January 2011

EwEind Fs R the

a

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Marian Hamilton, who’s gone from 1 pound 4 ounces to 2 years old, has a lot to smile about

By Dawn Bilder

Antarctic Adventure Entertaining Interiors Avis’s Liberty Book Shop

January 2011

Get Connected

Access to Your Guthrie Electronic Health Record.

Online. Anywhere. Anytime.

Whether you’re at work, on the road, or at home, eGuthrie gives you online access to your medical record and many other services.

Why use eGuthrie? Convenience. s 6IEW YOUR TEST RESULTS ONLINE s 2EQUEST A PRESCRIPTION RElLL s %MAIL YOUR PROVIDER FROM THE COMFORT OF YOUR HOME s #HECK YOUR CHILDREN S RECORDS AND VACCINATION HISTORY s 2EQUEST AN APPOINTMENT s 4REND YOUR LAB RESULTS OR OTHER TESTS OVER TIME

Besides eGuthrie, there are many benefits of being a Guthrie patient including: s #ONVENIENT LOCATIONS s 3AME DAY ACCESS s )NTEGRATED PRIMARY AND SPECIALTY CARE

!SK YOUR PROVIDER ABOUT e'UTHRIE TODAY 4O SIGN UP VISIT www.guthrie.org

Guthrie Health.

Named one of the nation’s top 50 health care systems. — Modern Healthcare

Volume 6 Issue 1

6

Mountain Chatter

12

Small Wonder

30

Fantastic Journey

38

One for the books

By the Mountain Home Staff Guthrie’s new wing.

11

Heart of the Mountain

14

Reading Nature

By Tom Murphy Beat poet Gary Snyder turns his attention to pine tree tops.

anne davenport-leete

By Patricia Brown Davis Winter snow has a sometimes surprising effect on horses.

16

Making Scents

The Better World

By John & Lynn Diamond-Nigh Speaking the truth, even if it be ineffable or unspeakable.

By Lori Duffy Foster Michele Cross’s incredible sojourn to Antartica changed her life, and outlook, forever.

courtesy barbara cole

By Angela Cannon-Crothers Amy Jane Stewart, a.k.a. “Organica Jane,” uses essential oils to treat myriad maladies.

19

By Dawn Bilder She was only one pound four ounces at birth, but little Marian Hamilton has proven that love—and the dream team at Arnot Ogden’s NICU—conquers all.

20

Frigid Photography

On a bitter cold winter’s day, six shutterbugs snap icy scenes.

By Matt Connor With over 40,000 titles, Liberty Book Shop in Avis is ShangriLa for the book browser.

Cover image by Anne Davenport-Leete Cover art by Tucker Worthington

bill crowell

Top: Debbie and Marshall Hamilton with little Marian (and Elmo). Center: Michele Cross arrives in Antartica courtesy of the U.S. Air Force.

Bottom: Thousands of books line the shelves of the Liberty Book Shop in Avis.

22 Pure Simplicity

By Cornelius O’Donnell In this tough economy, chef Jean Anderson brings us back to basics.

25 Finger Lakes Wine Review

By Holly Howell A sparkling season for a fancy cheddar.

26 From Camelot to Corning

By Carol Youngs Designer Claudette Doran brings a touch of movie magic to the Finger Lakes.

46 Back of the Mountain

Publisher Michael Capuzzo Editor-in-Chief Teresa Banik Capuzzo Associate Publisher George Bochetto, Esq. Managing Editor Matt Connor Copy Editor Pete Boal Staff Writer Dawn Bilder Cover Artist Tucker Worthington

It must have been moon glow...

P r o d u c t i o n M a n a g e r / G r ap h i c D e s i g n e r Amanda Doan-Butler

We are proud of and thankful for the Children’s Miracle Network and all their miraculous work.

Contributing Writers Sarah Bull, Angela Cannon-Crothers, Jennifer Cline, Barbara Coyle, John & Lynne Diamond-Nigh, Patricia Brown Davis, Lori Duffy Foster, Steve Hainsworth, Martha Horton, Holly Howell, David Ira Kagan, Roberta McCulloch-Dews, Cindy Davis Meixel, Suzanne Meredith, Fred Metarko, Karen Meyers, Dave Milano, Tom Murphy, Mary Myers, Jim Obleski, Cornelius O’Donnell, Audrey Patterson, Gary Ranck, Kathleen Thompson, Joyce M. Tice, Linda Williams, Carol Youngs C o n t r i b u t i n g P h o t o g r ap h e r s Mia Lisa Anderson, Bill Crowell, Anne Davenport-Leete, Ann Kamzelski Advertising Director Todd Hill Sales Representatives Christopher Banik, Michele Duffy, Richard Widmeier

Larry’s Sport Center Inc. 814-435-6548 1913 US Route 6 West Galeton, Pa 16922 www.larryssportcenter.com

Walters Elkland Chevrolet 814 258 7127 State Route 49 Elkland, PA www.walterschevy.com

Subscriptions Claire Lafferty Beagle Cosmo

Mountain Home is published monthly by Beagle Media LLC, 39 Water St., Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, 16901.

Copyright 2010 Beagle Media LLC. All rights reserved.

To advertise or subscribe e-mail info@mountainhomemag.com. To provide story ideas email editor@mountainhomemag.com. Reach us by phone at 570-724-3838. Each month copies of Mountain Home are available for free at hundreds of locations in Tioga, Potter, Bradford, Lycoming, Union, and Clinton counties in Pennsylvania; Steuben, Chemung, Schuyler, Yates, Seneca, Tioga, and Ontario counties in New York. Visit us at www.mountainhomemag.com.

Get Mountain Home at home. For a one-year subscription to Mountain Home (12 issues), send $24.95, payable to Beagle Media LLC, to 39 Water St., Wellsboro, PA 16901.

Look for Home & Real Estate magazine wherever Mountain Home magazine is found.

MOU N TA I N C h atter Guthrie Unveils a New Cancer Center If you have to undergo chemotherapy, at least you should be able to go through it with convenience, comfort, privacy, and in a place of aesthetic beauty.

That’s what the folks at the Guthrie Clinic in Sayre, Pennsylvania had in mind when they

began developing their new cancer center.

Clinic developers put in the time, thought, and money to improve all of these things for its cancer patients at the new center. It opened in November last year at a cost of $3.9 million.

More impressive than the cost is how they got the new location. The old center was located on a lower floor of the Guthrie Clinic, which was smaller, had little privacy, and was not particularly attractive. The new, 17,000square foot center is located on the fifth floor, with the best views of the campus and plenty of privacy. Indeed, it had previously housed hospital executive offices.

“The administrators gave up their floor for the cancer center and moved to the lower floor where the cancer center used to be,” says Maggie Barnes, Manager of Public Relations for Guthrie Health System. “They

were delighted to move because they felt the better location and views should belong to the cancer patients.”

There’s also a new on-site lab in the center, so that the cancer patients don’t have to go to a different part of the hospital for blood testing.

Also new are an on-site social worker, nutrition center and pharmacy, so the patients don’t have to wait for their custom-mixed chemotherapy drugs to get back from the main pharmacy before their infusions. The infusion area itself is also located in a nicer area. A new Chief of Oncology, Dr. Philip Lowry, and two new oncologists are in place as well.

