"Life Is A Banquet!" We enter this world when the party is underway and we leave before it's finished. I'm just getting started on the party in Connecticut.
So here we go into Labor Day weekend with hurricane Earl nipping at New England’s toes. It’s a whopper, might go to a category 5, might not.
There are evacuations going on up and down the eastern seaboard just in case. Some folks are still on vacation in the Carolinas but they’ve packed up the family car and are headed out. Those evacuations route traffic jams are no fun.
We go thru this every year in the U.S. some hurricanes threaten, some hit land, but a lot of this is uncertain even with all of the weather experts putting their heads together.
WTNH-TV meteorologist, Geoff Fox at his game for decades, gets verklempt every time one of these bad boys starts to form in the tropics. You don’t want to cry wolf, but you need to talk about it and warn folks as best as you can.
So with Fox pouring over all of his data, I pointed my trust video camera at him and started throwing questions his way and here’s what he said on the massive storm known as Earl due to affect Connecticut on Friday.
Go ahead carve your initials into the table. That’s what students did for decades at the legendary Mory’s, a drinking club at Yale University.
Mory’s originally opened its doors in September of 1849. It is “re-founded” and opened in August of 2010. It has been closed for about two years, but is back after $3 million in renovations and ready to take in as many Yalies as the place can pack. Mory’s drips in Ivy League history and the renovations are perfect, new, but with traditions preserved.
Upstairs the rooms look pretty much the same, the walls are lined with memorabilia, photos of members who have come before which includes U.S. Presidents. The Bush family is prominent here, as noted in the last photo in the post.
There are new bar areas at Mory’s inside and out. There is an outdoor eating area on the first floor now and a roof top bar which overlooks Yale’s iconic Administration building and the nearby graduate studies.
New management is throwing everything at the historic place including a new menu to compete with tons of new bars and restaurants which have sprung up in New Haven.
Mory’s is still a “club” which means you have to be a member. Who can join? Well a Yalie or someone affiliated with Yale or these days know somebody at Yale, the guidelines have really loosened up over the years.
As for the history of the nineteenth century establishment, it was opened by Frank and Jane Moriarty “Mory’s” and it has seen wars, prohibition, redevelopment, relocations and even campus riots to quote the new brochure on the place.
Over the years, it’s most favorite leader was Louis Linder, who encouraged Yale singing groups to come down to Mory’s. In 1909 a quintet, an A Capella group, started meeting there every Monday evening and called themselves the “Whiffenpoofs.” They are now world famous and continue to sing at Mory’s every Monday night when they are not out on tour some where on the planet.
There is a Mory’s song sung when the “cup” full of well, anything alcoholic, is passed and it goes in part…
“To the tables down at Mory’s, To the place where Louis dwells, To the deal old Temple bar we love so well…”
The club has, and does, entertain world leaders and celebrities and folks just like you and me. Get yourself down to Mory’s one of these days and take a look around. If you’ve already been there, leave your stories here in the “comments” section, I’ll be looking for them.
Oh, and cidentally if you love the sound of the Whiffenpoofs, you can book them for any event you’re having, they are their own entity at Yale and are available, they are terrific.
Mike Seib, a Daniel Hand High School graduate, will soon be graduating from the University of Connecticut. He’s discovered his passion along the way and that is film making. Since May of 2010 he has been doing dozens and dozens of interviews for a film called “Tiger Pride~The Story of Hand Football.” It chronicles the forty years of the football program at his alma mater.
Mike knows first hand about this team, he played on it throughout high school and three of those years Hand was state champion.
The team has accomplished nine state championships in its four decades.
The team plays at Strong Field in Madison, Connecticut which is arguably one of the most gorgeous locations to play the game in the country. Where else do you go to see a game on the coast? In this case it’s Long Island Sound where there is a beach called the Surf Club where generations of families have gone for decades. There is a playground there for children and a park where you can barbecue in the summer and boccie courts and boats bobbing up and down in the water, it is a very special place.
Through private donations only, a board has come together, volunteering their time to rally the town to work toward a makeover for Strong Field for generations to come. The renovations will not only build a state-of-the-art football field, but also a cultural arts venue where families can come to see all kinds of concerts. There aren’t enough bleachers for such shows now, and the current stands don’t fit new standards.
Over the years the elements have taken a toll on the field. The club house has been outgrown and the concession stand needs a lot of help, there just aren’t enough outlets to handle all that chili made by the Moms of players for spectators on those cold fall nights.
