Left
Handedness
Michael
Hillman
Organization has never been one of my
strong points. Not a day goes by that I don't misplace
something or other and every morning is started off with
a ritual of asking Audrey were I left my wallet,
glasses, and car keys. Over the years I've gotten used
to my absentmindedness and now when I misplace
something, I just shrug my shoulders and figure whatever
it is will show up eventually. For example, Audrey's car
keys, which I lost a year ago, have just been discovered
in my winter coat jacket.
Always looking to put a positive spin
on something, I look at lack of organization as being an
outgrowth of my 'spontaneity', i.e. 'Comp-de-un'
attitude. Audrey however has another definition of what
happens around me and it includes words like confusion
and chaos.
I've always heard that opposites
attract and in this one area that old saying couldn't be
truer. I half jokingly tell people that Audrey is so
organized that she has lists of her list. Her daily to
do list begins with 'Get up' and ends with 'Make list
for tomorrow and go to bed.' In between is a catalog of
her activities which I've been retrieving secretly from
our well kept trash can to sell to an alien race
studying the day to day habits of competent earthlings.
While Audrey's organization does
sometimes impact on my spontaneity, it definitely has
its up side, like coffee every morning, bills being paid
on time and the lawn being mowed regularly. More
important, however, is the effect it has had on creating
an excellent environment for our animals. Under her
daily routine, they always know when they will go out,
when they will eat, and when they can sleep. Of course,
having things so organized makes this place a real zoo
when she goes away and things shift over to my way of
doing things.
The Friday before Thanksgiving, I
took off to do some research on the valley. Before I
left however, I decided to let my horse, Worf, out for
some hand grazing. Now Audrey's routine for hand walking
Worf, who was extremely fit having just come off the
competition season, was very particular and, as I would
soon learn, for just cause. My routine is casual enough
not to be classified as a routine at all.
After grazing for 15 minutes on the
front lawn, I headed towards the gate into the field
next to the barn. Unbeknownst to me, Worf had been
pulling some antics at this gate recently and as I went
threw it, he jumped into the air, twisted and kicked out
with all four feet. His kicks were not out malice but at
the happy thought that he was going to be turned out.
Unfortunately, one hoof made contact.
The kick came so fast and so hard
that my arm never moved. Audrey, hearing the commotion
and figuring something had gone wrong, came running to
put things back in order. Two operations and a steel
plate later, I found myself suddenly having something
new in common with Audrey, being left-handed.
My mother, who is left-handed, blames
her poor penmanship on nuns, who hit her with a ruler
every time she tried to write with her left hand. I too
have bad penmanship due to ruler blast, but they had
nothing to do with trying to write left-handed. Since
marrying Audrey, I thought I had come to appreciate the
difficulties left-handed people have in this world but,
as I recently discovered, you really can't unless you
live it.
Using regular scissors, for instance,
is a nightmare. While they do have left-handed scissors,
they are limited in shape and size. So, instead,
left-handers end up using right-handed scissors, albeit
upside down; no mean feat when done routinely. Audrey's
favorite pet peeve is the coffeepot. To read the fill
level marks, left-handers must hold the pot with their
right hand, and only a right hand can put it under the
coffee maker properly.
As I began to get used to doing
things with my left hand, I mentally noted the daily
inconveniences we right-handed people throw at
left-handers. For instance, stick shifts, unless you’re
a mailman, or in England, require the right hand.
Opening doors, well let’s just say, try opening doors
with your left hand for a week or two. The only thing I
can figure is that only having right-handed doors is
part of a deep, secret conspiracy to make the left-
handed race feel inferior.
Now while there are many downsides to
breaking my arm, e.g. pain, doctor bills, pain, and
pain, it provided me the perfect excuse for ignoring
Audrey's honey-do list, and got me out of performing my
barn chores. As I sat in the hospital waiting for the
doctor, it occurred to me that this would be an
excellent time to make a final push on collecting the
material I needed for my stories on the valley of Stony
Branch [every dark cloud does have a silver
lining]. Which brings me back to the opening topic:
Organization.
When I first set out to uncover the
history of our farm, all the material collected was
piled wherever I last sat, which was alright, when my
focus was on just the farm. As time went on however, I
began to wonder about the history of the people who one
lived on this farm, or owned the land upon which it
sits. Families like the Zacharias', who as I discovered
and you will soon learn, settled here in 1754, bought
the land upon which half of our farm sits and then over
the next 140 years, bought or controlled half the land
in the valley and, in doing so, set the pace of life
here. I was inundated with family names such as Biggs,
Diggs, Sebold, Troxel, Whitmores, Martin, Valintine,
Close, Schealy, Forney, Maxel, Fuss, Baumgartner, and
Welty, and faced with hundreds of land transactions on
well over 2600 acres of land over a 245 year time
period. Suddenly, I had a very real appreciation for
library science and Audrey's organizational skills.
The first task before me was to
organize my piles of deeds and records into distinct
entities. Surprisingly, with just few exceptions, the
boundaries of the original large land grants still form
boundaries for many present property owners. As a
result, each of the piles now bears names such as
'Better Then I Expected', 'Black Flint', and 'Single
Delight'. Next everything had to be put in chronological
order and then, and only then, read and analyzed along
with a host of material I've collected over the past
year.
In spite of all my efforts however,
I'm still not any closer to knowing how old my house is,
which is what got me studying the history in the first
place. The key to uncovering this lies in finding
descendants of William and Mary Welty, and Albert and
Mary Welty Valintine, both of which are children of a
Casper Welty. Any help in this area would be greatly
appreciated as would any stories or information relevant
to this valley or the families that lived here.
Over the past year, many people have
given me information or leads to sources. These include
Eugene Zacharias, the great, great, great, grandson of
one of the first settlers, Mary Krom who provided
stories on going to school in the Stony Branch School
house which once stood next door, Rick Yinger and Joe
Wivell Jr. who have humored me by walking old
boundaries, Betty Six Glass, who provided me the history
of her family's life in this house, as did Anna
Bollinger who bought the farm in 1940 and now resides at
St. Catherine, and Bonny Fuss who has been an enormous
help and a constant source of smiles.
Read
the first installment of the History of Stony Branch
Valley
Read
other stories by Michael Hillman |