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October 27, 1983 - Canning, Almost a Lost ArtPage 20 The News - Review October 27, 1983 Canning, Almost a Lost Art By PAUL STOUTENBURGH A rainy day can mean different things to different people. For the farmer during the growing season, it means no heavy irrigation pipes to be moved, no expense for running engines for long periods of time. For the carpenter who is trying to get all his outside work done before winter comes, it means one more day lost before the weather closes in. For the commuter, it's slower traffic and psychologically not the best way to start the day. To me, sitting inside with much put off work, it's a chance to get caught up. Letters have to be written, bills (is there ever an end to them ?) have to be paid and then there's the household jobs of maintenance that keep staring at me every time I go by that leaky faucet or the light in the bathroom that needs to be fixed. Then there's that book I wanted to get into -- will I ever have time for that? Ideally that would be the perfect way to spend the day -- the soft rain on the roof and a good book really spells contentment. But no -- all these "other" things are going to have to wait their turn for a good friend of mine left a couple of baskets of peppers in the garage. I'm a great lover of peppers in any shape or form and so this morning with the soft patter of the rain on the roof, Barbara and I will be cutting up peppers for freezing, for relish, and for fresh salad. There's always a surge of pride that runs through us whenever we go into the cellar and see the lines of preserves all along the shelves with their various colored jams, jellies, apples, pears, peaches, and tomatoes with a sprinkling of specialties like chutney, mustard pickles or pepper relish. Mice Enjoy Home Preserves, Too Some are stored in the more modern wa4��c� jars with their brass - plated snap caps. Others go back to the glass lid mason jars with the red rubber gasket, while still others like the jams have poured white paraffin tops to keep them sealed. These by the way now have jar tops on them for we have some mice who dearly love to eat away the paraffin and get to the jam. As soon as the cool weather comes, it triggers an instinct in all mice to look around for winter quarters. It's now they make a beeline for our house. The tiniest opening is all they need to squeeze through and if it's not quite large enough they'll gnaw through to make it bigger. Who amongst us hasn't sometime in his life heard these small midnight ma- rauders as they scurry in the ceiling or walls? We built our house over 30 years ago in the woods and knowing that these little creatures would inevitably try to get into the house each year, we made a particular effort to make it mouseproof. "Ha -- the best laid plans of mice and men "...well you know what happened. We have mice in the cellar. Our cat evidently isn't the best mouser for we see the little mouse calling cards down on the shelves where they too look into the various colored jars with relish (no pun intended) . My mother was a great one for preserving, but I'm afraid it was one of necessity as in those early days dollars DEER MOUSE - -If you live near a woods or open fields, you can expect a visit from this little fellow. As soon as the cold weather approaches, these deer mice look fora warm and protected place to winter. Photo by Paul Stoutenburgh were tighter and every possible way to save had to be taken. I remember her canned peaches especially. The jars were always the old blue -green glass - topped mason jars and with the lush yellow peach halves showing through it truly was a beautiful sight. There were always one or two red peach pits thrown in for what reason I never knew, but they too added to a young boy's anticipation of their opening. Those and the off -white halves of jarred pears, were my choices for dessert. Farm Kitchen, the Center of Life Years ago when I was just getting into the world of work I often visited many of the farms on the north shore. In those days during the winter you'd often meet with the farmer in his kitchen as this was the room the family revolved around. Here on the counter or table would be jars of tomatoes or beets or beans that had been brought up from the cellar or in from the big pantry for the next meal. Canning was a way of life in those days and I'm sure it still is being done to some degree today. After the busy farm season was over, (continued on next page) 1983's and 1984s FREE Coffee and Cake served Thursday, Friday & Saturday MANY UNITS SOLD BELOW ORIGINAL FACTORY INVOICE. Daily, Weekly and Monthly R. You won't find better deals deal with ... anywhere. Page-12A The Suffolk Times October 27, 1983 Canning, Almost a Lost Art By PAUL STOUTENBURGH A rainy day can mean different things to different people. For the farmer during the growing season, it means no heavy irrigation pipes to be moved, no expense for running engines for long periods of time. For the carpenter who is trying to get all his outside work done before winter comes, it means one more day lost before the weather closes in. For the commuter, it's slower traffic and psychologically not the best way to start the day. To me, sitting inside with much put off work, it's a chance to get caught up. Letters have to be written, bills (is there ever an end to them ?) have to be paid and then there's the household jobs of maintenance that keep staring at me every time I go by that leaky faucet or the light in the bathroom that needs to be fixed. Then there's that book I wanted to get into -- will I ever have time for that? Ideally