). busy lives made it more and more difficult for on to become one of the greatest athletes of All are skilled storytellers and involved in them to meet after their first recording, they the early 20th century, he dealt with racism at a

Left to right: Jim, Joe, Marge, and Jesse. Photo by Eric Jenks, 2009 Saratoga Native American Festival.

44 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore timef o great prejudice towards Native Ameri- Native American sounds with more modern cans. Track 16, “Indian Boarding School,” ones. It’s a blending of the traditional and lyrically touches on the experiences of those the modern.” One track that is particularly at the infamous boarding schools, which were representative of this is “Indian Boarding primarily focused on assimilation into the School” (Track 16). As Joe explains it, the majority culture. song flips between the past and the present, Some tracks honor warriors, both past and with modern, non-Native instrumentation at present. Track 17, “Metacomet (King Phillip)” the opening, but a traditional chant that comes pays respect to the 17th-century Wampanoag in to represent the children at the boarding chief who fought British colonists in what school. “Warriors in the Twilight” (Track 19) became known as King Phillip’s War, a pivotal is another track that incorporates this sort of event in New England history, while Track 9, dual sonority. “Wawanolet (Song for Greylock)” refers to Other tracks represent a more subtle blend- the 18th-century chief of the Abenakis who ing of the traditional and modern in terms of Loon” is his Abenaki name), who created the similarly fought colonial settlers. “In Babylon,” instrumentation. The Native American flute, Indian Village at Enchanted Forest and first Track 3, reminds us that there are those in the made out of river cane or red cedar and with taught Joe some Native American traditional present day who deserve to be honored and only five or six finger holes, traditionally has songs. The creation of the CD in many ways remembered as well, by honoring Iraq war somewhat of a background role or is used for pays respect to them as well. veterans. what Joe calls “mood music.” But in certain And, of course, the CD wouldn’t have come tracks on the CD, the Native American flute into existence without the logistical means of Language takes on a more lead role, as in “As Long as creating it. For that, Joe and the rest of the As a language spoken by just a handful of Earth Abides” (Track 1) or “In Babylon” Dawnland Singers tapped into their tightknit people, Abenaki features prominently in Honor (Track 3). Jesse is a versatile flute player and has community of traditional music lovers, record- Songs as a language deserving of recognition. expanded the boundaries of Native American ing at the home studios of friends Donald Says Joe: “One of the main goals of the CD flute technique by playing it more masterfully, Person (Studio 14) and Jack and Connie Hume was to produce good music. But we also want- so that it has more of a central melodic focus. (Windy Acres Farm). Honoring community is ed to draw attention to the language.” Many Traditionalists will also hear some clearly at the very root of Honor Songs, and in so do- of the songs, written by Joe and Jesse, are in modern instrumentation. The two tracks ing, they honor the humanity of community, Abenaki, and combine words and phrases from mentioned above incorporate guitar, bass, as well as the individual backgrounds of those the language in combination with vocables, or and violin—all non-Native instruments played that make up the community. syllables that have no direct translation. by John Kirk (who helped arrange several of Jesse, who is fluent in Abenaki, is an avid the tracks) and Ed Lowman. The choice to To contact the Dawnland Singers, visit: www. researcher and teacher of the language. In ad- incorporate these instrumentalists on the CD josephbruchac.com/honorsongs.html dition to compiling the only Western Abenaki was quite purposeful. Joe puts it this way: “The The Dawnland Singers’ CD, Gwsintow8ganal online dictionary (www.westernabenaki.com), he CD blends together the atonality of Native [Honor Songs] was the November 2011 featured consults on various projects. One of his cur- American music, and the chromaticism and selection in the New York Folklore Society’s rent projects includes doing research on wax instrumentation of modern music.” CD-of-the-Month Voices in New York member- cylinder recordings from the Siebert collection, ship program. For more information about the a collection of Algonquin texts (Abenaki is an Community group, check out the New York Folklore Soci- Algonquin language). At a recent gathering of The Dawnland Singers are a tight commu- ety’s directory of traditional artists: http://www. Algonquin language speakers, it was discovered nity of musicians, but the CD effort drew upon nyfolklore.org/tradarts/music/artist/dawnland.html that there were errors in the translations, and other less visible, but equally integral, members To purchase Gwsintow8ganal [Honor Songs], Jesse and others are working to provide more of the community as well. Swift Eagle, a Pueblo visit the NYFS’ online shop at www.nyfolklore. accurate renderings. It is evidence of their and Apache Indian who came from a musical org/gallery/store/music.html#honor commitment to keeping the language alive, and and silversmithing family, greatly influenced Joe the CD is one more way to pay respect to the as a young adult when Joe first saw him play at language and maintain its vitality in the culture. Frontier Town, a tourist attraction in the Ad- Lisa Overholser is staff folklorist at the irondacks. Swift Eagle’s son, Powhatan, made New York Folklore Society, where she manages the mentoring and profes- Music some of the first flutes that Joe and, later, Jesse sional development program and The n music o the CD is a mixture of vari- now own. Another important influence for Joe contributes to many other projects and intiatives. She holds a PhD in folklore ous styles. “We wanted to create a tapestry of was Maurice Dennis (Mdawelasis, or “Little and ethnomusicology from the Univer- sity of Indiana.

