CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT—BAKE SALES, TRAPPING CLOSURE, AND A PAINTING LESSON

    

Eustelle Melville Palmer.

     Eustelle Palmer was an excellent cook and there was always a strong demand in our house for her baked goods. However, she was not the only reputable cook in Continental Village. Mrs. Monowitz, Mrs. Lazar and Rose Cillis baked Jewish specialties. Gertrude Kuty baked Hungarian and Norwegian specialties. Mrs. Esposito baked Italian specialties. Mrs. Zeliph baked Dutch specialties. After the volunteer fire department was organized and money was needed, the wives of the firemen sold cakes, cookies, pies, etc. The bake sales were advertised my word of mouth and held at the Clubhouse.

     My mother was known for her decorated and very tasty double layer cakes covered with rich chocolate icing. Unfortunately, she had a difficult time protected them from her own children. My brother John and I were the worst offenders. If she could bake her cakes and get them out the front door of our house without our interference, she could be proud of her accomplishment. Thumbs-up she would signal with one hand, while holding a large wooden mixing spoon in the other hand. She used the mixing spoon as a defensive weapon. More than once I was hit across the forearms, as I reached for a cake that was cooling on a tray table near the electric stove. She used a broom to keep John out of the kitchen. I don't remember why a filched piece of cake tasted better than the unfilched cake, but I thought it did.

     My mother, Eustelle Melville Palmer, was the oldest of five children and a person who possessed considerable management skills. She was responsible for the organization of a boys' club in Continental Village, and later a Cub Scout troop. She was a major influence behind the organization of a ladies' auxiliary in the fire department. She was a homemaker, a practical nurse and a clerical worker at Readers Digest in Pleasantville, N. Y. Intelligent, practical and caring woman is the best way I can describe her.

     I remember that she used Mason jars to store tomatoes, apples, jelly and jams. Some of her Mason jars had latches on the glass tops. Before latching the tops, she would place a layer of wax on the top of jelly or jam. Everything was sealed tightly to her satisfaction.

     In autumn of our second year in Continental Village John and I experimented with homemade apple cider and hard cider. John bought a used still from our neighbor Han Schmidt, and installed the copper tubing apparatus in our cellar. We picked crab apples from the old apple orchard which stood between the Salt Box house and the Zeliph's house. Our first production was almost pure alcohol and tasted awful. Attempting to produce a better product during the second cooking, a soldered joint in the copper tubing came undone and that ended all experiments. I will note that my step-father was not at home when this activity took place in the basement of our house.

    Another memory I have was the building of Hans Schmidt's house. Hans lived on Sprout Brook Road between Schuyler Lane and Lakeview Drive. He was a WW2 veteran of the German army and a new citizen of the United States. His house was at or near No. 270. The house was recognizable by an old red brick exterior. The day the bricks arrived, Hans, my step-father Art Palmer, John and I tossed and carted the bricks from the road to an area near the house foundation. It took several hours. Mrs. Schimdt rewarded us with food and drink. While we rested my step-father told Hans that he possessed a German mauser rifle that he bought in Tripoli while assigned to the USS Delta in 1944. Hans wanted to see it. My step-father showed the rifle to Hans the next day. According to my step-father, Hans held it and pulled back the short bolt to examine it. "It needs more grease," he said with a defined German accent.

     The mention of a name or place can bring back associated memories. When I deployed my trap line and attended to it on a regular schedule, I remember adding a raccoon trap behind the Schmidt's house. It was about 100 yards away from the house, higher on the hill. I baited the trap with sardines. Four consecutive days I checked the condition of that trap and nothing was caught. The sardine bait was missing each time, so I added more. On the fifth day, as I approached the trap, I saw something struggling in the leaves near the place that the trap had been set. It was a colorful domestic Angora cat, and it belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt. I loosened the trap and freed the cat. It tried to get away but I held it. While holding the cat in one arm, I examined its paws one by one. The first joint above one paw was raw and bloodied. I had nothing to clean it with except the sleeve of my shirt, which I used. Then I found a straight stick on the ground and tied it to the cat’s leg for support. I set the cat loose and it ran toward the Schmidt's house with a noticeable limp. I was too afraid to follow it to the house and explain to the Schmidts what had happened, so I dismantled the trap and took a circuitous route through the woods and returned to my house. I never heard anything about it afterward on the Continental Village grape-line of rumors and hearsays. But I felt guilty and I began to consider giving up trapping.

     I had another reason for putting a stop to trapping. In winter of the same year I caught my family's dog in a raccoon trap at the Beaver Pond. This pond, a section of Canopus Creek, was located past the aqueduct and north on Sprout Brook Road.

     Our dog was outside the house when I departed to inspect my trapline. I did not see her until I was walking past Al Lazar's house on Sprout Brook Road. I yelled and chased her away. I never permitted her to follow me when I walked the trapline. She ran back toward the house and disappeared. Thinking I was successful in chasing her home, I continued past the junction with Gallows Hill Road and then past Frankie Smith's house. On the way I noticed the burned out stumps of old chestnut trees in the fields along the east side of the road in the vicinity of Valley Lane. Mr. Zeliph told me that the chestnut blight came to Continental Village about 1910, and in an effort to save them all the trees with blight were cut down and burned.