“Guthrie,” Barnes concludes, “is very serious about giving cancer patients in this area the best possible care.” ~Dawn Bilder

Miracle child

The tiny baby girl had a slim chance, but first class medical treatment and the love of her parents made all the difference

By Dawn Bilder

O

n Valentines Day 2008, Ulysses, Pennsylvania, residents Debbie and Marshall Hamilton had their first ultrasound to confirm their third pregnancy. They saw their baby’s heartbeat flickering on the screen and were given the happy news, “You have a viable pregnancy.”

This was especially good news for the twenty-six year old Hamiltons because they had miscarried their first two babies before they reached viable pregnancy status after a long struggle to conceive. And Debbie had just lost her best friend in the world, her mother, only months before to a sudden and unexpected stroke. Hearing that her pregnancy was doing well gave her hope again in what felt like a few hopeless years.

At her next ultrasound, Debbie was twenty weeks along. The baby looked a little on the small side, and the doctor recommended that Debbie eat more protein. Otherwise, everything looked good. Debbie was so excited that she forgot to ask for an ultrasound photograph, but the doctor said, “No problem, just come back in four weeks. We’ll do another ultrasound, and I’ll give you a photo then.”

It was at this impromptu ultrasound four weeks later that the photograph so anticipated brought

bad news. The photo showed that Debbie and Marshall’s baby had not grown very much since the last ultrasound and indicated a gross lack of amniotic fluid protecting the unborn child.

Debbie’s doctor made an appointment right away with a maternal fetal doctor, a specialist in handling troubled pregnancies.

When Debbie and Marshall saw the maternal fetal doctor, his demeanor was grim, but honest.

“He told us,” says Debbie, “to let nature take its course, and that our baby had a chance of dying.

He must have thought it was a strong chance because he said to us when we were leaving, ‘If I see you in two weeks, we’ll reevaluate.’

“He wanted to see us in two weeks, if I hadn’t lost the baby, because he could induce labor and deliver our baby if he or she weighed over 600 grams, which wasn’t yet the case. So, we faced two weeks of waiting to see if our baby would live that long and weigh enough to be delivered.

Even then, the doctor told us, our baby would only have a forty percent chance of survival.”

On the night of this difficult visit to the doctor, Debbie lay in bed next to Marshall sobbing. “I don’t know why,” Debbie says, “but I just started talking to our baby out loud. ‘If you live,’ I said, ‘I’ll let you have as many sleepovers as you want. I’ll work ten jobs, so you can go to private school.’

“Marshall, who had been lying quietly beside me and holding me, put his hand on my stomach and said, ‘If you live, I’ll let you blow bubbles in your chocolate milk.’ I turned to him and smiled for the first time all day. I asked, “Blow bubbles in your chocolate milk?’

He said, ‘I was never allowed to blow bubbles in my chocolate milk.’ I thought about that and finally said, ‘Neither was I.’ And we laughed.”

The next two weeks were excruciating for the Hamiltons. Debbie’s regular doctor, who used to work with her mom, asked what he could do to help. Debbie asked him if she could come to his office daily to see if they could hear her baby’s heartbeat to make sure he or she was still alive.

Her doctor agreed, and Debbie went in every day, except one (when she felt her baby moving around and knew that he or she was okay that day). During one of these visits to his office, the doctor, a deeply spiritual man, said to Debbie, “I think this baby might be your miracle.”

“That was the first time I really started to hope again that my baby would survive,” says Debbie. “And boy, was he right about my baby being my miracle.”

At the end of the two weeks, Marshall and Debbie went back to the maternal fetal doctor.

Their baby was still alive and had grown to over 600 grams. “She was 620 grams,” Debbie says, “and we were like ‘Yes!’” But, even though it was good news that their baby was large enough to be delivered, the reality of the sixty percent chance against he or she surviving and the magnitude of the problems that lay ahead for the baby—born at only twentyseven weeks if he or she did live—began to take hold in Debbie and Marshall’s minds.

“When I was admitted into the Arnot Ogden Medical Center in Elmira, New York, to deliver, Marshall, the baby, and I all got hospital bracelets printed out and attached to my file. I kept staring at the baby’s bracelet, wondering if he or she would live long enough to wear it.”

The Hamiltons still didn’t know if they were having a boy or a girl. “We wanted it to be a surprise,” says Debbie. “We still wanted some semblance of a normal pregnancy. But we were hoping for a girl. During the two weeks of waiting before I delivered, I did a lot of research online and found out that for some reason white

premature girls had a much higher survival rate than white premature boys.”

It was at this time that the rays of hope and comfort known as the Arnot Ogden Medical Center NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit), a special unit for helping premature or other distressed babies, entered Debbie’s room in the Labor and Delivery section of the hospital.

The members of the NICU came to introduce themselves and to let Debbie know what to expect and what the unit could do for her baby if anything went wrong.

“They made me feel so much better,” Debbie remembers with a smile. “They softened all my fears. They said, ‘You’re going to have a baby, and your baby’s going to be little, but he or she will be alive. And someday your baby will be discharged home.’

“On July 9, 2008,” continues Debbie, “our baby was born. It was a rainy day, and I know that because, just before I delivered, the anesthesiologist leaned down and said, ‘I was born on a rainy day, too, and I only weighed two pounds. And, look at me, I’m fine.’”

Debbie’s delivery was a Cesarean section (Csection), but they only gave her a spinal for the pain, so she was awake. “I remember thinking right before they pulled our baby out, ‘Don’t die! Don’t die!’” She watched as the doctors and nurses took the baby and immediately started working in a flurry in the corner of the room. The baby weighed only one pound four ounces. Marshall saw the baby’s legs kicking and felt instantly relieved, and a nurse whispered into his ear additional good news: ‘Tell your wife it’s a girl.’”

What happened then? Debbie laughs, “I believe Marshall and I were so happy and relieved that we started smooching!”

When the doctors and nurses were able to get a tube down the baby’s throat and make sure her breathing was stabilized, one of the chief concerns with an infant born that early, Debbie was able to hold her. “She had this tiny little tennis ball face,” remembers Debbie, “almost completely covered with the ventilator and big eyes and a little tuft of white-blonde hair, and I thought, ‘She’s perfect.’”

She was named Marian Deborah Hamilton.

“Since I was a little girl,” says Debbie, “I had always named my baby dolls Marian because it was my maternal grandmother’s name. And my grandmother would say, ‘Oh no! Don’t you dare give them my name!’”

Marshall laughs, “She always said not to name our child after her because she hated her name. Her husband had a thick Philadelphia accent and was constantly yelling, ‘Marian, where are my socks?

Facing page: And baby makes three: The Hamiltons at their Christmas tree farm. Top: Newborn Marion in a hosital isolette. Second from Top: Little Marion was about the size of Daddy’s hand when first born.

Third from Top: The Hamilton family at home. Bottom: Now two years old, Marion is one happy child.

Marian! Marian, where are my shoes?’ So, she got so sick of her name.”

“We didn’t listen to her,” adds Debbie, “and she was there when Marian was delivered. I could tell she was tickled pink that we named her after her. She beamed and said that little Marian was so beautiful. Now, if you saw pictures of Marian right after she was born…well, let’s just say, premies are beautiful in their own way. So, I knew my grandma was happy. And I named Marian’s middle name after my mom, who’s name was Debbie, too—I was named after my mom as well—and I hope my mom got to share in our happiness that day, too.”

