The Old Glass Factory

[mallorys_camera]

Around 3, Craig, the reformed crackhead who lives next door, knocked on my front door to ask whether I wanted to hike over to the remains of the old glass factory.

Sure, I said. As faithful readers know, I’m ever more fascinated by what once was than what is.

Craig didn’t actually know where the old glass factory was, just its general direction. “It shut down like in 1900,” he told me. “The building’s all falling down. But there’s a big pile of glass and shit, stained glass, and you can find these antique glass bottles –“

I was pretty sure that after 111 years, there’s be very little in the way of antique glass bottles. I was also fairly sure that Craig was asking me on a hike to see if I was jumpable. Craig’s lived a hard life. It’s not that he’s stupid or anything but I can’t even muster the empathetic twinge that serves me so often in place of lust: What if I were someone who’s interested in him… He was rescued by Janice, the woman he lives with, from very bad circumstances which he told me all about in great detail and which I promptly forgot. They’re a couple of years younger than me, look decades older. Hard drinkers, both of them. Smokers too. Craig has four kids, all of whom – except for the youngest – are in prison or in rehab and his conversation is constantly peppered with references to pals who are enjoying long vacations on the state in the Big House: “… and him and me played music together but then he got sent up for robbing this bank…”

A companionable enough hiking companion though.

I hadn’t been on this path in months and the first thing I noticed was this beehive. I got a leetle too enthusiastic clicking pix and in consequence, got stung twice. Didn’t hurt yesterday but today my arm is swollen to about twice its normal girth.

Damn! It’s beautiful in those woods:



No glass factory to be found though.

“My buddy said it was out this way,” Craig said. “He grew up here. You know where that old laundromat used to be?”

“Yeah…”

“His parents owned a grocery store there. Twenty, thirty years ago. Maybe I’ll make him come out here, show us the way –“

“Oh, please do!” I said eagerly. Because by now,of course, finding the remains of the old glass factory had become my life’s sole mission.

###

About the old glass factory, the pamphlet An Historical Sketch of the Village of Freeville, Tompkins County written in 1943 by one Albert Benjamin Genung -- who was born in 1890-- has this to say:

Eventually they made contact with a Belgian glass manufacturer, Cleon F. Tondeur, who had a factory at Canastota and others near Oneida and in Ohio. He came and looked over the incomplete stove plant and finally agreed to buy it. The property was sold by Ogden and Willey to Mr. Tondeur in November 1886. That winter and the following spring he completed the main building and moved to it the necessary equipment for manufacturing what was called cathedral window glass. A mammoth barbecue was held when the large furnace was set, the last of 1886. About a dozen skilled glass workers were imported from Ohio, the arrival of their families adding to the town's already serious housing problem. Incidentally, the E. C. & K. Railroad extended its tracks to Sylvan Beach so as to haul from there the fine white sand which was used in the Tondeur glass factories. Mr. Tondeur manufactured colored glass in this factory for a few years until the lapse of his patents about 1890 led to his financial failure and to the end of this industry in Freeville. Considerable glass, much of it a beautiful product, was made here in the short time that the plant operated.

There's an Alice Munroe-type story lurking there, begging to be written, no?

###

“Jeeze, that was some hike,” Craig said when we got back to the cement bungalow. It wasn’t though. I think we maybe hiked three miles total. But Craig looked exhausted. “You wanna come in for a drink or something?”

“Oh, no thanks,” I said.

“What are you? In AA?”

“Oh, no, no. Nothing like that. It’s just too early for me to drink. I’d just want to lay down and go to sleep.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Craig leered. He had a very predatory leer. “By the way, I wasn’t going to tell you but your son?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve met him once or twice.”

“He’s coming around here asking if I can score him some pot.”

Why, that little shit, I thought. He’d been scoring angel points by telling me he was staying away from pot even to the point of not hanging out with pals who smoked. I’d believed him too. What kind of an idiot am I anyway?

“Please don’t sell him any drugs,” I said.

“Oh, I won’t. I won’t. I didn’t know whether I should tell you or not but I figured you should know.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I should know.”

I should also be able to control the kid better. Sigh. He’s riding for a very hard fall that one, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. Absolutely the worst feeling in the world for a parent.

Comments

[christophrawr.livejournal.com]

I should also be able to control the kid better. Sigh. He’s riding for a very hard fall that one, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. Absolutely the worst feeling in the world for a parent.

