August 20, 2005

• Swan St, Scenectady NY

  Herr Compukermann was kind enough to get his courage up to drive through some of the older parts of Schenectady to where we used to live on Swan Street.  Here is stop #1.

   

  

  This is our old church, formerly Central Baptist, minus the steeple over the door. I wonder what happened to it?  My grandfather was the pastor here way back when (Sorry to have missed him in time by a couple of years, but we will get caught up in eternity where there will be plenty of time.), and we lived just down the street to the left.  I can close my eyes and still see Grandma LaVerne at the organ and Aunt Ada singing solos in the choir.  Herr and Mrs. Compukermann were in the choir, too, even though compukers hat not been invented yet.  How is that for fantastic?  Herr C always was ahead of his time.  Grandma LaVerne opted out on her organ duty one Sunday morning when she was proudly displaying to Auntie Ann how she could cut through a frozen English muffin with here newfangled serrated knife...  I will spare the gory details.  I forget who took over for her.

  Us three kids used to sit in the pews with Aunt Ada and Uncle Freddy, who would slip us cherry cough drops if we were good.  Maybe it was if we were restless.  Herr and Mrs. C could always see what we were doing from the perches in the choir loft, and we once all got a lecture about nose blowing procedures that would not gross the pastor out in the middle of his fire and brimstone.  Pastor Nelson used to yell a lot, and I always wondered what he was so mad about.  When I got a little older, I realized he was saying some good stuff there.  Listening to sermons was good practice in listening itself, which is a very useful skill.  Mrs. C also requested that we not open up our hankies and rigorously examine the contents for any brain cells that might have been dislodged in the nasal discharge.  I am gonna loose my readership.  And don't chew gum in the pastor's face, either.  What if everybody did it?  He is preaching to God's sheep, not a bunch or cud-chewing cattle.

  Pastor Nelson also held after school kids meetings.  He would stand outside the school handing out invitations and then have a program for us.  He would do magic tricks and play his trombone for us, always managing to slip out of his slide for a big laugh.  We loved it when he did that.  After the Bible story he always had a "magic seat,"  which meant that he had taped a dime underneath one of our folding chairs. 

  The basement of the church was where we had Sunday School.  Herr Compukermann and Aunt Ada used to be the masters of ceremonies at the opening exercises before we all went to our Sunday School classes, where the foundations of my life were laid.  Other basement events included Vacation Bible School, Smorgasbords and Halloween parties.  I will never forget being trapped in the dark hall near the huge bonging downstairs bell after tripping on a ladder that had been placed there for an obstacle course. I was wearing a clown suit, blue with white polka dots.

  What I would not give to have a breath of the heavily varnished air from inside the sanctuary!  The building was used for a recording studio for awhile, and I am not sure what it is being used for now.  The floor had fancy grills over the heating ducts.  I don't know why I remember that.

  When I was in sixth grade, the folks at Central Baptist got together with another group of Christians who had been meeting in a Grange Hall in Glennville.  The two groups merged, and Faith Baptist Church was constructed in Rexford, New York.  Half of the Central Baptist folks went to the new place, and the other half found other church homes elsewhere.  I don't think that there are too many at Faith Baptist who remember this part of the beginning of their church.  I guess that you have to be old enough to be able to admit that you remember it, and then you probably don't want to admit to being that old.

   

  

  If you turn 180 degrees from Central Baptist Church, you can see 12 Swan Street.  Grandma LaVerne lived in the first floor apartment on the left.  I have some memories of her living here, and this was probably the site of my supposed crimes of swinging on the curtains and playing with Auntie Ann's jewelry box.

   

  

  Let's look down the center of the street.  This entire street used to be lined with trees which were richly populated by squirrels.  I wonder what happened to the trees.  Maybe they were wiped out by a blight or something.  The squirrels provided economic benefits to the manufacturers of metal milk boxes.  These milk boxes provided rodent proof protection for the daily bread and weekend coffee cake that the Freihofer man used to bring around in his horse-drawn wagon.  The horse was eventually replaced by a truck, and when I asked where the horse went, I was told that it had probably been put out to pasture.  I hope that the pasture was not next to a glue factory.

  

  Here is 18 Swan Street, and this location should be embellished with a Stoddard Family historical marker.  It is the first home that I remember, and it was always green, so I referred to it as "my green house," to which I always wanted to return in times or infantile mental duress.  I suppose Herr and Mrs. Compukermann could have pried a security shingle off somewhere for me to carry around, but they were more interested in the roof not leaking.  Very bad for compukers, so it was lucky that we did not have one.

  Anyway, we lived upstairs, and the downstairs was divided into two smaller apartments, inhabited at different times by Uncle Bill and Aunt Marie, and Uncle Wayne and Aunt Barbara.  I remember that Tina lived there and maybe Kim.

   

  

  Let's go down the street a bit to number 28.  This was where the Stoddard Family lived.  It was always full of people and cats, and love was poured out in all of the cups of coffee drunk with Grandma Harriet around the kitchen table.  No, Grandma was not drunk.  Mrs. C, is there a better way to put that?  Love for the kids meant Party Pack ice cream, since it was a well known fact that coffee would stunt our growth.  Don't try to change the channel because Grandpa really can snore and watch baseball at the same time.  And don't get poor neutered Ernie the cat too excited because he wants something but can't remember what it is and might scratch you.  Ernie's lack was probably his gain, because he really was a very nice cat who lived a long life sans the yowling, wandering and fighting.  He did have a nice voice, and was named after Tennessee Ernie Ford.  This house also used to have a nice maple tree in front of it.  Grandma Harriet would always leave a window open upstairs and the cats would climb the tree and let themselves back into the house.

   

  

  This is 32 Swan Street, where we lived until we moved to 2313 Niskayuna Drive when I was in 6th grade.  The porch was made of wood back then, as were the stairs, and not these cement blocks.  The house was gray.  We lived on the first floor, and Grandma LaVerne later moved into the second floor.  It was a relatively (please notice the pun) good arrangement, with both Grandmothers in easy reach.  I think that I realized how blessed I was, because the idea of moving to a different location in the city upset me greatly, and I remember protesting that moving would be "breaking up the family!" 

  But, I was looking back, and Herr and Mrs. C were looking forward to a healthier environment and better schools, and of course they made the right choice.  After getting used to the new place I do not remember anymore regretful protestations on my part.

  • 20:19
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