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What the heck is a Snipe?

February 28, 2024

In November of 1940, after completing boot camp, my uncle, Joe Flynn, was assigned to the boiler room aboard USS Wichita. And so he became a fireman—a snipe. -o- Up until the early 1800s, ships were powered by sails—or oars. Then along came paddle wheel steamers. The US Navy obtained its first steamship, USS Fulton…

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A Not-Quite-Empty Mansion Just Down the Road

October 6, 2022

Ann J lived at corner of Brush Hill Road and Fairmount Avenue. What a place! “The Brown Estate.” (Who were these Browns? I never knew.) The house was not visible from the end of the gravel driveway, where the gardener’s house stood guard. So I’d go crunching down the gravel driveway past carriage house, very…

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376 Brush Hill Road – Part XIII – Getting Around

October 1, 2022

When you were a kid in the 1950s, if you had to get some place or wanted to see your friends, you walked. Mothers did not drive their children around. For one thing, there was usually only one car in a family, and often the father took that car to work. From 376, there were…

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376 Brush Hill Road – Part XII – The Loew Estate

September 30, 2022

Across the street from us, where Smith and Brush Hill Roads meet, was a fieldstone wall that stretched as far as the eye could see, in both directions; it enclosed a vast pasture studded with big, big trees. This marked the northwest corner E.M. Loew’s twenty-five acres–The Loew estate. We often saw sheep and cows…

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The Neighbors – 376 Brush Hill Road – Part XI – The Neighbors

September 28, 2022

The Bachelors Our nearest neighbors, to the north, in a modern glass-fronted ranch house, were two men known to us as “the bachelors.” I have memories of one of the bachelors working with my father, occasionally, on projects that crossed the property line. Were they trying to eradicate poison ivy…or just raking leaves? Maybe both…at different…

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