In and Around Kendal

Folk-Song Sing-Along

Led by Donna Nye, accompanied by Bill Rakower, a new Kendal tradition took the Gathering Room stage on August 20: The Roots and Rhythm singers offered Kendalites their first folk-song sing-along. May there by many more to come.

Photo by Harry Bloomfeld

The Art of Nature

Photos by Rich Dooley

Summer Munching and Hopping

As the summer draws to a close, photographers continued to send photos of our favorite denizens of the fields next door and by our door: goats and the (really, only one?) bunny.

The bunny leaves Alida for Fulton, by Lynn Brady

Goats seeking breakfast, lunch, and dinner by ye olde Rockwood sycamore, by Carolyn Reiss

And So A Busy Day Comes to an End at Kendal

Photo by Carolyn Reiss

Out and About

Recently, a hardy band of Kendalites journeyed to South Salem to find out more about The Wolf Conservation Center. The Center’s mission is to advance the survival of wolves by inspiring a global community through education, advocacy, research, and recovery. According to their website, they are driven by our values of respect, community, and passion:

  • respect for wolves, their complex ecological role, the landscapes they shape, the people who care about them, and the people who live among them.

  • Community inspired by the pack. “We bring people together, we nurture, we educate, we aid, we protect, we organize, and we defend. We are always stronger together.”

  • passion for wolves, for the landscapes we share with them, and for the work of protecting them.

These folks look fairly normal, yes?

Photo by Carolyn Reiss

Photo by Carolyn Reiss

And then they decided to commune with the wolves . . . and howl . . .

Really Out and About

Valerie and Tom Wolzien are trippin’ out. Way out. No, not that. They’re off to Australia, Singapore, and other exotic climes for more than a month! Yet Kendal stays on their minds. Tom’s still operating channel 970 . . . from up, up, up—39,000 feet over Europe— inside the plane. Easy peasy.

And they’ve promised pictures along the way. Here’s Singapore, which, like Kendal, is embracing construction.

And denizens of Australia’s Northern Territories—the real outback—where cattle outnumber people more than 1,000 to 1.

I Never Knew That

Victorian Doctors Prescribed Beards for Healthy Throats

The well-coiffed men of the Victorian era wore finely tailored suits, trim waistcoats, and fancy statement hats. These men also, in contrast to their generally prim and proper aesthetic, sometimes had truly impressive beards. The Victorian “beard movement,” which started around 1850, was partially about looking manly and rugged — especially after British soldiers came back from the Crimean War unshaven in 1856. But beards were also, according to some medical professionals at the time, a way to ward off disease.

 At the time, many doctors endorsed the miasma theory of disease, which (incorrectly) held that illnesses such as Britain’s common cholera outbreaks were caused by bad air. (To be fair, rampant air pollution was making people sick, just not in ways that scientists understood at the time.) Facial hair, some reasoned, could provide a natural filter against breathing in so-called “miasms.”

 “[T]he moustache is emphatically nature’s simple respirator, while the hair covering the jaws and throat is intended to afford warmth and protection,” one doctor wrote in the Edinburgh Medical Journal in 1861. Clergymen and other public speakers were particularly encouraged to have beards to protect their voices.

 Beards started losing popularity by the 1880s. Changing standards of masculinity played a role, but the medical justification was also weakening as microbial biology and germ theory took hold. Beards, it turns out, can hold a lot of microbes.

Source: historyfacts.com

Contributed by Jane Hart

Art by Hart

On Tuesdays, Mrs. Lawson did the laundry, the vacuuming, and Tuffy’s tea-stained teeth

Some days the Shmink twins wished their mother looked normal

Keith introduced a number of species

Myrna’s broccoli chocolate tea was a sensation

The wild animals wouldn’t eat Aunt Lulu’s spinach balls either

Art and photos by Jane Hart

In and Around Kendal

Happy August Birthdays

Photo by Harry Bloomfeld

Refreshing Moments

Outside . . .

And in . . .

And the walls come a-tumblin’ down

Photos by Joe Bruno

Clermont Fashionists

They just somehow knew: it was a blue and white day

Photo by Carolyn Reiss

Art Work by Nature

Photo by Marie Martinez

Gourmand at Work

Photo by Carolyn Reiss

Balance: Goat Picture . . . Bunny Picture

Photo by Jane Hart

A Kendal Farewell

As many of you may know, Carlene Brown is leaving Kendal after 18 years of service to us and our residents. She is starting nursing school in the fall! This will be your time to stop by and wish her well!

 Please join us in wishing her all the best in this new journey!