But they weren’t in the clear yet. The birth is only the first obstacle for a premature baby born Marian’s size. Luckily, her lung development was astounding. After twentyfour hours, her breathing tube was taken out and she was hooked up to a CPAP machine for another twenty-four hours. Then, after only forty-eight hours, she was breathing on her own with the aid of a nasal tube.

Nutrition is another chief concern among premature babies, and unfortunately Marian had very low blood sugar. That created a lot of problems because she wasn’t growing well.

It was clear that Marian would have to remain in the NICU for a while. Since Debbie and Marshall’s home in Ulysses was two hours away from Elmira, Debbie moved in with her former college roommate who lived in Elmira, so she could visit Marian everyday. Marian remained in the NICU from July to September.

“The NICU was amazing,” says Debbie.

“They included Marshall and me in everything. They even taught Marshall how to change Marian’s diaper when she was only a pound, which was hard with all of her tubes and monitors. They also taught us what to do with other problems and trained us for when we took Marian home. They let us stay for a whole week with Marian before she was released, so we would know how to take care of her.”

When Marian was released from Arnot Ogden, she was airlifted to the NICU at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) because she had congenital hyperinsulinism, and that hospital had the leading congenital hyperinsulinism center in the world. It was the reason her blood sugar wouldn’t regulate itself.

The disorder is the complete opposite of diabetes; Marian’s pancreas was producing too much insulin. “CHOP was great,” says Debbie, “but the NICU there pretty much kept the

10

parents out of the way. They did a good job, but it was nice at the Arnot Ogden NICU how they wanted us involved with everything.” To this day, the Hamiltons go back to visit their friends at the Arnot Ogden NICU and converse with them on Facebook all the time. “They are like family now,” says Debbie.

“Everyone who works at the Arnot Ogden NICU,” says Janet Alderfer, Director of Arnot Ogden’s NICU and Pediatrics, “is totally committed to the babies and their families. One thing that I have noticed when talking to other major facilities around the country who have NICUs is the average time their employees have worked there is usually around five years. We have many people who have worked much longer than that at our NICU, some for over thirty years.”

Dr. Lawrence Dolkart, a maternal fetal specialist who delivered Marian, started working with the NICU thirty years ago, moving from New York City because he wanted to find a more rural city where he could raise his kids. “I looked all over the United States, but most NICU units are in big, metropolitan areas. Arnot Ogden had the only specialized unit in the Northeast that was in a relatively rural area. Otherwise, people and their babies in this area with these kinds of problems would have to go to NewYork City or Philadelphia or even Syracuse or Rochester to find this kind of care.”

Jeremiah Groth, an RN at the NICU who also took care of Marian, has been there for thirty-three years, before it was even a NICU and was simply a nursery. “I was having trouble finding which area of nursing I wanted to practice in,” says Groth. “But then I walked into the nursery and knew it was where I wanted to be.”

Marian was released from CHOP after two months and spent until the age of eighteen months with a feeding tube to combat her congenital hyperinsulinism.

At eighteen months, she had an operation which removed ten percent of her pancreas and now only wears a G-tube, which is like a small button on her belly that keeps her blood sugar regulated. She will always have to be careful and monitor her blood sugar, but she is doing well. And, other than getting tubes put in her ears since then, she continues to thrive and develop normally.

“She’s just a normal kid,” sighs Debbie with more gratitude than complaint, “with all that entails. She hogs the bed and splashes See Miracle Child on page 32

Heart of the Mountain

Winter Horse Discourse Patricia Brown Davis

I

t was cold and still. The storm had finally abated and snow stood in drifts around the barn. I reached for the sliding barn door to open the stable area to let the horses out. Taj Aida, one of our Arab mares, was excited about the prospects of being let loose. However, I wasn’t sure about her acceptance of snow. She hated puddles. “What can you expect,” said my husband, “Arabs were bred for the desert!”

However, at the first hint of freedom, she charged forward, bounded through the snow, and immediately pranced around the barnyard, following the line of the fence! After her initial round, she stopped in her tracks, put her nose into the snow, reared her head back, flared her nostrils, let out a barbaric whinny, and looked back at the open barn door.

More whinnies from the barn were heard. Walking back to the stall that housed her yearling filly, I opened her gate. What would she do? She’d never seen snow. I heard Taj Aida again, and with a bound the filly charged through the door, and out into the snow. She got just a few feet and stopped. I could almost hear her thinking, “What’s all this white stuff?”

This was one of my favorite times with

horses—their first encounter with snow.

The yearlings were fun to watch.

Typical, Taj called to her daughter and took off into the field. The filly hesitantly took a couple of steps, perhaps for confidence that all was right, and charged after her mother. The two raced across the field; there was no stopping them. They galloped and leaped, kicking their hind feet at intervals, only to take off again in another direction—their manes and tails trailing in the wind like flames from a high-winded forest fire. Every now and then they’d dip their head into the snow and toss it high over their heads, only to dash off again at breakneck speed.

Words like joy, exuberance, delight, unfettered freedom, and living in the moment flashed across my mind; and I was envious of what they were experiencing— but grateful to be eavesdropping on this incredible primal moment.

If you’re lucky enough to live around horses there are many moments of joy, excitement, and reflection that over-ride their necessitated care. It was a wonderful way to raise our children; lessons about life and responsibility were prime. They always felt fortunate to have had horses in their lives. (It also made them popular with the town kids.) There were many horse shows—showing at halter and riding.

(There were also many hours spent chasing them and mending a fence to keep them in the pasture.) And I suspect they went to the horses for solace and diversion when their parents were a bit too tough on them.

My favorite sensual moment with horses, however, was in the barn at the end of a day, be it winter or summer. It was a moment for the senses that highlighted our symbiotic relationship and I felt most akin to them when they were in their stalls. It became my “chill-down spot” for the day.

The very fact that I didn’t need to carry on a conversation with the horses was comforting in itself. Oh, yes, I’d talk to them, and often I’d get back a long low rumble of contentment. But it was the slow rhythmic chewing of their oats that fascinated and relaxed me the most, putting me in a contemplative and reflective state.

The sound was intermittently punctuated by the sound of water spraying into the drinking cups when a horse pushed her nose against a metal pad, or the sound of one hoof tapping on the floor. This was better than any therapist’s couch or dialogue I could’ve had with any human.

I often lost track of time while sitting there on a hay bale. On some occasions I’d fall asleep.

Adding to these auditory sounds were the ones of smell. I’m not really talking about manure, although I profess the odor of horse manure never bothered me like other animals. Mostly I’m talking about hay’s mixture of grasses, which sometimes had a smell of mustiness in it. Added to this were the leather odors and smell of linseed and other oils used on the saddles and halters that hung on pegs. Then there was the aroma of the feed, a mixture of oats and other grains, all held together by the sweet smell of a bit of molasses.

The farm’s still there, but the horses have gone—so are the girls. I often wonder, if they think about the same things I do about being around horses. And when they come home, do they go and sit in the barn and imagine they hear the echoes of chewing, the spraying of the drinking cups, and the rumbles of contentment?

Patricia Brown Davis is a professional musician and memoirist seeking stories about the Wellsboro glass factory. Contact her at patd@mountainhomemag.com.

11

O U tdo O rs

Transformational Adventure

Michele Cross Returned from Antarctica with a Whole New Horizon

By Lori Duffy Foster

H

er fingers drummed the table and her leg jiggled restlessly underneath it. Michele Cross stared out a window of a local restaurant on a recent wintery day as she struggled to describe the changes she has experienced since she returned to Painted Post from a six-week expedition to Antarctica last year.

