Canaan Valley's base, I suppose, starts right at the confluence of two streams, Whiting Brook and the Blackberry River. Walking upstream you will see the Whiting meander through the widest part of the Valley. It then passes under Whiting Arches, the old railroad bridge that used to carry the Central New England Railroad across the valley. It ran up from Hartford to Canaan and beyond.

The valley then narrows slightly and turns northwest, then turns back to a more northeasterly direction as it bisects the land of the Carlson Farm, land deeded to their ancestors the Donaldson's by the King of England! The Whiting flows under the bridge on the College Hill Road past land formerly owned by Langdon - he had a pond that was fed by the river that we used to swim in when we were young.

But I digress, let's continue our stroll upstream. Walking towards the source over rich bottom land we pass property formerly of Bert Frink, who ran a small auto repair garage alongside the Canaan Valley Road. Upstream and on the east bank it runs along property of Clara Curtis before it ducks under Emmons Lane.

Clara Curtis is my mother's sister and the youngest child of F.W. Barhoff, who I will mention later. Clara's house was built at a community house raising for the Avery's, an English couple and their son, who lost their home to the bank and had nowhere to go. I helped as a lad, so it must have been about 55 years ago. The women of the valley cooked while the men sawed and hammered. By the time we sat down to dinner the house was beginning to take shape, and by dark it was all framed. The next day, Sunday, the roof and siding were put on and the windows installed. The Averys were living there the following week!

The Whiting then enters the Carlson land again, and up to the Tobey Hill Road where it cuts through land of Douglas Carlson, a grandson of David Carlson, Sr. It is still open farmland, but the hills have squeezed the valley narrow enough so that the Army Engineers found it the most likely location to build their flood control dry dam. The dam was built after the tragic flood of August 1955 that flooded much of Canaan, and devastated the Naugatuck Valley.

As we climb over the dam and head further upstream we cross the state line and enter Massachusetts. Walking the brook you might never realize the fact, but up on the road which runs parallel, the macadam ends and there is a state line marker to tell you that you have entered "The Commonwealth." The land becomes wooded with no houses near. The only people you are apt to encounter might be an occasional trout fisherman in season, or Dougie working one of his fields.

After crossing the Campbell Falls Road we enter the property of the Canaan Valley Sporting Club, formerly owned by F.W. Barhoff, my grandfather, an industrialist from Hartford, who used it as a summer and weekend retreat.

The sixteen-room house can be glimpsed up over the knoll. A large verandah runs around the house with a porte-cochére on one end and a large open rotunda on the other side, that has always been called the round-part. In recent years the Canaan Valley Sporting Club has used it for a bandstand for their annual Country Music Festival. Let us tarry here awhile, as this is the old Canfield property.

My grandfather, Fred William Barhoff, called "Big Dad" by his grandchildren, but "Mr. Barhoff" by everyone else except my grandmother who called him "Will"- was a very imposing man. He was a manufacturer and inventor and a no-nonsense kind of a man. Long after the style went out of fashion he still wore "high collars." He was often mistaken for a man of the "cloth." "Big Dad" ran a "tight ship" by today's standards, but there were always plenty of good times when we were growing up.

In 1924 or 1925 he bought the "Big House" with 32 acres of land from Floyd Canfield, the sole surviving child of William Canfield. The sale price was $3,600.

My first trip to the valley was when I was six months old, and as there was no crib I slept in a dresser drawer. From that time on, every weekend from the opening day of trout season until around Thanksgiving we spent every weekend and all summer in the Valley. As soon as we returned from school, we changed our clothes and jumped in the car and headed for Canaan with the women of the family. My father and grandfather would come out after work.

Floyd and his wife Jenny lived in a farmhouse a short distance up the road, so I knew him from my earliest recollection, and never realized how different he was until I was much older.

Floyd is an almost impossible person to describe. The last of his branch of the Canfields, he was a backwoods Yankee. He was a naturalist, a farmer, rich, poor, an alcoholic, generous, cruel, spoiled, shy, entertaining, and at times a real pain in the butt! An almost impossible person to describe! But I'll try.