that would be the perfect way to spend the day -- the soft rain on the roof and a good book really spells contentment. But no -- all these "other" things are going to have to wait their turn for a good friend of mine left a couple of baskets of peppers in the garage. I'm a great lover of peppers in any shape or form and so this morning with the soft patter of the rain on the roof, Barbara and I will be cutting up peppers for freezing, for relish, and for fresh salad. There's always a surge of pride that runs through us whenever we go into the cellar and see the lines of preserves all along the shelves with their various colored jams, jellies, apples, pears, peaches, and tomatoes with a sprinkling of specialties like chutney, mustard pickles or pepper relish. Mice Enjoy Home Preserves, Too Some are stored in the more modern ftc�ln� M n'UT jars with their brass - plated snap caps. Others go back to the glass lid mason jars with the red rubber gasket, while still others like the jams have poured white paraffin tops to keep them sealed. These by the way now have jar tops on them for we have some mice who dearly love to eat away the paraffin and get to the jam. As soon as the cool weather comes, it triggers an instinct in all mice to look around for winter quarters. It's now they make a beeline for our house. The tiniest opening is all they need to squeeze through and if it's not quite large enough they'll gnaw through to make it bigger. Who amongst us hasn't sometime in his life heard these small midnight ma- rauders as they scurry in the ceiling or walls? We built our house over 30 years ago in the woods and knowing that these little creatures would inevitably try to get into the house each year, we made a particular effort to make it mouseproof. "Ha -- the best laid plans of mice and men "...well you know what happened. We have mice in the cellar. Our cat evidently isn't the best mouser for we see the little mouse calling cards down on the shelves where they too look into the various colored jars with relish (no pun intended). My mother was a great one for preserving, but I'm afraid it was one of necessity as in those early days dollars yy DEER MOUSE - -If you live near a woods or open fields, you can expect a visit from this little fellow. As soon as the cold weather approaches, these deer mice look for a warm and protected place to winter. Photo by Paul Stoutenburqh were tighter and every possible way to save had to be taken. I remember her canned peaches especially. The jars were always the old blue -green glass - topped mason jars and with the lush yellow peach halves showing through it truly was a beautiful sight. There were always one or two red peach pits thrown in for what reason I never knew, but they too added to a young boy's anticipation of their opening. Those and the off -white halves of jarred pears, were my choices for dessert. Farm Kitchen, the Center of Life Years ago when I was just getting into the world of work I often visited many of the farms on the north shore. In those days during the winter you'd often meet with the farmer in his kitchen as this was the room the family revolved around. Here on the counter or table would be jars of tomatoes or beets or beans that had been brought up from the cellar or in from the big pantry for the next meal. Canning was a way of life in those days and I'm sure it still is being done to some degree today. After the busy farm season was over, (continued on next page) 000000000* 000 *000000000000000000000000000!. 1983's and 1984's FREE Coffee and Cake served Thursday, Friday & Saturday MANY UNITS SOLD BELOW ORIGINAL FACTORY INVOICE. WHERE ROUTE 105, Daily, Weekly and Mont' I You won't find better del, deal with ... anywhere. October 27, 1983 The Suffolk Times Page 13A Vail... (continued from page 1A) I knew my directions pretty well so they made me a runner and a guide. When all the communications was shot up as they generally were in a barrage, they sent me out. The first time I went out I didn't know which way the shells was going. I was literally blown from one shell hole to another -- and some of them damn shell holes was 30 feet deep. But I got there and back without a scratch... I'd made up my mind very early in my experiences that if the Germans was going to get me they were going to have to get me on the run, not settin' still like a settin' duck. So anything that came up, I volunteered. I got all kinds of jobs. One of the biggest things, you know, was that I couldn't bear to see my buddies bleed to death, so I volunteered to carry the front end of the stretcher anytime any of them got wounded. I guess you could say that I recuperated from my hospital experiences very quickly once I reached the front, but I always had a tough constitution, I think. Back in Southold High School I was a halfback on the football team and a center on the basketball team. I was a pretty rugged farmer in those days. I was in France for a year and then I went back to the states. I'll tell you, that Statue of Liberty was one welcome sight. Right now I'm strugglin' with reports of my activities overseas because Congressman Carney has a good share of my records and I'm being considered for a Congressional Medal of Honor. I already got a Purple Heart -- but I didn't get it until last year. That was after I joined The World War I Barracks, a veteran's organization, about two years ago. There's a man there, Marion Pond's his name, and he's the adjutant of the barracks. Anyway, one day he says to us that his job was to get us all the medals we deserved. And he asks me, "What've you got ?" And I tell him, "Nothing." So he asks