Cross, forty-seven, expected a transition period. That would have been normal.

But she didn’t expect those feelings—that disappointment with American culture, that unbearable disillusionment with our educational system—to become permanent.

She is not the person she was when she left.

Not at all.

“What are we doing? What are we doing as educators? What are we doing as a society? I’m really struggling with that,” she said. “It’s hard to fit back in that box again. It really upset the apple cart for me.”

It almost never happened.

Cross had daydreamed about the PolarTREC Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation, but she hadn’t considered applying.

PolarTREC brings researchers and teachers together in hopes of better educating students about the polar regions. About 5,300 teachers nationwide applied for the 2008-2009 field 12

season. Fewer than thirty were selected.

Cross’ degree is in special education, not science. She teaches science and English to students with special needs at Corning East High School. She coaches tennis and soccer.

Why would PolarTREC want her? She’d never been out of the country. She’d never even camped. But with a colleague’s encouragement she applied and was accepted.

Cross was teamed up with five scientists and engineers who were testing SCINI, (Submersible Capable of Under Ice Navigation and Imaging),a robot that can travel further under the polar ice shelf than any human diver, allowing researchers access to a previously unexplored frontier. On October 31, 2009, she arrived in New Zealand, where she spent several days on both ends of her trip. It was there that the culture differences first jarred her.

“It was just a laid-back, polite, friendly society,” she said. “It really was. It’s been hard to come back to this. The focus here certainly isn’t on family. It’s all about things.

It’s different.”

Five days later, she arrived at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. From there, she traveled by helicopter and foot into the vast expanse of snow and ice. Her tent became her home.

She drilled holes in the ice for researchers and lugged heavy equipment in temperatures that reached thirty degrees below zero and winds that peaked at sixty miles per hour.

The experience was exhilarating, Antarctica was magnificent, and the science was breathtaking. But two other things impressed her greatly: that she could live happily with so little and that two of the engineers on her team were without college degrees. The robot’s designer hadn’t even graduated from high school.

“I’m sad to say the public schools failed him miserably. He’s brilliant. What I realized was there is so much creativity and ingenuity and insight and intelligence, but because it doesn’t look like what we’re always used to it looking like, we’re missing it,” she said. “We’re losing talent. We’re not tapping into it effectively.”

A teacher for twenty-four years, Cross probably will retire from her profession, but that won’t be the end of her career. She wants to find ways to nurture the potential of nontraditional learners, like those two engineers, and to change the way society perceives them. And, who knows? Perhaps another trip to Antarctica is in her future.

“It was the most physically and mentally and emotionally demanding thing I’ve ever done, but I would do it all again in a heartbeat,” Cross said, with a smile. “I really would.”

Lori Duffy Foster writes in Knoxville, Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband and four children.

Outdoors

13

Outdoors

READING NATURE

A Poetic Experiment

N 4PNFUIJOH GPS FWFSZPOF $BOÂľU BHSFF PO XIFSF UP HP GPS B RVJDL GSFTI NFBM $PNF UP PVS .BSLFU $BGn 0VS WBSJFUZ PG GSFTIMZ NBEF GPPET SBOHFT GSPN RVJDL HSBCT MJLF QJ[[B TVCT BOE "TJBO DMBTTJDT UP DPNGPSU GPPE GBWPSJUFT TBMBET BOE TBOEXJDIFT 'BNJMZ GSJFOEMZ GPPET BU CVEHFU GSJFOEMZ QSJDFTÂąUIBUÂľT 8FHNBOT

4VCT

1J[[B

8PLFSZ

8JMMJBN 4U 8JMMJBNTQPSU 1"

Â… XFHNBOT DPN

14

Tom Murphy

ature writing grows from experience with nature, but experience with nature can also be shaped by nature writing.

As a kind of experiment, let’s look at a single poem by Gary Snyder, the beat poet—friend of Jack Kerouac—who has become better known in his later years for his writing on nature and the environment. Do not be concerned if the poem is not perfectly clear the first time through: poets try to pack meaning into poems, and it can take some time to unwrap it all.

Pine Tree Tops in the blue night frost haze, the sky glows with the moon pine tree tops bend snow-blue, fade into sky, frost, starlight. the creak of boots. rabbit tracks, deer tracks, what do we know.

The line breaks make us want to stop, but the lack of punctuation says we should keep going, and that tension works beneath the surface of the words. The line breaks also fool us into forming meaning early: “in the blue night� becomes “in the blue night frost haze� as we go back to add frost. Then we are told that “in the blue night frost haze, the sky glows,� creating the impression of a star-filled sky, but that image is immediately replaced by

another, as “the sky glows with the moon.� Snyder springs the moon on us so we light up the scene with it. And notice how talking about the poem is also talking about the landscape.

Despite the lack of punctuation, if we try to read the next line (also the title of the poem) as a continuation, we end up in a wreck. So we begin a new sentence, and the sentence we form suggests why there is no punctuation: those tree tops are supposed to bend and fade into the snow, sky, and frost of the first three lines.

Thus we move toward the pine tree tops and then away from them as they become part of the surroundings.

The line ends decisively with a period, and the next line, “the creak of boots,� stands isolated and clear, like a noise in the midst of silence—a human presence in the scene. The noisy boot contrasts with the rabbit and deer tracks, which imply a secret world of activities that we’re not part of. The next line, “what do we know,� may be a question or a statement emphasizing the “we�: “What do we know,� said with a shrug. We are in the midst of something bigger than we are. “Pine Tree Tops,� a poem from Turtle Island by Gary Snyder (New York: New Directions, 1974).

Tom Murphy teaches nature writing at Mansfield University. You can contact him at readingnature@mountainhomemag.com.

Outdoors

Now’s The Time To Grow Your Business.

Our area is experiencing rapid growth. Is your business ready to capitalize on it? We have a complete suite of business financing options including start-up loans, loans to renovate and expand your current business, term loans, lines of credit and much more.

Check out all of our business financing options online: www.cnbankpa.com.

Toll-free: 1-877-838-2517 Ask to speak to one of our commercial lending specialists.

Member FDIC Loans are subject to credit approval.

15

B ody

&

S oul

“Organica Jane” in a field in Provence, France.

Organica Jane Aromatherapy for better health

L

By Angela Cannon-Crothers

avender. Spearmint. Eucalyptus.

Just hearing their names can fill our senses with relaxation, cool sensations, even memories. “Aroma has such an impact on our well-being,” says Amy Jane Stewart, proprietor of the aromatherapy business Origanica Jane. “From the smell of Christmas trees to orange peels, aroma does so much for our wellness and immunity.” Stewart’s passion for aromatherapy—the ancient art of using the essential oils of distilled plants in health and wellness—was so tenacious she left her corporate job two years ago to flesh out her own path.

“I’m doing what I love to do and it gives me goose bumps,” says Stewart. “I didn’t get that when I worked in a cubicle,” she adds with a wide smile. The golden haired Stewart worked for sixteen years with Xerox Corporation as an executive administrator. During this time she also began immersing herself in aromatherapy.

“It’s a different life now,” she adds. “It’s not the 16

big salary but it’s also not the busyness, the going round and round on the wheel. I didn’t have results I could see and touch like I can now.”

