Published: September 25, 2008 01:35 pm         

In These Otsego Hills

We must say that we do not harbor kind thoughts about hurricane Ike. Our sister Ellen, who lives on the west side of Houston, spent what had to have been a less than pleasant night riding out the effects of Ike. And she was one of the extremely lucky ones as her biggest problem was losing her electricity from Friday evening until the following Tuesday. But she did have water, both hot and cold, her telephone was not out of order and she had worked for several days making ice to keep what needed to stay cold, cold. Overall, in spite of the two days it took her to clean up her front and back yards, she did very well and was certainly more fortunate than many in the Houston area.

And, once we knew she had weathered the worst of the storm we assumed, rather innocently, that we could put Ike behind us. But that proved not to be the case. Ike zoomed through the middle of the country, touching family members in both Michigan and Ohio. The parents in Grand Rapids, Michigan received three inches of rain in one day which was not a problem in Grand Rapids, but did impact the cottage on Lake Michigan.

In fact, it is the second time this year that the cottage has been inundated with water making for a very damp basement and resulting high humidity in the cottage which is simply not good for a house that is not used on a regular basis. And in Ohio, the wee-we and wee-she lost their power, and hence their water, on Sunday. Fortunately, they were able to move themselves, their dogs and their food in with friends who did not lose power. Unfortunately, they were not alone in their loss of power and we suspect the power company was overwhelmed when it came to restoring power. The Ohio Ellsworths finally had their power restored last Saturday after being without it for a week. All in all, we have decided that we liked Ike the president far better than we liked Ike the hurricane. And we cannot help but think that our family was extremely lucky and that there are still so many who were touched by the hurricane that are still in dire straits. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all of those people.

Recently we received an e-mail from David Svahn which read: ôDid you know that Rev. Philander Chase, founder of Kenyon College, visited Fr. Nash, first rector of CCC [Christ Church Cooperstown]in 1799 at his home in Exeter? He was another missionary priest, like Nash, who migrated to Ohio where he became Bishop and founded the school with which you have had such a connection.ö David assumed correctly that we did know Philander Chase’s connection to Kenyon College.

In fact, we believe he is mentioned by name in the college’s alma mater which we have heard sung on any number of occasions. But we were not aware that Rev. Philander Chase had in 1799 visited Rev. Daniel Nash here in Otsego County so we thank David for his information. The visit obviously took place before Philander trekked to Ohio and founded Kenyon College in 1824. We can’t help but wonder if he ever returned to the Otsego County area. We think the trip between here and Ohio is long and arduous today, so we cannot imagine what it must have been like at the beginning of the 19th century.

We have received notice from Noreen Newell, a member of the CCS Class of 1948, that the class held it 60th class reunion last weekend, September 19 and 20. The festivities included a dinner at the Vet’s Club on Saturday night. Noreen noted that the class, which originally had 55 members, is now down to 37. Unfortunately, we do not know how many were able to attend the reunion, but trust that those who did had a good time. Every so often we encounter something that quite makes us want to exclaim WHAT? In fact this past week, when we were told that there was a piece in a local paper which indicated that the village of Cooperstown would be better off without Bassett, we should have exclaimed WHAT? Alas we did not, but will have to use WHAT? here as the word we actually used, we must admit, is unprintable. We frankly found it hard to believe that anyone might be so misguided as to think Cooperstown would be, overall, better off without Bassett. In fact, we had such trouble believing the story that we had to look it up for ourselves. What we found was a statement that ô...it’s hard to argue the village should be thankful to have Big Bassett here...ö And although it does not quite say the village would be better off without Bassett, it certainly does seem to indicate that the writer does not understand the workings of the community. We would be tempted to explain how it all works however we suspect the writer probably cares not what we think and would not be at all convinced as to the value of Bassett to the Cooperstown community.

All that we will say here is that during the Ellsworth family’s history on Pioneer Street, which we hasten to point out predates Bassett, we have always been extremely grateful that we have had the services of Bassett so readily available. Many people in this country are not as fortunate. And yet, so often we all seem so willing to complain about, but so hesitant to be thankful for, what we have.

In closing, we recently received in a Chinese fortune cookie a fortune which read: ``Your skills will accomplish what the force of many cannot.’’ And while we tend not to pay much attention for such fortunes, we are inclined to think this particular one has a nice ring to it even thought we are somewhat clueless as to its meaning. No doubt we should but think it is yet another example of meaningless rhetoric and exclaim ôWHAT?ö

We remain,

In these Otsego hills, The Ellsworths

The Ellsworths may be reached by mail at 105 Pioneer Street, Cooperstown, NY 13326, by telephone at 607-547-8124 or by e-mail at cellsworth1@stny. rr.com. They look forward to hearing from you.