Floyd was born October 19, 1889, the son of William and Annie Markham Canfield. His father was born in New Marlborough, Massachusetts in 1849 and his mother, William's second wife, was born in Sheffield in 1869. A twenty year difference!

It is almost impossible for the today to visualize the times of Floyd's early years-no automobiles, electricity or central heating. The 14-mile round trip to Canaan was not undertaken lightly in a horse and buggy. Heating was by wood stove and fireplaces and lighting was by kerosene lamp and candles.

At the time Floyd was born in the "Big House," his father was the lord of the valley. Along with the vast amount of land that he owned in New Marlborough he also owned the Canfield Hotel in Canaan, the Canfield Block, a garage, and with his brother Wallace the Canfield Brothers Lime Co. in East Canaan, built in 1891. The State Capitol in Hartford was built of East Canaan limestone and was proudly displayed on their advertisements. The company later became the New England Lime Co. He started the Canaan Telephone Co. and he owned a lumber mill. Floyd told me that at one time he owned 32 houses! In the rear of their home they ran a store and sold dry gods and groceries to their hired hands. Behind the "Big House" he had a boarding house where the workmen who labored for "Old Man" Canfield lived and paid board. Being as isolated as the Valley was in those days he actually had a Serfdom, with the workers handing their wages back to their employer. Sort of like the "Tennessee Ernie Ford" song, "Another day older and deeper in debt. I owe my soul to the company store."

There were three barns on the property when I was a boy - a cow barn, a horse barn and an equipment barn. Down by the brook there was a blacksmith shop, a cider mill and a sugaring shack. William Canfield at one time raised tobacco, so there must have been drying sheds somewhere. On frosty nights they would put out smudge pots, which caused a glow over the valley. The area became known as "Hell's Hollow." Until lately the tax bill listed the property in "Hell's Hollow." On reflection the name may have been given for more than one reason!

Back when Floyd was a boy the area was not wooded as it is today, but grazing land for the cattle on the farm. The lime kilns also had a voracious appetite and ate hundreds of thousands of cords of wood a year.

The Canfields first came to America not long after the Pilgrims landed in 1620. Matthew Canfield, born at Harlston, Newbattle Hundred, Northampton, England. He was baptized on February 27, 1604, and came to this country prior to 1637. He was indentured when he came to America and was made a freeman in 1654. He must have been quite a man! A few years later he was one of the Patentees in the charter of the Connecticut Colony. He was a judge of Fairfield County, Connecticut and Newark, New Jersey. He became a member of the General Court of Connecticut, an officer of the Cavalry Troop of Connecticut, a Collector for Yale College, an Assessor and a Surrogate.

Matthew married Sarah Treet, who gave him nine children. Their oldest child Samuel was a grazier farmer in Norwalk, Connecticut as was his youngest son Samuel 11, who moved to Bedford, New York and then came to southern New Marlborough. There he begot a string of descendants mostly named Samuel. Most of' them had two wives with names still common to this area-Dean, Barnum, Hotchkis, Stevens, Cook, Stanton and Markham, to name a few.

Two of' his ancestors died in the Civil War. - Jabcz B. Canfield at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina and Johnnie C. Canfield lost his life at New Bene, North Carolina. Both served in Connecticut regiments. Johnnie was an expert marksman, and won several prize as the best shot in his regiment. He was only 17 years old!

One of his ancestors, Daniel, had ten children - Roderick, Ruel, Ruammi, Rama Repus, Erastus, Rial, Rebecca, Ruth and Daniel. Rebecca was named after his first wife, and Ruth after his second. Daniel he named after himself, but Erastus? How did that "E" name get in with all I those "R" names? Maybe when they picked it they thought it was spelled Rastus!