Amy Jane Stewart was first introduced to the idea of using essential oils for healing while taking a semester abroad in France in the early 1990s. “I was ill with a sinus infection and my host mother went to the pharmacy for me. She came back with eucalyptus essential oil,” says Stewart. “It worked, and after that I loved going to the French pharmacy to see and smell their plant oils.”

When Stewart came back to the States, her new interest endured and she found herself driven to learn more about the essential oils her sister was using in her massage business as well as in treating her nephew’s asthma. “I saw the legitimacy of essential oils in healing first hand,” Stewart says.

Stewart studied under a nationally approved program at Aromahead Institute in Sarasota, Florida, in 2004. The certification program is

approved by the National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy and the Alliance of International Aromatherapists. Stewart began her clinical study there in 2005. This past year she also completed her degree in massage therapy. “Massage is a healing modality where I can further incorporate the use of essential oils in health and wellness,” says Stewart. Stewart has made such a name for herself in aromatherapy, she was featured last March on The Dr. Oz Show.

Probably the biggest misconception about aromatherapy is that it’s strictly for the senses, when, actually, the use of essential plant oils was one of mankind’s first medicines. Today, aromatherapy is still used to help fight off viruses and bacterial infections, provide aid in muscle and skeletal disorders, heal skin maladies, offer support for emotional illness, and help in cancer treatments as well.

See Organica on page 18

Body & soul

17

Body & soul

Organica continued from page 16

“Essential oils are fat soluble,” says Stewart.

“Once they get on the skin they absorb into the fatty layers and are identifiable in the blood stream within minutes. Inhalation is another common method of using essential oils because receptors in the nose send chemical messages to the brain impacting emotion and memory.”

Organica Jane’s interest in achieving natural health doesn’t end with essential oils. Because issues like depression or the inability to lose weight as well as diseases like leukemia and Parkinson’s are linked to synthetic chemicals found in popular cleaning supplies, she offers educational and eye-opening Home Green Home workshops that allow participants to create natural care products for their home.

“Essential oils contain naturally occurring components that are anti-infectious topical disinfectants—so they’re ideal to use when creating ‘green’ cleaning supplies that help support our bodies and respect our environment,” says Stewart.

Two of Stewart’s favorite essential oils are citrus and sandalwood. “Citrus is great for cleaning and immune system support because it increases white blood cell production. It also

18

helps with depression and anxiety. Most people smell citrus and they just smile,” says Stewart.

“Sandalwood is very grounding, antiviral, and helps with skin care. I also use sandalwood for hospice care,” she adds.

For winter’s flu and cold season, as well as for the “winter blues,” Stewart offers this helpful tip: blend six drops of eucalyptus oil with four drops of lemon oil in one ounce of a carrier oil such as sweet almond, grape seed, jojoba or castor oil. Massage the chest, hands, and feet with the blend. “It’s antiviral, antibacterial, an antidepressant, and a good decongestant,” says Stewart.

Through Organica Jane, Stewart offers consultations which include a full medical intake to create selected blends based on the needs of the clients and what they feel is most helpful and pleasing to them. She also offers fun and creative essential oil classes, hands-on workshops for events, parties, or individuals, cleaning products, and presentations at health fairs, herbalist, and essential oil conferences. And if you ever get a chance to meet aromatherapist Amy Jane Stewart in person, there are surely two things you will notice immediately. The first is that she beams radiant health. The second? Well, she smells divine.

Amy studied advanced aromatherapy Aromahead Institute in Sarasota, Florida.

at

To find out how you can learn more about essential oils or to contact Organica Jane for a class or consultation, visit her website at www.organicajane.com or call her at (585) 261-2648.

Angela Cannon-Crothers is a freelance writer and outdoor educator living in the Finger Lakes region of New York.

Body & soul

The Better World

The Ineffable Truth John & Lynne Diamond-Nigh

F

unny thing, this curried or gingered or lavendered language that we speak. Take two words, unspeakable and ineffable. They mean the same thing—that which cannot be spoken. The first, however, is dark— things too dire or vile for words; the second means something quite different, that which is just too mysterious or sublime to be encompassed by any language; a threshold beyond which we can only feel, dream, worship, exult, intuit.

In a local classroom poll, sixteen of twenty college students thought it was just fine to cheat. In fact a refusal to cheat equaled a lack of verve, a deficient will to succeed. Parents urge their kids to cheat. Logic goes like this: if other players are using steroids, we have no choice. Unspeakable? Perhaps not, but bad enough.

Instead, let’s talk about the ineffable.

As kid I kept an old anthology by my bed, given to me by an aunt, that included parts of a long poem by Wordsworth called “Intimations of Immortality.”

I loved those poems, their sparkling grandeur, like standing in Yosemite Valley on a diamond-dappled winter morning, or viewing a sunset over Seneca Lake as a black dome rises from the surface of the water and you actually behold the Seneca Lake monster, as old as time itself. At moments such as these we feel the wonder, even perhaps immortality, of our humanity like a pulse of some infinite music, far, far beyond the scope of words.

America’s great invention of national parks was founded on this Wordsworthian notion, that our awe before nature deepens our humanity, which in turn enriches our capacity to be good, honest citizens.

Musing about the Christian philosopher

Soren Kierkegaard, another philosopher, Roger Scruton, says this: “The meaning of life can be given by no formula, no proposition, no abstraction, but only by the concrete surrender whose content can never be given by words.”

Our daughter studies mathematics and philosophy at a fabled school in Britain.

The subjects are linked in something called logic, but they are also separate—math is “useful,” “applied,” “money-making;” philosophy, well, is less so but, she would insist, is even more essential. It is a shadow world to the world of useful things, Call it truth. Relative truth, perhaps, but still truth. Ineffable truth, perhaps, but still truth. Personal truth, perhaps, but still truth. In folklore, the greatest curse that could befall you was to look at the ground on a sunny day and see that you cast no shadow.

Ours is a world that, in its savage reach for wealth and status, casts fainter and fainter silhouettes of truth behind it.

High time we start penciling in those shadows once more with rich, black, 4B lead.

John writes about art and design at serialboxx. blogspot.com.

Lynne’s website, aciviltongue.com, is dedicated to civility studies.

% 19

A rts & L eisure

Touch of Winter

A group of local photographers set out to capture the season

W

hat could possibly induce six reasonably sane individuals to meet in a February snow storm on a frozen Hills Creek Lake at three in the afternoon? Except for three or four apparitions of ice fishermen that were occasionally faintly visible through uncountable snowflakes, the six were alone and worked away till dark happily and frantically shooting away.

They are, in their own words, “possibly obsessed maniacs driven to pursue their craft,” doing it for the sheer joy of being outside while soaking up the beauty in nature. Do their images share myriad joys and express individual concerns? Without a doubt. Every member has different reasons for partaking of this photographic journey, and every member a different vision.

They include Wolfram Jobst, Ken Meyer, Mia Lisa Anderson, Gary Thompson, Sam McCaughey, Bruce Dart, and Nancy McCaughey.