Mike Seib, is helping this process along by making his Tiger Pride film, a documentary actually which will tell the history of the players and the coaches. Mike is also weaving very beautifully all aspects of the town into his work including the barber shop on main street where many of the players have had their hair cuts over the years. Inside there are tons of photographs of generations of Hand High football players.
Mike is creating what I would call a piece based on good ole Americana, where a town has pride in its people and are working to ensure that Strong Field will continue to have a special place in people’s hearts.
Mike is hoping to finish his hour long film by about Thanksgiving time to show it in town at Madison Arts Cinemas and bring folks together in a town wide fundraiser.
Having seen what he has laid down already, it will charm the socks off viewers and will generate a lot of good will in the town of 18,000.
I talked to Mike in my backyard about what he’s trying to accomplish with his work as a former “Tiger” as a film maker and as a resident of this small town.
See for yourself what this young 23-year old is up to. You’ll find that his passion for film making will jump off the screen at you.
I headed out to the Pilot Pen Tennis Tournament this week with my new camera in tow, trust me it was time to upgrade my “brownie” for the blog. I’ve become obsessed with posting and want to make the photos look as good as I can. This is part of the feeding and watering of one’s blog that you start doing if it becomes your passion.
I picked the Connecticut Tennis Center venue to see what I could do with my new purchase. Mind you this is just a start, it might take me a bit to get up to speed. I bought a Nikon CoolPix with a 15X wide optical zoom, not too expensive but has a few bells and whistles.
I was sitting pretty high up at the Center and was fooling around with the zoom to see what kind of shots I could get down on the court and I was pretty impressed. I also played around with the sepia and black-and-white features on the camera and the rapid-fire multiple-shot setting for athletics. This is why you see multiple frames of Samantha Stosur and Sara Errani who were in match play at the time.
I haven’t ventured into the video part of this camera yet, but it shoots stereo and HD, so I’m certain once I get that nailed down this will be a pretty good friend to have around as I continue to document everything I can get my hands on, and even some things I can’t.
Stosur is from Australia and Errani is from Italy and I recorded one of their shots at 115 miles an hour. I couldn’t drive it that fast if I shot it out of a cannon.
Pilot Pen has been the title sponsor of this tournament which usually proceeds the U.S. Open for the last fourteen years, and this is the company’s last year. There are big shoes to be filled. There hasn’t been an announcement as to who might take on that expensive role, but tournament organizers need to know by November so the push is on. Word is that there are one or two local companies who are interested, but nobody has yet signed on the dotted line.
Who do you think might step forward in the state to take it over?
I’ve had some down time away from the blog to do that family vacation thing back in the Midwest where I found the economy, especially in Michigan, to be frightening. The small towns of Cassopolis and Constantine, wow, folks really need help there. The faltering of the auto industry among other things has really hurt that state.
But on the other hand, driving along the rural roadways thru Michigan and Indiana the corn looks pretty darn healthy, harvest time is coming and that’s a good thing.
I know all about such agricultural things because my late maternal Grandfather, Chester Waggoner owned a dairy farm where I spent some time over the year mucking the stalls, if you know what I mean.
My point to all of this is that the simpler things in life are what matter most. The worse things get economically the more people are hunkering down. There is louder talk of a double-dip recession, perhaps a depression. An economist pointed out to me today that even during the depression there were some good things happening, so one does wonder whether we’re headed for a repeat.
So many need help. So how do we we help each other? Well we start working together at the grassroots level that’s what we do, one car wash and bake sale at a time.
Back in the day, my school had cake walks and Saturday fairs where money was made for the schools and spaghetti dinners too. All of that has been ongoing thru the years, but most of the time it’s just a handful of people who get involved, more of us need to roll up our shirt sleeves these days.
So here’s to flowers in the garden that you grow yourself and to tiny cottages where extended members of families come en masse and have fun on the weekends. To dogs who go for rides on boats and swim with a life jacket on. To stoves that still work from the 1940′s, yes we’re still firing up this rockin vintage gem at the cottage. This last trip it baked beans, boiled corn, baked a cake, and provided the heat for a double recipe of Rice Krispie squares, you get the drift.
And to my maternal Grandparents, Chet and Ann Waggoner who provided the two-bedroom cottage on the lake in Michigan named “Chaos” where so many have gathered since 1964.
P.S. The simpler life including driving 800 miles in one day both ways from Connecticut to Michigan with six adults in the car and our dog, Savannah Jane.
So here we go into Labor Day weekend with hurricane Earl nipping at New England’s toes. It’s a whopper, might go to a category 5, might not.
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Annie Mame