Fall–Winter 2012, Volume 38:3–4 45 y Life with a Gingerbread Man Cookie BY Elsie Borden DeGarmo-Smith w d My gingerbread man cookie recipe was tucked inside the gift basket, always given in the red Christmas book I received from with a big smile and a big hug. Gingerbread Man Cookie

oo my first husband. It remained my favorite Our annual gingerbread man decorating ½ cup shortening

F a s among the 12 cookie recipes I made ev- party started soon after, when the kids were ½ cup sugar ery year for my family, the neighbors, the preschoolers. Each child invited a friend or ½ cup molasses church, and many Christmas parties. It was two. I made the gingerbread men in sev- 1½ teaspoons vinegar 1 beaten egg a delicious, hard and crunchy favorite of eral sizes in preparation for the party. The 3 cups all-purpose white flour my young husband and children, who loved kids frosted shirts and pants on the baked ½ teaspoon baking soda it as a breakfast treat, even without frosting, cookies with several colors of homemade 1 teaspoon cinnamon with a cold glass of milk. confectionary sugar glaze; and they added 1 teaspoon ground ginger Our adopted home, Pine Plains, was eyes, noses, buttons using raisins, sprinkles, ¼ teaspoon salt a tiny village in the mid-Hudson Valley, and candy. Everyone wore aprons. Every- Stir and bring to a boil the shorten- where everyone knew everyone. Most were one took cookies home. Everyone had a ing, sugar, molasses, and vinegar. Cool; related. It was a dairy farming area and be- messy, wonderful time! Needless to say, it add egg. Sift dry ingredients together; came the first home in the United States of was very successful tradition that went on add to first mixture. Mix well. Chill. On slightly floured surface, roll to about the Aberdeen Angus from Scotland. The through elementary school and into high 1/4-inch thick. Place on greased cookie Grange was in “full swing,” as was the small school with all five of my children. I even sheet. Bake in moderate oven (375 de- country Methodist Church that we attend- had photos of my Dad (Pop), on a Christ- grees) for 8 to 12 minutes (according ed. Most of the congregation were farmers mas visit from Florida, frosting the ginger- to size and thickness of cookies—I like and Grangers, and their wives were marvel- bread men with help from a grandkid or them lightly browned). Cool 5 minutes ous cooks for our monthly church dinners. two, home from college. and then remove from cookie sheet. Neither my first husband, Lin, nor my When the kids were a little bit older, I I always make two or three recipes at a second husband, Jim—both were taken decided to add a new adventure to the time. That’s when you have to use your young by cancer—nor I were from Pine cookie-making and distribution. A local hands and arms to get the dough well mixed. I also have patted the dough Plains; we met on the school faculty. We farmer, Lew Wells, agreed to bring his big into flattened rounds, placed them in soon became a part of the local community hay wagon into town from his farm so we plastic bags to chill in the refrigerator and started a tradition on Christmas Eve. could have a Christmas caroling party. We for at least a half hour, or even over Lin (and later Jim) and the kids delivered stopped by and sang while we delivered night if time was too short for immedi- bags of our homemade cookies throughout gingerbread cookies to the elders and shut- ate baking. The new, modern heavy mix- the neighborhood, especially to the older ins of the village. We continued this tradi- ers should make it less strenuous, but not as much fun. folks. There were always several “men” tion for several years, ending up back at the house for hot cocoa and fancy, oven hot dogs in foil. Each year Elsie Borden Lew refused to let me rent the DeGarmo-Smith, wagon, but he always would take now in her youthful 80s, continues her home a bag of the largest frosted outreach with her gingerbread man cookies. new church and re- tirement families of Many years later, these ginger- Towson Maryland. bread man cookies are still my fa- This follows a long vorite. I continue to make them career as a manager, trainer, and for my oldest son, Lindley, as a motivational speak- Christmas present. He loves them er across the US in educational sales, and earlier work in the public schools as a for breakfast with his coffee. I’m nurse, teacher, and guidance counselor. sure his Dad is glad that he gave She also opened her home for 18 years to developmentally disabled adults. Elsie me that red Christmas book all grew up in Kings Park, Long Island, raised those years ago. I know I am. five children in the mid-Hudson Valley, Gingerbread Man decorating. Photo by Elsie Borden and has nine marvelous grandchildren. DeGarmo-Smith. Photo by John Tonkiss.