Their exhibit “Reflections in Black and White; a Monochromatic Journey,” by Photo Keller members can be seen at the Gmeiner Art and Cultural Center, 134 Main Street, Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, January 9 through 30. The opening reception will be held Sunday, January 9, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. The Gallery is open daily from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

20

Facing Page: Top: Wintry Afternoon (Ken Meyer); Lower Left: The Pond (Mia Lisa Anderson); Lower Right: Ice Pack (Gary L. Thompson) This Page: Top Left: Rift (Sam McCaughey); Top Center: Solemn Guardians (Wolfram Jobst); Top Right: Snow Caligraphy (Sam McCaughey); Center: In Between (Bruce Dart); Right: Calm and Serene (Nancy McCaughey)

21

F ood

&

D rin k

Read & Feed

Back to Basics with Jean Anderson Cornelius O’Donnell

D

oes that name ring a bell? “To be honest I am always a little surprised that people know me and my work because I’m not an in-your-face-TV star.” That’s a quote from Ms. Anderson that I found on her Web site: jeanandersoncooks.com. You’ll find it loaded with good information, as Jean likes nothing better than to answer her readers’ knotty questions about culinary matters.

This author has worked diligently, with about twenty cookery books to her credit. And I can tell you that she tests every recipe, unlike some other food writers. Many of the books reflect the culinary mood of the times. Her newest, called Falling off the Bone, is no exception. Jean explains: It’s “a guide to eating high on the hog in today’s lean times—and beyond.” The book contains 160 recipes for supremely economical soups, stews, pot roasts and the like. The author feels it “may be my handsomest cookbook yet…filled with lush fourcolor photographs.” Read on for more about the book.

A Bit of Background I first met Jean Anderson in the opulent sitting room of a borrowed vintage Pittsburgh mansion. There she was, talking to Gloria DeHaven. Yup, that DeHaven of the movies. We were all judges for a March of Dimes Gourmet Gala benefit, and this was the day-before reception for the out-of-towners.

I was thrilled to meet Jean (and Gloria) 22

because amongst food professionals, Anderson is legendary for the accuracy of her recipes and the clarity of her writing.

She had written two outstanding books on foreign cuisines: The New German Cookbook (1993) and The Food of Portugal (1986). (She once confided to me that she’d made over seventy trips to Portugal.

And she took the photographs in the book as well. Imagine!) Both books not only have definitive recipes, but they’re great travel guides.

And Now the Basics Perhaps Jean’s most significant achievements are the two blockbuster books she wrote with her longtime collaborator, Elaine Hanna.

“Back to basics” may be the most overused phrase in our language. Sales meetings often have this theme. Or that phrase may herald a new fashion season, or a school curriculum change—whatever.

But it is appropriate here. Every kitchen needs a basic cookbook; a volume chock full of information on all aspects of cooking: ingredients, nutrition, kitchen safety and equipment, with classic recipes thrown in.

Some folks rely on Joy of Cooking, and it is great. As for me, I turn to Anderson/ Hannah’s The New Doubleday Cookbook.

It was first published in two volumes in 1975 and then revised in 1985, and updated again in 1990. It’s loaded with critical information—and 4,000 recipes.

I consult it often and it has never let me down.

Similarly, I wouldn’t be without Micro Ways, a comprehensive guide to microwave cooking by the same authors.

Riffle through the book’s pages and you’ll be amazed at how difficult stovetop recipes are child’s play in a microwave. Custards?

Hollandaise sauce? Steamed vegetables?

All are easy and foolproof when cooked in that box you may only use for reheating.

Tsk, tsk.

Both books deserve a place of honor in your kitchen.

But Wait…there’s Lots More Over the years, an amazing six of Anderson’s books were named best in their categories at the cookbook “Oscars.”

Is it any wonder she was inducted into See Anderson on page 34

Food & Drink

Swiss Steak with Tomato Gravy This book seems so right for right now. Here’s one of the 160 recipes that uses inexpensive cuts and ingredients.

As Jean says: “Few recipes are easier than this one. It takes a while to cook, true, but once in the oven no attention is needed until time to make the gravy. Serve with polenta, boiled or mashed potatoes.”

A 3-pound bone-in chuck arm or blade steak, 2-inches thick 1 lg garlic clove, crushed 1 lg yellow onion, halved lengthwise and each half thinly sliced 2 cans (14 1/2 oz. each) diced tomatoes with their liquid 1 teaspoon crumbled dried leaf basil 1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried leaf thyme 1 teaspoon salt or to taste 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste Beef broth or tomato juice if needed for gravy 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1. Preheat the oven to 300F. 2. Slash fat edges of steak all around at 1-inch intervals so it will lie flat as it cooks. Rub the steak all over with garlic and lay flat in a heavy non-reactive Dutch oven just big enough to accommodate it.

3. Top with onion slices; add tomatoes, basil, thyme, salt and pepper. Then slide onto the middle oven shelf, cover, and braise until fork tender—about 3 hours.

4. Lift steak to a heated large platter, cover loosely with foil, and keep warm. Measure pan liquid, you need 2 1/2 cups for gravy, so round out the measure, if needed, with beef broth or tomato juice. Melt butter in a small heavy saucepan over moderate heat; blend in flour and measured pan liquid, and cook, stirring constantly until smooth and no raw floury taste remains—about 5 minutes. Taste for salt and pepper and adjust as needed.

5. Remove bone from the steak then cut meat against the grain and slightly on the bias into slices about 1/2-inch thick.

6. To serve, overlap slices of steak down the center of a heated large platter, spoon some of the gravy on top and pass the rest Neal’s notes: I couldn’t find a bone-in chuck arm or blade steak so I used a slightly more than 3-pound chuck steak labeled “pot roast,” It wasn’t quite 2-inches thick—but close.

It was nicely marbled, and certainly fork tender after 3 hours.

The aromas in the house during the cooking were marvelous.

I moved the steak to a platter, then strained the liquid from the solids, and covered the steak with the tomato/onion mix.

I covered this with foil as the recipe directs.

I had quite enough liquid, and I moved the measure to the refrigerator.

After about 15 minutes, I spooned off as much fat from the top as I could, then made the sauce.

I steamed some fingerling potatoes and combined them with tiny mushrooms sautéed in a little

“On the cutting edge of tradition”

Seriously good wine for those relaxed wine times.

Tasting & sales year ‘round: Mon-Sat 10am-5pm Sun noon-5pm 4 miles north of Watkins Glen on Route 14

www.lakewoodvineyards.com.

23

Food & Drink

Anderson continued from page 22

the rarified James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame?

Name a new cooking appliance or food trend and Jean has probably written a definitive cookbook to match it, or at least an article in one of the top food magazines.

Take the improved food processors. They inspired Jean’s Process This! (Morrow, 2005).

No time to cook elaborate meals? Check out Dinners in a Dish or a Dash: 275 Easy One-Dish Meals published by Morrow in 2000, or One-Dish Dinners from 2004. The latter has 275-recipes. She simplifies classic recipes, and she’s not above using quality convenience products.

Quick Loaves came out in 2005. She includes 150 gems: breads, cakes, meat as well as meatless loaves. I basked in the raves when I made and served guests her version of Bobotie, a lightly curried South African loaf made with lamb. Delicious!

Another History Detective Jean is a Cornell graduate who for many years lived in New York on fabled Gramercy Park. With history just out her window, it’s no wonder she wrote The American Century Cookbook in 1997. It’s a great read, as it contains 500 of the most popular recipes of the Twentieth Century. The book charts cooking trends and is chockablock with anecdotes and historical tidbits. Curl up with this one when the snow flies and you’ll be mesmerized by the painstakingly collected data.

