My 2008 Summer thoughts..

Alex my fabulous nephew is lost in the World of Warcraft. I don't know if he will ever return to this dimension. Tuesdays is when Blizzard works on the game and updates their servers so little Alex is in withdrawal. He is currently working is 13 year old nasty attitude and, while I am normally very forgiving adolescent's moods, I am ready to adjust this one myself.

My amazing mother has been visiting and she is so cool! We have been kicking back together on the deck this summer, drinking coffee and reading to each other from various cool stuff that we find in our books and articles. I'm really going to miss her after she goes home. This is her last week here.

We attended Pirate Days in the Town of Clay and I have to announce to the world that Crissy Clancy is Da Bomb! The entire town needs to bow to her greatness. It was she that organized and threw this day of greatness. I had to leave right before her play but spent a few hours there. She has a troupe of kids/teens called the Pirates of Chaos that perform plays and walking interactive theater. They are quite impressive and she rules over them as Captain Mimi Foxmorton. You must catch them in action again or hire them for a party or something (call 652-3800 ext 137 and ask for Crissy).

There was sword fights and lots of Arrrgs! The kids even sailed on a pirate "ship", taking turns at the wheel. The smaller kids quite enjoyed engaging the men from Tales of Remikreh in "sword" play and they also gave an informative lecture about archaic weapons --boys from 9 to 18 were fascinated and had lots of technical questions. Even the questions were impressive, I had to look twice a few times at the pint-sized kids asking them. If video games have done anything, they certainly have expanded the vocabulary and historical knowledge of the average 12 year old.

My 15 year old was sure to give proper attention to Scurvy Pete & Finn, who provided piratical music--he says that Pete rocked the ukelele.

Also the Clay historical buildings were open with members from the Clay Historical Society there to give visitors information. There was a cabin that was a reproduction of a cabin that they found and made a big archeological dig on from property on Henry Clay Blvd. and a train station called "Cigarville". They have a big event in September so be sure to check out the blog then as I will be posting about it. In fact, the experience has really stimulated my curiosity about the local history. Stay tuned for my revelations!

One thing that this area is really generally known for is the salt industry but interestingly, Clay was also a huge tobacco farming area and it grew very well here. I usually think of Viginia, Kentucky and Tennessee as tobacco states so it was fascinating that here, in Central NY, they grew lots of it which was baled up and loaded on the train at the Cigarville Station (the NY Central) and shipped to NY City where the cigar factories were (the cigar capital of the country).

Later, I guess after the tobacco was over-farmed... they turned to cabbage.... actually sauerkraut and the area became a big sauerkraut capital. I can't imagine eating that much sauerkraut to be honest but I suppose in the days of no refrigerators, kraut kept people healthy. Also Ice farming was really big--they would cut big blocks of ice from the lake. The cabin reminded me very much of Little House on the Prairie. They had a real working weaving loom from that period there.