46 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore N

The New York Folklore Society is initiat- festival traditions of urban Schenectady’s book will be published by the University Y

ing a series of new programs for 2013. Brief communities, including St. Patrick’s Day of Mississippi Press as part of the Folklore F descriptions of new initiatives are as follows: and the Guyanese Festival of Pagwah. in a Multi-Cultural World publication series S

• With support from the New York State of the American Folklore Society. N Council on the Arts and the William • The New York Folklore Society has Gundry Broughton Charitable Founda- received a grant from the Alfred Z. Solo- • The New York Folklore Society will ew tion of Schenectady, the New York Folk- mon Charitable Trust to create a travelling present a Latino Dance Summit, to take

lore Society is conducting a Youth Com- exhibition based on the ongoing research place at Skidmore College from August s munity Cultural Documentation Program of the occupational folklore of thorough- 9–11, 2013. Youth representatives of an in collaboration with the Schoharie River bred racetrack workers by New York Latino dance groups based in New York Center. Youth from Schenectady began Folklore Society executive director, Ellen State and their leaders will convene for

working in rural Schenectady County in McHale. For several years, Dr. McHale two days of professional development d N the summer of 2012 and conducted sev- has been documenting the folklore, folk activities and cross-cultural sharing of eral interviews with traditional artists and arts, and working life of stable hands at dance traditions by the youth participants.

local historians about their relationships the Saratoga Racetrack. Armed with an A public performance will take place on ote to the Schoharie Creek at Burtonsville. Archie Green Fellowship of the Library Saturday, August 10, on the campus of This program continued into the fall and of Congress, McHale expanded her re- Skidmore College. For information, or to

following spring (2012–2013) within the search in 2012 to include other thorough- request to participate, please contact Lisa s City of Schenectady with the theme of bred racetracks throughout the United Overholser of the New York Folklore community foodways. Schenectady teens States. McHale will be mounting a travel- Society, [email protected]. documented several of the food and ling exhibition for 2014. A companion

On the Border by Joseph Sciorra A tour of the border at San Ysidro, California—with its primary and secondary retaining walls set just behind a sprawling outlet mall—is narrated with tales of tunnels connecting to the US sewer system, packed vans barreling through the Mexican check- point and careening up Interstate 5 against oncoming traffic, drug cartels kidnapping folks in Arizona and holding them for ransom in Sonora, the lucrative yet violent trafficking of humans and drugs across a perpetually blurring political boundary, and 22,000 homicides in three years in the wake of the Calderón administration’s crackdown on drugs. The narrator is silent about the daily irony of being a German-born Puerto Rican married to a naturalized citizen from Tijuana, and working for la migra