In 2007 she again donned her historian’s hat and produced a charmer: A Love Affair with Southern Cooking: Recipes and Recollections. She was raised in the South, and learned to cook that special kind of food. Fittingly, she now lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Reflecting the Mood of the Times Most of the recipes in her newest book, Falling off the Bone, are, as she says, “cooked low and slow… (they’re) versatile, deeply flavorful and supremely succulent.” Now if that isn’t a description of what I want to cook and serve as cool weather arrives, what is?

Chef, teacher, and author Cornelius O’Donnell lives in Corning, New York.

24

Food & Drink

Finger Lakes Wine Review

Wines Worth Toasting

By Holly Howell

T

here are two major advantages to living in a cold climate state. First, there is always plenty of good skiing. Second, you’ve got the perfect conditions to make sparkling wine.

Most people have heard of Champagne, which is a famous sparkling wine made in a region called Champagne in France.

However, the people of Champagne never intended to have bubbles in their table wine. Mother Nature made that decision

for them. The cooler weather of that region mysteriously stopped the wine fermentation in late fall. Then it surprisingly started up again in the early spring, resulting in wines that had “fizz.” Despite their efforts to prevent this occurrence, the people of Champagne finally embraced the charming sparkle in their wines. Thus was born the beverage Champagne.

Here in the Finger Lakes, we have also been blessed with a climate that is just right for bubbles. We can make wine just as they do in Champagne (you’ll see the phrase “methode champenoise” to indicate that on the label). We also use the exact same grapes that they grow in Champagne (chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier). We just can’t call the

final product Champagne because that is a French proprietary name. So we call it Finger Lakes sparkling wine.

One of my local favorites comes from Glenora Wine Cellars on the western shores of Seneca Lake. Glenora (www.glenora. com) was one of the first wineries in the region, opening its doors in 1977. Among Glenora’s lineup of award-winning wines is the outstanding Glenora Brut 2002, a vintage sparkling wine made in the classic style from 63 percent pinot noir and 37 percent chardonnay grapes. A slight sweetness (1.3 percent residual sugar) gives this wine an easy drinkability that pairs well with a wide variety of foods, especially cheese.

For a mouthwatering cheese and wine combo, try the Glenora Brut with a signature Finger Lakes cheddar cheese. As a matter of fact, try it with the perfect cheddar —Yancey’s Fancy Champagne Cheddar, which is just tailor-made for bubbly wines and festive occasions. Produced by one of the area’s most beloved cheese makers, Yancey’s Fancy of Corfu, New York (www. yanceysfancy.com), this cheddar is made with rich, local cow’s milk and flavored with a touch of Finger Lakes sparkling wine. The resulting flavor reminds me of warm brioche and melted butter.

Sparkling wine and Champagne Cheddar make the ideal après-ski treat. A nicely chilled bottled of Glenora Brut, plus a wedge of Yancey’s Fancy Champagne Cheddar, plus a sliced Empire apple, plus a loaf of bread from the corner bakery, all adds up to an incredible taste of New York state.

Have a happy January and stay warm!

Holly is a CSW (Certified Specialist of Wine) through the Society of Wine Educators and a CS (Certified Sommelier) through the Master Court of Sommeliers in England; Contact her at wineanddine@mountainhomemag.com.

25

Home & real estate Designing Woman

An international designer finds a home in the Southern Tier

By Carol Youngs

M

any can recall a moment when a special wish is granted and a career begins. Claudette Doran, CCD, today an architectural, interior, and theatrical designer with extensive international experience, remembers her moment well.

“Fresh out of art school, portfolio under one arm, I was ready for my first job interview,” Doran recalls.

During a meeting with the production designer for Warner Brothers’ award-winning feature film Camelot, she was hired on the spot as a sketch artist for the production. Over the next several decades she worked throughout the world designing for the motion picture and television industry.

“Working in Europe and Asia, my interest in art history and architecture was rekindled, and I started the international architectural, interior, and environmental design firm, Claudette’s International Designing Women, Inc.,” Doran says.

“Among the entertainment personalities for whom I designed were Michael Jackson, Julie Andrews, Lucille Ball, Richard Burton, Elvis Presley, Dean Martin, and Frank Sinatra.

“What makes the firm different, I think, is our vision of building systems, interior details, and classical design, blended with the magic of the entertainment industry.”

Doran’s experience with set design led to special touches for many projects, including a dining room wall with a stained glass window that would pivot to reveal a secret Englishstyle pub.

She moved to Corning from West Palm Beach in 2005 after four hurricanes destroyed both of her See Designing on page 28

26

Home & Real Estate

www.blackcreekent.com

([SHULHQFH WKH JUHDW RXWGRRUV LQ \RXU YHU\ RZQ FDELQ IURP %ODFN &UHHN 3HUIHFW IRU D UHOD[LQJ YDFDWLRQ LQ WKH PRXQWDLQV RU \RXU RZQ UXVWLF UHWLUHPHQW KRPH

Call For Your Free Catalog!

570-324-6503 5W /LEHUW\ 3$ /RFDWHG RQH PLOH ZHVW RI 5W DORQJ 5W

There has never been a better time to BUILD a new home!

And another great reason to build with Brookside Homes right now is that you can take advantage of the incredibly LOW interest rates available and avoid the EXPENSIVE CODE CHANGES that are coming soon.

Lock in today’s prices for or early spring construction.

Selinsgrove, PA A 570-374-7900

www.brookside-homes.com www.brook ookksid i e-homes.com

Mansfield, PA 570-662-7900 27

Home & Real Estate

Designing continued from page 26

houses there. At the end of that year she opened the design atelier Claudette’s on Market Street, Corning.

Today, Doran and partner, Eleanor Cicerchi, are operating their exciting new venture, Claudette’s International Designing Women, a full service architectural, interior, and environmental design firm based in Corning. The design center and workroom are located in Campbell.

Cicerchi brings to the partnership a strong background in global cultures, museum studies, business development and marketing. Formerly development director for The Corning Museum of Glass, Cicerchi is the author/editor of four books on history and architecture.

Recent local design projects include a remodeled master suite and foyer in Big Flats, which features a tropical waterfall above a red onyx fireplace in the master bedroom. An alligator partially hidden in the lush foliage around the waterfall serves to enhance the jungle motif.

A project on the Southside of Corning

28

transformed the third floor of an historic home into a “man cave” with a stunning, custom-built entertainment center. The client had the sense of masculine territory he wanted.

“Whether upholstering one chair, or designing an entire space, it’s important for me to create a color palette for the clients’ living or work environment that reflects their taste—not ours—and enables the person to feel good about themselves in their space,” Doran says. “I also take special care to work within the client’s budget, passing on professional discounts to save clients money.”

Their retail outlet, The Attic, in the same building as their design firm, contains rooms filled with thousands of affordable European, Asian and American objects.

Their inventory includes fine art, antiques, and collectibles, many previously owned by celebrities with whom Doran worked in Hollywood. Also on sale are designer clothing, handbags and jewelry.

“Our treasures are looking for a second or third home. However, we also have new ‘must haves’ that Eleanor and I have collected from around the world,” Doran says.

“When compared to other places I have lived and worked, Corning is a very special community where people care about each other; it’s refreshing and wonderful to be here,” Doran says.

Carol Youngs, a central New York feature writer, specializes in architecture, interior design, historical, and travel stories.

Home & Real Estate

29

M ar k et P lace

Shop Around the Corner

Book ’Em!

By Matt Connor

Photography by Bill Crowell

T

here’s a crisis in publishing.

Americans don’t read anymore.