     I continued walking toward the Beaver Pond. This place was really a bog with some shallow pools of water and a broken stream running through it. There were a few paths. Knee-high boots were necessary foot gear to get through the place. When I walked slowly along the trap line, I realized nothing was caught in the several traps I had set there. I had been successful the week before this day, when I caught and killed a big raccoon which I skinned the same day. I stretched and dried the fur about five days on a homemade stretcher. That raccoon fur netted me $2 at Singer's.

     Disappointed, I turned to go home. As I was leaving the Beaver Pond I heard familiar barking behind me. I retraced my steps through the bog and found my dog caught in one of the raccoon traps. My first reaction was anger because she had followed me. It would be a mistake to yell at her while she was in distress, so I opened the jaws of the trap and removed her paw. I petted her, examined her paw, and found that her nails had been caught in the trap. She limped slightly as she followed me home.

     The dog's limp was noticed inside the house, and I was questioned by my mother. I made up a story about how the dog escaped from the bite of a snapping turtle at the Beaver Pond. It was a stupid thing to say. It was wintertime. My mother looked at me in disbelief. "I wasn't born yesterday," she said. I resolved to stop trapping.

     A memorable and painful incident occurred between my step-father and me the following summer. On a warm June day he asked me to paint the side of our garage with Sear's best white paint. "Best" meant most expensive, probably $5 a gallon. My step-father handed me a gallon can of paint, a scraper, a paint brush, a rag, and some old Peekskill Evening Star newspapers in which to wrap the paint brush when the work was completed. He would clean the brush himself when he returned from fire department parade practice. "No holidays," he said—meaning no unpainted surfaces. "I have confidence in you, Gene."

     It was a beautiful summer day. All my friends would be at the lake swimming, I thought, and I would be painting. My step-father left the house in his fireman's dress uniform. I watched him leave in good spirits. I dragged myself and the painting supplies to the open field at the side of the garage and started painting. Each stroke of paint on the garage was lost time swimming at the lake. I was miserable. Soon I was rehearsing in my mind the steps needed to shorten the misery and join my friends at the lake. I came up with an idea. I could dig a hole in the field and pour half the paint in the hole and cover the top with a large sod of field grass. The paint would be covered and the sod would blend in. The sod would float on the thick paint. It would cut my painting time in half. That was my plan. It was lacking one important consideration: What if?

     I painted the garage until the paint can was half empty. I dug a hole with a spade and poured the remaining white paint in the hole. When I covered it with sod I saw some paint oozing along the sides at the surface. I sprinkled dirt over the paint and the sod-covered hole looked the same as the dirt and grass in the field. No trace of white paint. The thickness of the paint must have held the sod up, I reckoned. Then I placed the lid on the empty paint can, wrapped the paint brush in newspapers, put the painting items in the garage, and after a quick change into a bathing suit I was running barefoot to the lake to join my friends.

     My friends and I had a hellava good time that afternoon at the lake. We swam to the island and to the dam, and back to the beach. We used two rowboats and gave the neighborhood girls a ride across the lake and back. The water was warm; the weather was great. I thought, shucks, if summer fun could always be pleasant like this.

     My step-father practiced marching with the other volunteers who showed up that fine summer day. When he returned home he ate a late lunch. He asked my mother, "Did Gene finish painting the garage?" "Yes," she answered, "Gene finished earlier than I expected."

     Still in dress uniform, he finished his lunch and went outside to inspect my paint job. He walked in the field on the side of the garage, his eyes fixed on the drying or dried oil paint and he was searching for "holidays"—a Navy term I'm sure. He inadvertently stepped on the piece of sod I used to cover the paint that had been poured in the hole. His right foot—shoe, sock and bottom of trouser—were temporarily immersed in white paint. He almost fell, he told me a few days later. He did not tell me what he said at the time—a Navy term I'm sure.

     Fire Chief Art Palmer quickly changed his clothes. He spent a good portion of the afternoon using turpentine and other solvents to clean his shoe, sock and trousers. Then he sat down on the breezeway steps and waited patiently—like a cat waiting for a mouse. He was waiting for me to come home and receive my just reward.

     At 6 p. m. I came home hungry, tired and sunburned. I was not expecting what happened next. My step-father sprung at me like a lion, and dragged me into the house. He said very little, but I got his message. He forced me down on the kitchen floor on my back, took my legs and drew them up over my head and he proceeded to open-hand slap my butt forever and forever, or so I thought. No amount of screaming stopped him. I got at least thirty of his best and hardest hits before my mother intervened. "Art, you’re killing him," she said, which was as much of an exaggeration as were my screams. But it worked. He stopped. Later he told me it was because his hand hurt.

    And that punishment put a lid on the painting incident. No grudges were held by either of us afterwards. I suspect he thought that he handled my transgression in a just manner. Feeling guilty, I thought that I deserved the punishment. It was arguably more effective than a pusillanimous call for a time out. Proof's in the pudding, some people say. I never did anything like it again.

     My step-father and I had a short conversation afterwards. He did most of the talking. I don't recall all that was said, but he told me that short cuts don't play out. "Wise up," he advised me. Before nightfall he drove to Peekskill and bought more paint. I painted the remaining unpainted surfaces of the garage over the next two days. He did not have to ask me or order me to do it. I felt that it was an obligation. Perhaps it was the advent of the transitional stage of growing up.