Amazing places
“America’s Amazing Places” was the title of an illustrated travel lecture presented by Bob Deloss to the Maine Charitable Mechanic Association members on March 26.
In Frankenmuth, Mich., we were treated to a tour of Zehnder’s Chicken Dinners, said to be the seventh largest restaurant in the U.S., serving home-style chicken, potato, stuffing and vegetable dinners since sometime in the 1800s.
In the same town we also visited a Christmas museum and store.
In Atlanta, Ga., the featured amazing place was the museum and store at the headquarters of Coca Cola.
In Richmond, Va., the Avenue of Monuments featured statues of the heroes of the Confederacy, including Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, “Stonewall” Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart, as well as one southern scientist and a recent addition, the late black tennis star, Arthur Ashe, a Richmond native.
We toured the museum of a collector of antique motion picture cameras and projectors. His dream of making movies led him into a business leasing the machinery to the studios. He also plays piano – one song, Beethoven’s “Moonlight” sonata.
In the “Badlands” of North Dakota lies the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, in astonishingly rocky, hilly, eroded and scenic terrain – almost amazing.
In Nebraska, we toured a park full of excavated skeletons of prehistoric rhinoceroses, plus a few proto-horses and camels, all buried in ash from an ancient volcano, in their watering hole. The skeletons were nearly intact but they looked, under the shed roofs, like so many racks of ribs, all in light pastel gray.
The Laura Ingalls Wilder “Little House on the Prairie” museum featured her girlhood home and some of the early buildings the family lived in, in a setting little changed from the time of which she wrote.
The Lewis and Clark Museum, located at the burial site of the lone member of that expedition to perish en route (appendicitis, we were told), did a good job telling the story of the entire expedition.
We also visited two collections of Aladdin-brand kerosene lamps in Marion, Ill. They are an improvement on the Argand lamp, adding a mantle like a gas light, and can yield nearly 50 watts of white light.
In Memphis, Tenn., we visited a hotel that has ducks in its lobby fountain, and a tailor shop run by a chatty guy who was once Elvis Presley’s tailor.
We also saw Sam Phillips’ original Sun recording studio, where Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and other famous stars were first recorded.
We in the audience covered many states in this lecture, places many of us had not seen before.
Amazing musicians
Gioachino Rossini’s opera March 24, on the Metropolitan Opera broadcast, gave us listeners a pleasant three hours. “Il Barbiere Di Seviglia,” sung in Italian, translates in English to “The Barber of Seville.”
I was surprised to learn, in reading in Opera News, that Rossini was a contemporary of Ludwig van Beethoven. Rossini’s years were 1792-1868, born in Italy, and Beethoven’s were 1770-1827, born in Bonn, Germany.
Opera News tells us that “after rising in eminence in Italy, Rossini met Beethoven,” who urged him to “give us more Barbers.” But the younger composer persisted in writing serious works as well. The capstone of his achievement was “William Tell,” a French grand opera created when he was 37, after his move to Paris. Rossini wrote “Il Barbiere” when he was in his early 20s.
Amazing facts
From the January-February newsletter of Guillemot, of the Sorrento Scientific Society, are these interesting articles. Joan Ashley has sent the newsletter to me. She is one of the members who send in natural history reports.
“A Red Squirrel was seen to leap from 30 feet up a tree, missed the next one, hit the snow-covered ground but jumped up unhurt. Studies of squirrel skeletons reveal that the vast majority have suffered broken bones.”
“Wild turkeys continue to be far too numerous to cite. Up to 100 were seen at Pownal on Feb. 4.”
“Very rare for winter in Maine was a Wood Thrush seen and photographed at Wells on Jan. 21.”
“A Brown Thrasher was found in Falmouth on Feb. 18. This was the only report and one cannot tell if this was a previously hidden wintering bird or a very early migrant.”
Amazing taste
This recipe is one of Haydn Pearson’s, the New Hampshire man who wrote his recipes in newspapers and also wrote cookbooks. This one is a favorite dessert at our house.
CRUNCHY CRANBERRY DELIGHT
3/4 cup quick oats
2/3 cup flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 cup melted margarine or butter
Mix oats, flour and sugars. Mix in the butter (or margarine). Place half in greased 8×8 baking pan.
Spread a 1-pound can of whole cranberry sauce over this. Put on the other half of the crumb mixture. Sprinkle on 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, if desired. Scatter 1/2 cup of chopped nuts over. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.
I use butter, do not use nuts. It is a delicious dessert.
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