Newspapers, magazines, book publishers and big book retailers are going under. The electronic media are killing language, let alone good writing.

The doomsday clock is ticking for books.

That’s the dominant view of book publishing today, despite the counterargument that J.K. Rowling, Kindle, and Oprah are all strong indicators that books will survive in the future, though perhaps in a vastly altered form than we know them today.

And despite all the dark talk about the future of books, there are a few places in 30

the world that remain a calming oasis for readers of all stripes. One of them is the Liberty Book Shop in Avis, Pennsylvania, the kind of place one used to find tucked into side streets in Greenwich Village or Sausalito, before Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Amazon took over the world.

Located in an old church snuggled behind a Laundromat, the Liberty is a secondhand, out-of-print, and antiquarian bookseller that stocks over 40,000 titles. It is, in the words of proprietress Linda Roller and just about everyone else who ever stepped through the old wooden double doors of the shop, “a very special place.”

“I love it,” Roller said during a visit on a typically overcast Central Pennsylvania winter day. “I love it every single day.

It’s no place to get rich, but for me it’s a dream, and it’s not only a livelihood but it’s a lifestyle. And I’m very happy to do it, but it’s not for everybody. Like being a freelance writer, being self-employed is working without a net.”

The net slipped out from under her a couple of decades ago, when she decided to give up her tenure-track university job to pursue bookselling full time.

A few years earlier, the man with whom she had been involved—and would eventually marry—decided he would start

marketplace

a book business. Both he and Linda were longtime book lovers and had extensive personal libraries. When those libraries were combined there were over 1,000 duplicates, which became their initial stock.

“It kind of started as a part-time flea market thing,” Roller said. “But by doing that we generated the money to first open up a shop and then do mail order.”

The marriage eventually ended in divorce, the book business was split, and Linda decided that what she really wanted to do was have a space of her own to continue a used, out-of-print and antiquarian book shop. And, ideally, she wanted to launch that new business in an old church.

But a few unexpected turns still lay ahead.

While planning an overseas trip, Linda stopped at her physician’s office to get the required inoculations, and her doctor told her, “You’re not going anywhere except the hospital.” It was the first indication that a potentially life-threatening health crisis lay ahead, although she declines to describe the nature of that crisis.

It took a few months, but eventually she “got on the other side of that medical crisis, and I still had my business. With a business like this one, so much of it is about what the proprietor knows and not so much what that person has.”

“It was right at the time that I was sick that a good friend of mine said to me, just talking idly, ‘If there was anything in the world that you would like to do, what would you like to do now? Because you’re now kind of free of everything.’ What I started talking about was a church in a little town. I hadn’t talked about it for years, but I started at that moment, talking about a church in a little town, and that’s when I started looking.”

A real estate ad in the Williamsport Sun-Gazette led her to a vacant church in the little town of Avis, but she was a single woman over forty who had never owned property. Twelve banks turned her down when she went in search of financing.

The lucky thirteenth said, ‘Yes.’

Shop: Liberty Book Shop Owner: Linda Roller Address: 1 East Park Street, Avis, Pennsylvania, 17721 Phone: 570-753-5201 Hours: Thursday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

She closed on the building on Christmas Eve 1999 and moved into the shop in February of 2000.

“Most of my business is a mixture of Internet and mail order,” she said. “The Internet is how people reach me, but mail order is how it happens. Somebody’s got to pull a book off the shelf and get it ready and wrap it up and send it. So it’s old-fashioned mail order.

“I also do a lot of institutional type sales. An institution will call me and they’ll have a group of books that they wish to purchase. I either find the books or I take them off my own shelves. It’s called ‘collection development.’ I can take a subject matter or a bibliography and find the books and get them packaged and get them to an institution in the time that they need them for the research or the instruction that they’re going to do.”

Luckily, she seems to have found a niche that the digital media hasn’t been able to impact very much, and requires a level of personal interaction with customers that may make it somewhat immune to the “crisis in publishing” sweeping the industry.

Don’t get her wrong, though. She doesn’t expect to become independently wealthy as a result of her book retailing endeavor.

“If you’re looking to make a lot of money, you really need to be in a different line,” she said. “I don’t know many wealthy book dealers. I know people who’ve made a living at it. I know people who live rich, fulfilling lives because it’s part of what they do and what they are, but no millionaires.

“I’m here to make a living and pay my bills and I’m busy and happy.

“I don’t know if it gets any better than that.”

Facing page: Shop owner Linda Roller with the one of the store cats. This page, top: Liberty Book Shop is located in an old church in Avis. Center: Rare volumes like a set of out-of-print Encyclopedia Britanicas are the shop’s bread and butter. Bottom: Nirvana for book lovers.

31

marketplace

Miracle Child continued from page 10

Bundled up: Marshall, Marian and Debbie Hamilton on a chilly winter day.

bath water all over the side of the tub.”

Because of Marian’s wonderful progress under such overwhelming odds, the Hamiltons were chosen to represent the Children’s Miracle Network for the Arnot Ogden Medical Center in 2010. The Hamiltons were interviewed for television and on the radio about their experience at the Arnot Ogden NICU and with the Children’s Miracle Network, which provided for Debbie and Marshall to attend a conference in New York City about congenital hyperinsulinism where they learned more about the illness and ways to help Marian through it. During 2010 the Hamiltons also attended benefits, fundraisers, and events to talk about their “miracle.”

“We like to have families represent us,” says Alene Goodman, annual support specialist for the Arnot Ogden Medical Center Foundation, which includes the Children’s Miracle Network, “because it really shows people the good their donations are doing for real families and children.”

One hundred percent of all money raised locally remains at Arnot Ogden Medical Center for anything from teddy bears sent home with parents of children with breathing problems (that literally talk the parents through CPR if anything happens) to a $50,000 transport, which shuttles babies born in trouble at other hospitals back to Arnot Ogden, and which can hold a NICU doctor and nurse and specialized equipment to keep the baby alive in transit.

Since 1992, the Children’s Miracle Network at Arnot Ogden has raised $3 million dollars, which has been used to

32

support health care services for infants and children in its nine-county region of Southern New York and Northern Pennsylvania. The Arnot Ogden NICU cares for over three hundred and sixty premature or critically ill infants in need of highly specialized care each year. And the Medical Center also has a very active pediatric program that serves over four hundred children annually.

On top of being a Children’s Miracle Network family, the Hamiltons have used their business, Whispering Evergreens, a Christmas tree farm, pumpkin patch, and corn maze to give back. Last fall, they donated all the proceeds from the corn maze to the Children’s Miracle Network.

Marian is now two and a half years old. As a miracle baby, it is befitting that she looks exactly like a blonde Precious Moments figurine. She has the blonde hair and blue eyes of her father, and the pretty bubbliness of her mother. She talks eloquently for her age, and her smaller than average frame will be the envy of many girls as she grows up.

She likes barbeque potato chips and offers them cheerfully and generously throughout the interview.

Perhaps the only natural closing question for the Hamiltons is this: Do they let Marian blow bubbles in her chocolate milk?

Debbie and Marshall laugh together and say, “She hasn’t tried yet.” They look at each other to discern the answer of the other and see in each other total agreement. Debbie speaks for them, “But, when she does, it’s okay by us.”

Marketplace

Marketplace

33

ŠMia Lisa Anderson

B ac k of t h e M ountain

Moonrise

Photograph by Mia Lisa Anderson, www.throughthelenswellsboro.com 34

35

36