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Join the New York Folklore Society and A Public Voice become part of a community that will deepen  The NYFS raises awareness of folklore among the Yes, I want to join the New York your involvement with folklore, folklife, the general public through three important channels. Folklore Society. traditional arts, and contemporary culture. As a member, you’ll have early notice of key events. Print. Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore, published twice a year, brings you folklore in the Name ______Annual Conference. People travel from all over words and images of its creators and practitioners. to meet in a different part of the state each year Organization ______The journal’s new look distinguishes it from other for the NYFS Conference and Annual Meeting. publications in the field. Read Voices for news Address ______Professionals in folklore and related fields join you can use about our field and legal issues, with educators and practitioners to explore the City, State, Zip ______photography, sound and video recording, and culture and traditions of the area. Lectures and archiving. Country ______discussions are balanced with concerts, dancing, and tours of cultural sites. Radio. Voices of New York Traditions is a series of Telephone ______radio documentaries that spotlight the folklife of New York State Folk Arts Forums. Folk arts E-mail ______the state, aired on public radio. Stay tuned! professionals, colleagues in related disciplines, and lay people come together each year to Internet. Visit www.nyfolklore.org for the latest $45 Basic member address a topic of special interest—whether it news on events in folklore. Updated weekly, the $25 Full-time student be folklore and the Internet, heritage tourism, NYFS web site is designed to appeal to the public $25 Senior (65+) cultural conservation, or intellectual property as well as keep specialists informed. $55 Joint (two or more at the same address) law. $60 Organizations and institutions Advocacy Please add $10 for additional postage for foreign Help When You Need It The NYFS is your advocate for sympathetic and memberships. Become a member and learn about technical informed attention to folk arts. assistance programs that will get you the help • We represent you on issues before the state  New member. you need in your work. legislature and the federal government when  Gift membership. Introduce a friend public policy affects the field. Visit the advocacy or relative to the world of folklore! Mentoring and Professional Development pages at www.nyfolklore.org to learn what we’re Program for Folklife and the Traditional doing and how you can help. Make a tax-deductible donation and help Arts. Receive technical assistance from a • The society partners with statewide, regional, mentor of your choosing. You can study with and national organizations, from the New York support the organization that supports a master traditional artist, learn new strategies State Arts and Cultural Coalition to the American folklore. for marketing, master concert and exhibition Folklore Society, and frequently presents its production, organize an archive, or improve projects and issues at meetings of professional your organizational management. organizations in the allied fields of archives, 2013 2014 history, and libraries. Membership dues $______$______Folk Artists Self-Management Project. Tax-deductible If you’re a traditional artist, you know the donation $______$______importance of business, management, So Join! and marketing skills to your success in Becomet par of a community that explores and Total enclosed $______$______the marketplace. NYFS can help you with nurtures the traditional cultures of New York The amount of memberships greater than workshops, mentoring, and publications. State and beyond. Membership in the NYFS Folk Archives Project. What could be entitles you to the following benefits: $20 and all donations are tax-deductible to more critical than finding a repository for an • A subscription to Voices: The Journal of New the extent allowed by law. important collection? The NYFS is a leader in York Folklore the preservation of our cultural heritage. Attend • Invitations to conferences, workshops, and our workshops and order copies of NYFS meetings Make your check payable to New York books at a discount. • Updates on technical assistance programs Folklore Society and send it with this form to: Consulting and Referral. The NYFS offers • Opportunities to meet others who share your informal counseling and referral services to the interests New York Folklore Society members in the field. Contact us by telephone, • Discounts on NYFS books 129 Jay Street e-mail, or letter. Plus the satisfaction of knowing that you support Schenectady, NY 12305 the only organization devoted to folklore across Publications. Members receive discounts on New York State. all NYFS publications. Visit www.nyfolklore.org for current titles.

48 VOICES: The Journal of New York Folklore Thank You, New York Folklore Society Supporters! The New York Folkore Society thanks the people and organizations that supported our programs and publications in 2012. Your help is essential to our work. If your local library is not listed among the institutional subscribers below, please urge it to join.

