Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Mussman's Curve

We were going to see Mussman's curve, outside of Livingston Manor on old rte. 17.

Due to some recent events, I had triggered memories of something that had happened 50 years ago.

We got off of the new route 17, now 40 years old, at the Roscoe diner.  They have delicious rice pudding.  My wife told the waitress I had been in a bad accident here years ago.  She said her father had been in a bad accident in the 1960's.  I said was it Mussman's curve?  Yes it was, her father was the truck driver in a head on crash of a bus and truck, in 1964.  My own accident had been 50 years ago in 1962.
We left Roscoe and went east on old Rte.17.  My old paper clipping said it was about 1 1/2 miles east of Livingston Manor.  The curve is easily found, there was a cross for a recent traffic death at the base of the curve.


At that time, in August 1962, I had gone with my older sister Lina and younger brother Malcolm to visit our grandparents and mothers sisters family, the McClellans, in Vestal, New York.  My older brother Bruce and my dad were at Scout Camp at Camp Trimount in the Catskills, near Tannersville, NY.  I was 7 years old, Lina 9 years old, Bruce 11 and Malcolm 3.  My dad had helped start a scout troop, troop 172, in New Paltz with his good friend Charlie Hamilton.

My grandparents, Willis and Marion Dittman, lived in Walden by the time I met them.  My mother was born in Yonkers in 1927, 3rd of 4 children.  The family moved upstate when she was young to Walden.  She left for Cornell, and spent two summers in New York City, working.  Doris met my dad, Douglas, at Cornell.  He was a returning vet from World War 2.  They married June 28, 1949.  Starting their household in Truxton, NY, my mother moved in with her parents in Walden with a new baby boy, Bruce, when Dad was called up for the Korean War to train troops up in Camp Pine, now Fort Drum.  Back from the army, dad got a job as an Ag teacher in New Paltz, New York, where they were to live the next 50 years.  Dad also went to work for the railroad, for apple orchards, then as a math teacher at New Paltz High until retirement.

On August 8, 1962, I was riding with my sister Lina in my grandparents car to Walden, NY.  The car was a Renault, kind of small with a huge air conditioner that didn't put out a lot of air conditioning.  There were no seatbelts, that requirement for cars had not yet come out.  It was a rainy day.  I was asleep in the front seat between my grandparents, my sister was laying down asleep in the back seat.

I woke up 5 days later in Roscoe Hospital.  I remember a man across the room had given me a comic book.  He had a hole in his esophagus to breath thru, and smoke cigarettes thru.
I remember I had a new cowboy shirt in my suitcase, but I never saw it again.  My face was covered with bandages.  In fact, I had to have plastic surgery two more times to help reconstruct my face.  Those operations took place up at Albany Medical.

The accident was a head on collision with a tractor trailer truck.  Two people were killed.  By a convergence of events I can see now, I am still alive.
First, my grandmother threw herself on top of me to keep me from going thru the windshield.  Second, some EMT from the Livingston Manor Rescue Squad pulled a bloody boy from the wreckage.  Third, someone back at Roscoe Hospital stitched my face back together.  Fourth, my father, who had come immediately when he heard of the accident, leaving Bruce in the care of the campers, gave me two pints of blood, we were a blood match.

My sister was in the back seat, she went to the hospital with glass in her back.

Livingston Manor Times
I grew up, Married Ginny Davenport from Stone Ridge.  Ginny's family was big in sweet corn farming in the Rondout Valley.  Her father had left the farm and branched out to Highmount Ski center in the Catskills.  Ginny had gone to Rondout High School, then Keuka College, and attended the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park.  We met as cooks at Mohonk Mountain House and resort, and moved to Syracuse and raised our family.  This past weekend our son Gordon, who lives in Brooklyn was married to Audrey DeRocker, a girl he had met while attending the music conservatory at SUNY Purchase.  Our daughter Carla is an artist who lives in nearby Rochester, NY.


Monday, October 8, 2012

Our new bathroom floor

Our floor was a mess.  The small tiles had come loose and were missing over the ears, and the concrete below had deteriorated in many places.  So I carefully chiseled and cut out the concrete and tile, about 1 1/2", down to the floorboards below, careful not to drop any on our new kitchen ceiling below thru the holes in the boards.
Starting Floor Removal

Once the dust had settled, and we decided we were replacing the sink and vanity and lights as well, we visited Tim at the Dewitt Home Depot for some advice and supplies.  First I put down 1/2" plywood on top of the 3/4" floor boards.  Then I put grout and a cement backerboard.
Grouting and putting backerboard in

Backerboard in, screwed down to plywood.
After grouting and taping the seams in the backerboard and drying out a couple of days, I started the tile.
Grouting and tiling the floor
I started at the edge of the room by the bathtub, as we have only 40 sq.ft. of floor.  After grouting and leveling with a board and rubber mallet, the floor again dried for 48 hours before the finishing grout.
Cleaning the Tile


After another two days of drying, we put sealant on the grout, then that dried and we were able to put the toilet back in.  Next, we went to FW Webb, where my wife Ginny picked out a vanity, medicine cabinet and lights that will be arriving in about a month.