-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Marcham <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
<[log in to unmask]>
Date: January 7, 2000 2:27 PM
Subject: Re: Morgans


>"Moggie" (and other) Memories:
>
>One of my earliest automotive memories of growing up in Ithaca, NY was of
>being in the west side of town, left in the car while my mother went in to
>get my brother from nursery school (I seem to recall it was a convent of
>some sort, located in a very drab, maybe stucco building just west of the
>train station, where the flood control channel runs now) so it would've
been
>about '56 or '57.

Good memory !   That dull drab odd old house had indeed been a little
convent of lay nuns and later became a playschool.   When I was in 5th Grade
at West Hill School (1950), we (the non-RC's) were marched down the hill to
that building once a week for "Religious Education" which was a regular part
of the public school system back in those politically incorrect days when
girls wore skirts and boys played marbles.   The giant old mansion up on the
hill beside the school was the haunt of the neighbourhood toughs (I was a
schoolbus kid from Ellis Hollow, so never got to be socially accepted there)
and its charming decaying architecture contributed to the fact that West
Hill School had the highest rate of pregnancy in Grade 6 of any school in
the district.

  A car came by that I recall as being a three-wheeler (two
>wheels in front), a convertible, and the driver was dressed for the cold
>weather in leathers, goggles, and a white scarf.

That vehicle was probably the Messerschmidt that was driven by a Cornell
grad student in those days.   I thought it was the most amazingly wonderful
vehicle I had ever seen, and I tried to get a local car dealer to order one
for me when I needed cheap transportation to Cornell classes.   The dealer
gave me a long and boring lecture about how unsafe they were and refused
help, even though he had the dealership connection to get one.   The three
red Iszettes that were in town in those years were cute when they drove
around the country roads in tandem on winter Sunday afternoons, but they
never matched the crazy charm of that white Messerschmidt in my eyes.

Tonight I am wading through 1500 e-mails accumulated during time away
visiting museums in the Central States.   (The "Ocean" in COSI in Columbus,
Ohio is a beautifully done mind-blower !)   Came across the BP notes about
glass floors.   Yes, the old Cornell Library has (probably had by now) glass
floors in the original eight floors of the stacks.   During highschool, I
had a Saturday job there as a "Bookmover" along with two other souls.   We
three had the task of keepng the amoeba-like collection of books as
accessible as possible by oozing books here and there to make room for the
ever changing whims of check-out demand.   The librarian would leave task
notes such as "Move the last ten aisles on West 8 to the middle of South 3,
then move aisles 4 to 6 on North 4 to the first 2 aisles of West 8."   The
interior structure was cast iron framework with spiral iron stairs and no
elevators.   The floors were 1" thick glass plates about 12" x 24".   A
nasty result of walking on the floors with leather shoes was a tremendous
build-up of static charges, and when you reached out for an armful of books,
you got zapped by sparks from the iron shelves.   We invented a device for
self-protection, using metal coat-hangers wrapped around our ankles and
sticking out to the sides to touch the stacks as we walked about, constantly
discharging ourselves.   The result was a gentle tinkling sound like elves
might make echoing through the 8 floors on Saturdays.   We looked like the
Sputnik era version of space aliens with our antenna poking out.

Happy New Year to All,
Cuyler in Kamloops