Mistook Mother Nature For Local Fire Works Last Night

[Henry]

Went in to shut my computer down around 10 p.m. last night and could hear what I thought were fireworks off in the distance.  I could see some bright lights occasionally up above Larry Young's barn, but had the air conditioner and TV going so couldn't hear anything.  Around 11 p.m. noticed that my satellite dish was losing its signal and realized that what I had heard and seen earlier was simply an old fashioned summer thunderstorm..  The rain came down in buckets a little later on as I lost my satellite signal completely and it rained for quite a while.

I believe the thunderstorm was up here in the Northern part of Vermont and had no effect on the fireworks down in Burlington.

This morning's BFP said they had about a thousand people attend the Fireman's BBQ up in Franklin.  I believe they said that they had some help from some young people at the cooking school.  Hopefully the old timers did their usual and were not influenced by the cooking school students.  I remember one time IBM had a special gathering up in Stowe for us Old Originals that started here in Burlington.  They had some kind of a delicacy that supposedly was cooked with seaweed, but ended up not being cooked, so we IBMers were advised not to eat it.  I am kind of a plain meat & potatoes guy, so hamburgers, hot dogs & potato salad will usually satisfy me.

Lots of our Old Time get to gethers for these summer holidays included an Old Fashioned Ice Cream Freezer full of homemade ice cream.  In the earlier years we used the hand crank method, but in later years we had an electric one.  Nothing like a great big 8 quart ice cream freezer full of ice cream topped with some fresh strawberries to finish off the meal.  Some people say "There is always room for Jello," but I say, "There's always room for Ice Cream."  Of course back in those days we had our own milk (although for the ice cream usually we skimmed the milk off the top of the milk cans for a nice rich ice cream) and our own eggs.  Mother's favorite flavor was pineapple ice cream in which she used canned crushed pineapple.

Sorry about getting off the track here, but what I intended to say was, we had quite the thunderstorm here last night that I thought was somebody shooting off some fireworks up Fletcher/Fairfield way, until reality set in.

[trussell]

Thanks for the story Henry- I love hearing them!

It's certainly not a crank-style, but we just bought the ice cream maker attachment for our Kitchenaid mixer- I can't wait to use it!   I'm not much for sweets or desserts (I usually go for another slice of steak instead!) but I love homemade ice cream!

[Dick Brown]

Good Morning , Henry   Don't apologize for getting off the subject,.......  by the time I finished reading the fourth paragraph , I was engrossed in your IBM Old Timers musings and had forgotten myself what the purpose of the posting was !!!  It happens quite often , but especially when I am awake ( which unfortunately is less often each year ) ! By the way , how many original Old-Timers at IBM lived in our area during those early years ?  Does your posting on the Forum break confidentiality rules by citing their names ?

[Henry]

Dick, I will give you those that I remember as being the originals hired in 1957.  There is no official listing from IBM as they would not allow that, but from what I can remember, along with friends of mine, there were probably somewhere around 155 to 160 total hires locally in 1957.  For a small town Fairfax did not do too bad considering the wide area and thousands of applications they received when they opened.

Bill Cootware  (Fletcher)
Bernard Hoben
Paulette Lavallee
Pauline Lavallee
Ernie Lunn
Dalton Machia
David Minor
Lee Minor
Henry Raymond

We have a few of those originals who moved to Fairfax in later years:

Bob Fisher who now lives in Fairfax was from Winooski when he started I believe
Ron Gross - Was from Richford, but moved here to Fairfax
Theresa (Lavoie) Gross - Was from Richford - After her pregnancy had to resign and be rehired (Early Rules In IBM)

[Dick Brown]

Thanks for the info...Didn't realize that there were that many from the area that were in the original group . At the Vermont Day held every year in Zephyrhills , Florida in February ,there is a large group of retired IBMERS who gather together from Franklin & Chittenden Counties and they all seem to know and appreciate Ron Gross , so I'm betting you would recognize most of them also. Hope you had a good 4th of July .

[Kathleen]

I too love your "back in the day" posts.  I find myself telling my daughter about when I was a kid, and she is amazed about how we survived without the modern-day conveniences. I believe most of any younger generation would be interested in how the previous generation lived; that is their history.  In fact, I think "Back In the Day" would make a great forum topic.