Floyd had a great, great aunt(?) Emeline who was an invalid. "She became very sensitive to noise so they built her a small house away from the street in which she was burned one morning while the family was at breakfast." (Gazetteer of Berkshire County, MA., 1725-1885 by Hamilton Chiton)

Floyd was the ninth generation removed from Matthew Canfield. There was Samuel I, II, III, and IV followed by Daniel, Roderick, Waren D., and his father William. I don't think Floyd was the least interested in his ancestry. I never heard him mention anyone earlier than his father. Floyd's father William married his first wife, Lydia A. Stanton, when he was 21 years of age. They had two sons, William Howard and Roy Warren Canfield, who both died young. "Willie" died when he was 35 of pulmonary tuberculosis. His occupation was listed as "electrician at Canfield Auto." After his father died in 1909, he and his wife Elizabeth went to Florida because of his ill health. The estate sent him $150 to $200 a month. He died several years later.

Floyd's other half brother Roy died in 1898 of typhoid fever and bronchitis at the young age of 19. He attended Robins School in Norfolk, Connecticut and Eastham, College in Rochester, New York. He is buried in the Canaan Valley Cemetery. The inscription on the back of his gravestone reads: "Roy the scholar and friend graduated at the Robbins School and Eastman College with highest honors. He did what he thought was right and we were made better by his life. We think of him often, so young and straight and tall and strong with the sunshine all about him and a smile on his face."

William's first wife Lydia died in New Marlborough in 1883. A few years later he married his cousin Annie L. Markham who was 20 years younger than he was. They had two children, Floyd William and a daughter Pearl J. Canfield. Pearl was 18 when their father died of a paralytic stroke in 1909. Administrators were appointed to the estate and as Floyd said, "When they got through with us there wasn't enough left for a good drunk." They said that Pearl had "no education" so they sent her off to a young ladies' boarding school. This didn't last long; she must have quit and she married a man by the name of Deloy. This marriage was short lived, as she died a few years later in 1916 during the flu epidemic.

Floyd had a picture, taken after the turn of the century, that showed William Canfield sitting in his buggy on the road in front of his home with his family standing on the verandah behind him. The verandah and the large living room were added to the house in 1901, as is attested by a carved stone in the front steps. The house was built in the early 1700's and was known as the old Brooks place. William's uncle Jabez married Abigale Brooks and William acquired Jabez's farm The "Gazetteer of Berkshire County, Mass. quotes: "William by the addition of his Uncle Jabez's farm has one of the most desirable homesteads in the county."

Here we have William Canfield, one of the most successful men in the area, a selectman in the town of New Marlborough, with a young wife and children, all the ingredients for a happy home until one day he came home from his office in East Canaan early and found his wife in the orchard with one of the wood choppers. From that day until the day he died he never spoke to his wife. They continued to live in the same house, as people did in those days. William went to his office in Canaan each day, but Floyd never heard them exchange a word when he was growing up. Shortly thereafter Annie took to her sick bed with asthma and was sickly for years. Her doctor prescribed laudanum, an opium derivative, which kept her an addict for years.

This then was the environment in which Floyd grew up - a busy father, a bedridden mother, his half- brother Roy away at school and dead when Floyd was nine. His other halfbrother Willie, 13 years older and working at the garage, was little or no mentor, so Floyd grew up mostly alone. He was the fabled "poor little rich kid." He was spoiled rotten. He had a pony at an early age and a 22- caliber rifle. His father would pay $ 1.00 a day to boys from East Canaan to come up and play with him for the day, and they would only come up once - Ning Zucco told me that he went up once and he wouldn't go back for five dollars! Those were the days when five bucks was like fifty, today. He said that Floyd kept shooting at him with his "B-B" gun and getting him in all kinds of trouble with his parents. We would hide on the knoll above the blacksmith shop, and Floyd would fire at the bricks in the chimney until they came down on the workmen They never complained to his father. Jobs were scarce in those days. Another time he kept firing at a hornets' nest until the bees came down and stung the workmen.

So Floyd grew up spending his days alone with his pony and his rifle. He became a crack shot, and his marksmanship was legendary all of his life, and for years after.

I think his only formal education was a few years at the Robins School in Norfolk, the school his brother Roy attended earlier.

Over the years he became a first class naturalist and knew every plant and animal in the valley. Much of his life was spent in the woods. He became an herbalist and would treat his ailments with salves and teas that he made from plants of the forest.