Individual Members College, College of St. Rose, College of Wil- Illinois, University of Minnesota, University Pauline Adema, Catherine Angell, Raymond liam and Mary, Colorado College, Columbia of New Hampshire, University of Oregon, Baumler, Eric Bebernitz, Lilly Bedell, Eu- University, Cornell University, Crandall Pub- University of Pennsylvania, University of gene Bender, Bob Bernardi, Robert Bethke, lic Library, Duanesburg Junior/Senior High Pittsburgh, University of Rochester, Uni- Lucey Bowen, Warren Broderick, Simon School, Duke University, Dutchess County versity of Southern California, University Bronner, Candace Broughton, Michael Bu- Arts Council, East Carolina University, East of Texas at Austin, University of Toronto, onanno, Elizabeth Burbach, Beverly Butch- Meadow Public Library, Elmira College, University of Vermont, United States Mili- er, Bruce Button, Karen Canning, Alan Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, tary Academy, Utah State University, Utica Casline, Juan Castano, William Clements, Etnologinen Osasto, ETSU Sherrod Library, College, Vassar College, Western Kentucky Francis Cleveland, Eileen Condon, Helen George Mason University, Hartwick Col- University, Winterthur Museum, Yale Uni- Condon, Trisha Cowen, Todd DeGarmo, lege, Harvard College, Hofstra University, versity. 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Robert Hoffnung, Muriel Horowitz, Peggy l’Homme Bibliotheque, Marshall University, Johansen, Dori Kalish, Lucine Kasbarian, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Foundations Robert Kent, James Kimball, Jonathan Kruk, Miami University Library, Mid Country Paul and Anne van Buren Fund of the Maine, Alice Lai and Eric Ball, Michael Leach, James Public Library, Middlebury College Library, Community Foundation, William Gundry Leary, Joan Levine, Laura Linder, Marsha Mohawk Towpath Byway, Monroe Com- Broughton Charitable Foundation, Alfred Z. MacDowell, Dan Mack-Ward, Nicole Ma- munity College, New York State Historical Solomon Trust, Mid Atlantic Arts Founda- cotsis-Hefny, Elena Martínez, Patti Mason, Association, New York State Library, New tion, Rotary Club of Schenectady Foundation. Carolyn McCormick, Kathryn McCormick, York University, Newberry Library, Ohio Phyllis McNeill, Allan Newell, Erica Obey, State University, Ohio University, Onondaga Corporate Partnerships Colleen O’Connor, Patricia Park , Preston County Public Library, Paul Smiths College, Caffé Nola, Stewart’s Corporation, SACC- Pierce, Stanley and Christina Ransom, Paul Penn State University, Port Washington TV, IBM International. Rosenberg, Rob and Lucy Roy, Dave Ruch, Public Library, Princeton University, Queens Dawn Saliba, Suzanne Samelson, Boria Sax, Library, Rochester Public Library, Saratoga Harold Thompson Members Judith Schanzer, Beth Sciumeca, Joan Scott, Springs Public Library, Skidmore College, St. Polly Adema, Karen Park Canning, Varick Joy Shortell, Cindy and Robert Skala, Diane Bonaventure University, St. Johns University, Chittenden, Susan Eleuterio, Ellen Fladger, Smith, Nancy Solomon, Frank Strauss, John St. Lawrence University, Stanford Univer- Ann Githler, Gabrielle Hamilton, Ellen Thorn, Diana Trummer, Joan Uhrman, Zoe sity, State University College, Oneonta, McHale, Christopher and Anna Mulé, Les- van Buren, Michael Vandow, Brenda Verardi, State University College, Plattsburgh, lie Ogan, Pete Rushefsky, Jessica Schein, Portia Walton, Christine Wands, Mary Ward, Staten Island Arts, Steele Memorial Library, Joseph Sciorra, Greg Shatan, David Smin- Daniel Ward, Sherre Wesley and Len Davis, SUNY Adirondack, SUNY Albany, SUNY gler, Elizabeth Tucker, Kay Turner, George Lois Wilcken, Mark Woodhouse, Robert Geneseo, SUNY Geneseo, SUNY North Ward, Sherre Wesley and Len Davis, Lynne Wright, Lois Young, Melanie Zimmer. Country Community College, Syracuse Williamson. University, Temple University, Texas A&M Institutional Members University, The Genesee-Orleans Regional Supporting Memberships Alderman Library, American University, Arts Council, The Huntington Library, Tra- Dan Berggren, Ed Bruhn, Alden (Joe) Arizona State University, Arkansas State ditional Arts in Upstate New York, Ulster Doolittle, Enikö Farkas, Karen Brown University, Bloomsburg University, Brandeis County Community College, Union College, Johnson, Geri Solomon. University, Brooklyn College, Brown Uni- University of British Columbia, University versity, Buffalo Erie County Public Library, of California, Berkeley, University of Cali- Donors C. W. Post Center, Calpulli Mexican Dance fornia, Los Angeles, University of Chicago, Camp Woodland Reunion Committee, Alan Company, Cardiff University, Cayuga Coun- University of Colorado, University of Dela- Casline, Eileen Condon, Karen Brown ty Community College, Clinton Community ware, University of Houston, University of Johnson. Nonprofit Org. US Postage PAID Albany, NY 129 Jay Street, Schenectady, NY 12305 (518) 346-7008 • www.nyfolklore.org Permit #751

SaveDate! the The New York Folklore Society presents a… LATINO DANCE SUMMIT

A statewide gathering of Traditional Dance Troupes for three days of demonstrations, performance, workshops, panels, food, and of course…..lots of dancing!

Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY August 9-11, 2013

Know of a traditional dance troupe interested in participating? Want to learn more? Stay tuned for more info, at www.nyfolklore.org, or call 518-346-7008.