Eleanor's B/log
HRHBrass invites all to the Great Water Race and Barbecue at the Roe-Jan Creek Boat Club in Germantown on September 6, from 2 to 5pm. Proceeds will go to support Eleanor’s restoration – specifically to restore her mast, boom, and gaff.
The Water Race will begin at approximately 3:30 pm. Ten ducks and ten flamingos, who have gathered from various points on the map are staying at members’ homes. They have been studying and swimming the waters of the creek for the past month or so. The race promises to be an exciting one.
Racers, at $50 each, can be sponsored before September 6th by calling 618-568-8832, or at the barbecue if still available. Five hundred dollars will go to benefit Eleanor, $250 will be awarded to the sponsor of the first place winner, 50 to the second place sponsor, and $100 to the third. The racers will have the option of remaining with their sponsors as honorary drink floats or returning home. Guests can bet on their favorite racer.
Music will be provided by The Livingston-Blackiston twins, Sky and Sandy, and by Mike Pagnani and Friends. A menu of hot dogs, chicken, local potatoes contributed by Staron Farm and fresh corn contributed by Holmquest Farm, salads, and home baked desserts will be served. Call 518-567-8832 or email elearnorrestorationproject@gmail.com for tickets — only $15! You may also purchase them at Anglers Marine at 12 County Route 31 or atbBruno’s in Hudson. Tickets must be purchased before August 29.
See you there.
And oh — if you can help let us know!
Louise Bliss of Hudson, a founding member of HRHBrass, writes her childhood memories of,
and her adult dreams for, the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse.
The Hudson-Athens Lighthouse evokes memories of Sunday family outings and sailing adventures. Seeing the lighthouse as a child from the Hudson-Athens ferry as it glided around the southern side of the boarded up lighthouse was almost picture book perfect. We were close enough to wonder in awe at the house on the water, and far enough away to long for a look inside. Later, sailing out of the Catskill Creek on a Sunday family sail, the required destination question was: “shall we make our way north to the lighthouse and come back on the tide?” During those years the windows were boarded up and unattractive graffiti marked the exterior walls.
In the late 1980s the lighthouse began to look alive and take its place as a substantial and upstanding member as one of the Hudson River historic lighthouses. A ticket purchased by me on a Saturday in 1999 gave me the official O.K. to motor out to the lighthouse on the assigned boat, enter through the north facing kitchen door, and at last stand in awe of the magical history of my childhood house on the water.
The picture on the front page of the Saturday Evening Post that I had studied sitting on my grandmother’s lap on a Tuesday afternoon was no longer just a picture: it was the ending of childhood stories created by my imagination and the beginning of my education about the importance of the lighthouse to many boats and ships and sailors, including my family. It was home to the family that smiled and waved from the cover of the Saturday Evening Post that Tuesday afternoon. It is my sincere desire and wish that the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse will still be visited in the last years of this century and beyond by the once young children who wondered and imagined about the lighthouse and its picture perfect existence. Childhood dreams end.
How many wonderers, as I have been, have been woken from their dreams at last and have been invited inside to have their wondering minds quenched with real facts about the lighthouse, and to hear the stories of the lighthouse keeper and his family? Lighthouses are not just for children. Lighthouses are for the parents and grandparents who continue generation to generation to tell the historical stories of the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse and the stories of other historical buildings that have at one time evoked childhood memories. These stories belong to everyone who was once young with a wondering and curious mind. Let us satiate young minds with stories of real picture book perfect that have reality in existence – not memories.
Please keep the lighthouse a reality – not a memory
I am writing in hopes of providing you with a personal relationship with the
Racing Sloop Eleanor. It is sad that nowadays stories and history can be lost as the speed of information
technology and the internet allow time to race by us at a rate never imagined when
the Eleanor was built in 1903. I thank you for the time you’ll invest in reading my stories
of the boat my grandfather, “Pop” to me, sailed, cared for and loved for 48 years.
More memories from R.S.B., Rutland, Vermont to come.
As a youngster my first memories of sailing on the Eleanor were nightmarish. I have to admit that my grandfather’s skill at the helm allowed the family and the rest of the crew to push the limits of the Hudson River between Catskill Creek and the Hudson River Boat Club to the maximum. Going sailing on the Eleanor when the wind was gusting and the river had whitecaps was not one of my favorite things to do. I would seek refuge below and listen to the hull pounding against the river. That seemed safer to me than being in the cockpit seeing the boat heel up as the water rushed on deck and along side the crew. I was sure we’d capsize. Time taught me to trust Pop’s hand and the Eleanor. I learned to embrace the adventure, but as my grandfather sailed into his 90’s he lost his stomach for the extreme sailing experiences. He sought a calmer, more spiriitual relationship with the boat, the river and the family.
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