After his father's death the administrators said of him; "Floyd has never been required to do any business by his father and is of a roving disposition. To keep him with his mother where he would be controlled and guarded required that he should be furnished quite liberal with funds." For this reason they gave him $960.27. How that price was arrived at I have no idea, but maybe that was the price of the barroom that he bought in New York. Anyway, he and his Uncle Louie Markham went down to the big city and opened a barroom.

Floyd never locked the door, and in a very short time he returned to the Berkshires dead broke, but not empty handed, he came home with a wife, Jennie Lousie Decker. - Jennie was two years older than Floyd and was born in Ashland, New York which I guess is somewhere near Elmira, because that's where she always said she was from.

You can imagine the shock and gossip when Floyd brought home a girl that worked in his bar. For years people would say, "You know she was a prostitute when he married her." Well, whatever she was she made him a good wife. She was a large boned woman and put on quite a bit of weight as she aged, though I imagine she was a "good looker" when she was young. Jennie was a hard worker and plenty of times when Floyd was on a drunk she went out and milked the cows and did the chores. She baked his bread and carried his water and drank right along with Floyd and his cronies. She was never far from a cigarette, and most of the time she had one dangling out of the side of her mouth. When they were drinking, which seemed like most of the time, she could carry her own weight, and some swear words I heard for the first time from her. Though they tried never to swear when we kids were around, but you know kids!

Floyd's mother about this time was running the Canfield Hotel. The hotel was a revival style building with a two-story verandah running around it. It sat on Main Street next to the railroad tracks where the Canaan Pharmacy now stands. It was built about 1840 by William Adam, and in its early days the east parlor was used as a ticket office and waiting room for the railroad. I'm not sure when Wm. Canfield bought the property, but it was after 1883. Annie probably managed it around 1916-1918. She was not a good manager, and in a short time was borrowing money to pay back taxes.

Floyd was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War 1, and served as an officers' orderly in a camp on Long Island. When Floyd and Jennie were having an argument she frequently brought the subject up that he was an officer's "boot licker" and worse.

Around 1913 the estate was settled, and after the lawyers got their share the Mass. property was assessed at $8,049.99. It was divided three ways between Floyd, his mother and his sister, each getting one third. Annie got the "homestead," Floyd got the "old Granger" place and Pearl received the "old Wallace Canfield" farm. Floyd was still living on the old Granger place running a small dairy farm when I was a boy. They had about a dozen cows, a couple of pigs, and some chickens and ducks.

Floyd would put up many barrels of "hard cider" every fall. He said that one year they put up 32. He said that he never sold an ounce and it was all gone by the first of March! Of course he always had house guests and a hired man. I think the hired man worked for his room and board and booze. When they ran out of money they would sell off a piece of land or equipment. They had a garden and raised pigs which they butchered every fall. Floyd would go out and shoot a deer when they ran out of meat.

One of the stories about Floyd has been sworn to by many people in the area, although it happened before I was born: One day they were sitting around having their afternoon party and they must have been running out of drink. Floyd said "Hen (Henry Hart, one of his gang), hitch up the team and go down to East Canaan and get a barrel of beer." Hen said, "I'm going to take your car Floyd." He replied, "No, damn it, I said take the team." Hen went out and one of the bunch said, "Floyd, he's taking your car." Floyd picked up his 32 special and shot two holes in the gas tank as the car was going down the road. The car kept going so he shot again and hit a tire. When Hen stopped and got out of the car Floyd yelled down to him, "I told you to take the team."

One Sunday when I was about 10, we heard loud shouting and screaming coming from the Canfield house. As this was not an unusual event we went about our business and paid it little mind until we saw smoke coming out the windows. Floyd and Jennie were having a fight and Floyd decided to bum her corsets. Somehow he set the house on fire. Clara ran down to Carlson's to call the fire company and my father and some others went up and did get some of their things out of the house, but most of their belongings were destroyed in the fire. By the time the fire trucks came up from Canaan there was no hope of putting out the fire, and nothing remained but the cellar hole.

They moved down by the brook and settled into the "sugaring shack." Floyd built on another room which they made into a kitchen, living room and dining room. We kids thought it was neat. Still the studs and rafters were left exposed and Jennie wallpapered the place with "knotty pine" wallpaper. Floyd made little shelves between the studs that were cluttered with all kinds of "interesting stuff."