me, "Did you keep a diary ?" and I says yes, so he asks me to let him read it. Then he comes back and he says, "My God, you not only deserve a Purple Heart, you did more than enough to rate a Congressional Medal of Honor," and he's been working on it ever since. Returns to Cornell When I got back to the states from France I decided to go back to Cornell and finish up my college education. So I went up there to make up third year German and, to and behold, I commenced to lose a pound a day! So the Veteran's Bureau called me in for an examination and they says, "You can't concentrate after what you've been through -- you have to quit." Then they said I shouldn't do anything for three years. Well, I couldn't stand that. I tried it, but finally I said to my father, "Gee, my brother's a good mechanic and you're a good salesman, let's go to New York and get an automobile franchise. Maybe I can ride around in an open car and get my health back." So we went to New York and, of course, it was after the war and nothing was available that was worth a darn. Then, while we were driving back through Brooklyn we saw a whole lot full of beautiful blue touring cars. Metz Master -Sixes they were -- war babies, made in Waltham, Mass. We bought one of them outright and put down a $500 deposit on two more. See, we was green as grass. It took me one whole year to sell those three cars. We changed the name of 'em, at least in our minds, from Metz Master -Six to Metz Nasty -Six, because after they'd been run 2,000 miles the piston would come up above the block and catch the rings and break the top of the piston off. I just went to see Steve Doroski in Southold the other day and his father -in -law, Adam Zaveski, bought the first one of those cars from me and I taught him how to drive it. `Course, I wasn't making a very good livin' with those Metz Masters, so I sold cars for a man named Campbell and he used to give me $25 for each car I sold plus I had to teach the new owners how to drive. Then I sold Hupmobiles and I sold so many of them in three months that I saved enough to buy my own demonstrator. That was my start in the automobile business. In 1927, my brother and I built the little garage and showroom where Wells Pontiac is now in Peconic. As better franchises became available, well I had such a good sales record that I could get them. Over the years I had over 20 different franchises. I didn't get General Motors until 1933. That's when we opened Vail Motors in Riverhead. The Peconic place was called Vail Brothers Inc., and we had a place in Southampton called Sea Vail Motors. But I started in sellin' cars house to house. I knew every house and everybody from Baiting Hollow to Orient on the North Road and most everybody on the south. I knew their names and their wives' names and sometimes their kids. I worked nights and Sundays and taught thousands of people how to drive. I wore out my knees chasin' prospects. To add a little humor to my sales pitch, I'd say that I wore out my knees chasin' women to sell them cars. But that's how I built up the business. Over the years I sold approximately 50,000 cars and some of my friends tell me I'm partly responsible for all the damn traffic around here. And I say, now, look. Let's examine the other side of this thing. When I first started sellin' cars I started down in Orient where everybody was cousins and I had to teach them how to drive and that permitted them to get out and circulate. So I feel that what I did, if anything, was to save the East End of Long Island from a severe case of in- breedin'. OCT. S7, Z8, 29 Focus., ( continued from previous page) the farmer had time for other things. Fall meant time to slaughter cattle and kill_ the pigs. I can remember hearing the squeal of pigs right from the schoolhouse room on Depot Lane. We kids would all run to the windows and look out. Later we'd see the huge carcass hanging head down from the tripod as it was dipped in scalding hot steaming water. Then the scraping took place and the grimy pig took on a clean and pinkish look. Everyone lived closer to the real world in those days and the killing of pigs was part of everyday life. Today not all people realize that chickens are plucked, cows are milked and that bacon was once the side of a pig. In those days it would not be unusual to stop in at a farmhouse and find the whole family stuffing sausage or making head cheese. Then a farmer was much more independent. Today the cost of feed, specialization and the demand for production on the farm leaves little of the past lifestyle for the farmer. It's cheaper for him to go to the nearby supermarket to purchase most of his needs. Yet for all of this there are still some who raise their own beef, have their own chickens and can their own produce and will pass these traditions on to their children. There was a sense of pride when the farmer brought in the pail of warm fresh milk or when his wife collected the large fresh eggs from the chicken coop. The farmer would boast to his neighbors how heavy his pig was or how well his crops produced. And when they all sat down to dinner and ate the bounty the land had provided, there was an inner satisfaction that surpasses any written word. Let's not let these times and traditions leave us. SAME DAY FINANCING AVAILABLE FOR THOSE WHO QUALIFY 27 -28 -29 OVER No NEW Models to Choose From � ONLYI COME IN AND OLDSMOBILE BROWSI 1100 HOURS: 9 - 9 THURSDAY & FRIDAY _ r�EETS 25 - 727 -1100 My'Rentals Available. 'Is ... or better people to 9 - 6. SATU RDAY 16909% Vr Finance Rate ADDITIONAL SAVINGS ON USED CARS & TRUCKS. Special "TAG" Prices ... EVERYTHING MUST GO!