What can you take away from R? How can you punish him?

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

You were a 16 year old boy once. What would have worked on you?

tough love.

[christophrawr.livejournal.com]

The loss of freedom.
Uncertainty.
The threat of feeling unloved.
If I had been raised to believe I was going to have an education upon finishing my secondary schooling, the threat of losing funding or support for said education.
The loss of a place to live upon my eighteenth birthday, or the threat of such.

The promise of something better.
Maybe if it were explained to him if he quit fucking up now he'd have a hell of a time in college (where stuff like this is practically encouraged). He just needs to get there without landing in serious trouble, etc.

You were a 16 year old boy once. What would have worked on you?

Nicely played, that. :)

[christophrawr.livejournal.com]

also:

disappointing someone i respected. this works better with boys his age when they have male role models, or at least someone to kick the shit out of them or dress them down. it depends on whether he is type a or b, really.

you have moments of extreme closeness with your son. use that closeness as a weapon. find the heart to stick the knife.

when i think about my own growing-up years, it is an absolute fucking miracle i did not get myself into serious trouble (that i could not extricate myself from, though connections or luck, mostly the latter).

how good are the boy's instincts? if he knows how to get out of the house while it burns behind him, you will have to worry less.

[a1icey.livejournal.com]

to defend robin...

teenagers have a much shorter sense of time... and by extension so do adults that live with teenagers. if “He’s coming around here asking if I can score him some pot.” is how the guy phrased it, it could have been months ago. especially if he was saving it up to have intrigue with you.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Good attempt at a save, Alice! :-) But no -- this was definitely a recent inquiry.

[a1icey.livejournal.com]

we are always so relieved when my brother is smoking pot again because alcohol is so much more dangerous. that is a pretty dark way to think, probably.

[robby.livejournal.com]

That's a beautiful beehive, but don't endanger yourself for nature pictures! Here there are lots of honeybees about, and they are pretty docile, but I have no idea where the hive is. I watched some guys smoke a wild hive once, at night, to quiet the bees, and then they gathered the honey. It's important leave a part of the hive intact, so the bees rebuild.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was told this is a wasp's nest not a bee hive -- it's made out of paper. And I was an idiot to get so close.

[robby.livejournal.com]

Yes, wasps are more aggressive than honey bees. A few more stings could have been bad news, but on the plus side, the two stings you got will probably give you some immunity.

[alumiere.livejournal.com]

I am surprised to think the hive is pretty given my (justified - I'm allergic as hell) near terror of bees. In the abstract they're beautiful and amazing, in reality if I'd gotten stung twice I'd be lucky to be alive.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm told this was a wasp's nest not a bee hive. My arm was really swollen the following day. Okay now though.

[nodressrehersal.livejournal.com]

Someone recently reminded me that kids are known for, and quite good at, acting their age.

They all lie sometimes, and do stupid shit, and think they know it all and are convinced that we don't have a clue.

I don't think this about your inability to control him, really. You give him the tools he needs to make the right decisions and choices and chances are he'll STILL go out and act his age. *sigh*

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I suppose that's true but still...

He keeps telling me things like, "If I got caught, it would only be a misdemeanor."

And I keep telling him, "The federal government will not cosign a student loan for anyone with a drug conviction on his/her record regardless of whether it's a misdemeanor or a felony."

And he keeps not getting it

[nodressrehersal.livejournal.com]

I hear you... one thing we did was constantly use stories in the news to make points, like "Look, this kid was only 17, he did thus and such and look at the consequences, tsk, tsk, tsk."

Taking away a cellphone is pretty powerful, too. It's practically a lifeline for them.

Ours didn't respond so much to emotional pleas as to factual, "Here's the deal. If you do this, here's what will happen." And then we had to back up our words with actions. We learned to never threaten to do something we wouldn't actually do if tested.

[slfisher.livejournal.com]

I'm glad Craig told you. Weren't you worried, though, about going out in the middle of nowhere with him, if he thought you thought you were jumpable?

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Weren't you worried

Not unless he's packing a gun. He's in really bad shape and I'm in really excellent shape. I once broke someone's nose in the parking lot of that B of A on College Avenue in Oakland when he tried to snatch my purse. True, that was a long time ago. I certainly wouldn't go mano a mano with anyone under 50. :-)