 Carlene’s Farewell Breakfast

Wednesday, August 20

9:00 AM – 11:00 AM

Formal Dining Room

I Never Knew That

During WWII, the British Used Monopoly Games to Help POWS Escape

Monopoly has been beloved for generations, but the history of the classic board game isn’t all fun and games. During World War II, specially manufactured Monopoly boards were used to help prisoners of war escape from captivity. In 1940, the British government struck a deal with Waddingtons, the company that manufactured London-themed editions of Monopoly, in which MI9, a secret department of the War Office, tasked Waddingtons with creating a version of Monopoly that contained various tools and information to aid POWs in their potential escape efforts.

The sneakily altered Monopoly boards were distributed to Nazi-run POW camps as part of larger aid packages. In addition to the standard thimble and dog game pieces, each board contained metal “playing pieces” that were actually escape tools, such as a file and magnetic compass. Each version also contained silk maps provided by the intelligence agency, which could be unfolded discreetly without drawing attention. What’s more, these special editions swapped out fake Monopoly money for real German, Italian, and French currency that could be used to bribe guards. The British government also contracted game company John Jaques & Son to create chess sets and versions of Snakes and Ladders that contained hidden compartments with escape tools.

 Source: historyfacts.com

Contributed by Jane Hart

Art by Hart

The grouch next door didn’t love it when Liz’s children harmonized

Kiki and Elsie aged out of 4H decades ago, but they still wouldn’t miss a county fair

Not trusting Nature, Ms. Tasselpaper played it safe with artificial turf and plastic animals

In an ill-conceived sequel to Peter Pan, the cast spent several scenes exploring a rusty anchor

Bitter-sweet, it was the last club cocktail bash of the summer

Art and photos by Jane Hart

In and Around Kendal

It has begun!

Photo by Joe Bruno

A Shady Refuge on a Hot Summer Day

Photos by Carolyn Reiss

The Sunday Morning Pop-Up Art Show

Marilyn Bottjer spotted it as it rumbled along its way: maybe not a moveable feast, but certainly a moveable art show making its way along the Hudson Line tracks. Perhaps not intentional, but there you are . . .

Photos by Marilyn Bottjer

Alida’s Quietest Resident Becoming a Bit Less Shy

Photo by Jane Hart

Out and About

Hudson River Eclectic

In a recent trip to the Hudson River Museum, Kendalites viewed its collection’s many dimensions.

Topped off by a surprise siting of Pete Seeger’s Clearwater sloop—just passin’ by . . .

Photos by Marianne and Harry Bloomfeld

There’s Fungus Among Us

On a recent trip to the Farmers’ Market, Marianne Bloomfeld spied an astonishing (and quite decorative) assortment of:

Photo by Marianne Bloomfeld

Peculiar Facts from History

For all of the somber and mundane events that have occurred throughout human history, others are absurd enough to make you laugh out loud. The history website historyfacts.com has published some of them. Continued from last week, here are more:

The eagle once depicted on US coins was a real eagle named Peter

The eagle seen on early US coins was a real creature with a surprisingly common name: Peter. In a rather patriotic confluence of events, none other than an eagle took residence at the US Mint in the 1830s, where he became a companion and mascot. Historians believe the eagle featured on the silver dollar was based on this beloved bird.

“LOL” used to be an acronym for “little old lady”

Long before anyone laughed out loud on the internet, “LOL” was in use by virtue of a different phrase: “little old lady.” The acronym was popularized in the 1960s by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, who used it in many of his works. In his 1960 book Only in San Francisco, for instance, he described an outfit that included a tricorn hat topped with a bird as the “regalia of the authentic LOL.”

The Greek mathematician Pythagoras had a phobia of beans

Pythagoras, the namesake of the Pythagorean theorem, was a highly influential early Greek philosopher and a major inspiration for the likes of Aristotle and Plato. He was also a notorious hater of beans—specifically fava beans, also known as broad beans—and he strictly forbade his followers, the Pythagoreans, from coming into contact with the legumes.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams stole a piece of Shakespeare’s chair

In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams took a weeklong tour of England, and one of their first stops was the house where Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon. Among the many relics at the house was the Bard’s own chair, where the poet and playwright supposedly sat and wrote his great works. When the founding fathers left, they sliced off a piece of the chair to take home as a souvenir.

The creator of Fabergé eggs once made a Fabergé potato

You’re probably familiar with Fabergé eggs, most of which were made for the Romanov family in their last few decades as Russian rulers. Fabergé didn’t just make eggs, however, and among all his intricate and ornate treasures, one unexpected subject stands out: a potato, just under 4 inches long, crafted in a realistic, irregular shape.

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Photographs of life at Kendal on Hudson are by residents.