He had driven a point (a pipe with screening just behind the point). These could be driven down below the water table and used as a well. He put a picture pump on the pipe and built a sink out of wood and lined it with tin. He had running water in his house! He soon added a "root cellar" and a tool shed. Later he refurbished the old shingle mill and when we would hear the old "one lunger" flywheel engine banging away my father would say, "Floyd must be out of beer!" as he would only run the mill when he needed money.

These were the lean years. The 1930's were hard for many, but the Canfields were better off than most. They butchered animals off the farm, and Jennie was busy all summer and fall raising their garden and canning fruit and vegetables to store in the "root cellar" for the long cold winter. Floyd would cut the wood, make the cider and shoot the game They would always bank the house for the winter, and with the wood stove going full blast it was always nice and warm in the cabin.

In those years Canaan Valley was a lonely place. Bert Couch had a hillside farm up above our property, and his hired man would take the milk cans down after the milking, and then Mr. Tinker the mailman would come about noon and that was it for traffic most days. When we heard a car coming up the road eveyone ran to the window to see who it was. The mailman used to bring up groceries to the Canfields once a week when we weren't around in the winter, but when we were around Jennie went shopping with us. When we were going shopping Jennie would push the wheelbarrow up the hill. As time went by this became an intense labor for her, what with the cigarettes and her weight. She would come into our kitchen, sit down and puff for five minutes before she could talk. Floyd, being concerned, built her a bench halfway up the hill!

The spring of the year was "mud time.' When the thaw came the roads filled with ruts and "running board" deep mud. My father "Big Jack" never missed an opening day of trout season in April. It seems that we always got stuck and would have to be dragged across "fox flats" by Fred Shores and his team. Most of the dirt roads have been graveled now and are passable all year. It's hard to imagine in this day and age not being able to travel for weeks at a time, but those days were different. Most of the people that lived out in the hinterlands did not commute to work every day, so the only ones that had to travel the muddy roads were the mailman and the farmers taking their milk to the station.

Floyd stopped driving before my time. I don't know whether he lost his license for drunken driving or ran out of money or whatever. Anyway, whenever they wanted to go anywhere they came up to the house and asked Clara to drive them. Sometimes it was down to Louie Markham's for a gallon of cider, sometimes it was to the doctor, but they really were a nuisance. One time Floyd got in a fight with his neighbor, Truman Bates, and Truman bit Floyd in the hand and he developed blood poisoning. This was before the days of antibiotics, and he was lucky he didn't loose his arm. Between the doctor and his herbal remedies he survived. A rare occurrence in those days!

Another time Floyd and Jennie had a fight and she ended up with a couple of broken ribs. This involved more trips down to "Doc" Adam. There was never a dull moment in that "peaceful little valley." They always had plenty of company when they had booze in the house. They would come and stay, 2, 4 or 7 days at a time. The Canfields had no guest room so they either slept in a chair, or in nice weather on the lawn.

Whenever people talked about Floyd, and he was a favorite topic of conversation, sooner or later they got around to his marksmanship. He used to own a "horse pistol," something similar to the piece that "Dirty Harry" carries. One time he pulled it out in the bar of the Canfield Hotel and kept firing at some guy's feet to make him dance! I don't know how he got away with that one, but those were different times, and his folks owned the bar and half of the town.

Floyd used to shoot a cigarette out of Jennie's mouth with his pistol. I remember seeing this feat when I as about 10 or 12. There was a big 4th of July party that my grandfather threw. There were many guests and relatives "down" from Cleveland, Ohio. Floyd and Jennie were about "three sheets to the wind" and there were many people egging him on.

As a little kid, I thought "These crazy people are going to get her killed." Well sir, Floyd's arm was weaving and Jennie wasn't very steady and I was sure he was going to blast her in the head! The first shot was a miss! The crowd became silent and you could hear the proverbial pin drop as he lined up the second time and it seemed forever before he pulled the trigger, but he shot the cigarette right in the middle!

Back in the 30's there were fewer deer around than now, and many times the hunters came home without any meat for the pot. Floyd took to setting snares around on the deer runs. Now if hunting deer out of season is illegal, this was illegaler (nice word don't you think?). His transgression came to the attention of the new game warden, John Buckley. John had somehow found a snare that Floyd had set and decided to catch him red-handed. He went home and got a small tent, food, sleeping bag and such and went back and set up camp where he could see the snare. Floyd was observing all of this from behind a tree. For six or seven days he waited there, and every day Floyd sneaked up to see how he was doing. When the game warden gave up he went down to Floyd's cabin and told him he knew who set the snare and was going to be checking on him! Floyd told him he was checking on him every day to see that he was all right. He went back to shooting his deer with his 32 special.

Floyd's mother was alive when I was a boy. She had married Harry Thompson in 1921, and they lived in the house that Pearl received when the estate was settled. When Pearl died her share went back to mother, I believe. The house is no longer there. It was torn down when the state bought the property. On occasions when I went into their kitchen I remember her sitting in her rocking chair by the stove. She was very taciturn a woman of few words. When Floyd came to visit her their conversation was sparse and impersonal, like they were all talked out. He never stayed more than a few minutes.

Harry Thompson, Floyd's stepfather, was only a few years older than Floyd and another character that deserves a story. Floyd wasn't too crazy about Harry. It was a strange relationship which I would be hard pressed explaining even to this day. Harry was one of those people who could not talk without swearing, while Floyd would only swear when he was drunk, and never in front of children. He thought that he was a little better than Harry. They had several fights over the years and I don't know who won, but whoever the loser was, Clara had to drive him to the doctor, as Harry didn't have a car either. I don't know how they got to the doctor in the winter when we were not around. I guess they had to walk down to Carlson's, a little over a mile away.

Now, most of the characters that hung around the Canfields did not frequent the bathtub very often, but the wood smoke was a blessing. The smoke permeated their clothing and bodies. Also when one drinks a great deal of hard cider, their perspiration takes on a slightly sour apple smell. Between the two the smell was tolerable. Floyd and Jennie used to bathe once a week. They would put a wash tub in the middle of the floor and pour warm water from the teakettle over the bod.

There came a time when the pump in the kitchen sink would no longer draw water. The diagnosis was that sand and silt had clogged the screen. There was much discussion on how to pull the point, being that it was inside the house. It was suggested that a hole be cut in the roof over the pump and a frame be mounted and winch it out. Another way was to pull it out with bumper jacks and saw it off in four foot sections as it came up. Then put it back in sections. Floyd solved the problem by dropping a quarter stick of dynamite down the pipe and quickly capping it with the pump. An eighth of a stick probably would have been better as it drove the pump and pipe up through the roof and broke the picture pump into a hundred pieces. Jennie informed him that he was a no good I @$%A&*+-=@ IT & * + officers' brown-nose bootlicker (Jennie never let him forget that he was an officer's orderly during WWI).

Then there was the time Jennie's sister and brother came to visit. They were snake charmers in a circus. We kids were disappointed that they didn't bring any snakes with them, but Floyd would probably have shot them with his horse pistol. Another time some of Jennie's friends from New York were on the run from a jewel robbery and tried to hide out at the Canfields'. I was a little young at the time, so I don't remember it all, but there was a high speed chase down the Canaan Valley Road and the bad guys lost control of their car and went over the bank down by the Dibble farm. For years after when we were driving by that spot, someone in the car would point it out and say, "That's where the jewel thieves went over the bank!"

About 1944 Jennie went on the wagon. I'm not sure whether it was on her doctor's advice or if her stomach was burned out. How she stayed sober with Floyd and all his friends around, always half in the bag, I'll never know! She would be sitting at the table rolling cigarettes on their little machine when Floyd would come in drunk. She'd say, "Jesus not again!"

When Floyd got drunk he leaned forward at the waist, and the more he had to drink the farther forward he leaned. When in his cups he would show you how to stop a fox. Upon reflection I have no idea why he wanted to stop a fox unless it was to get a standing shot, but then it was probably so he could watch it. He would make a ring out of his thumb and forefinger and blow through them like a bugle. He would go over to Jennie and say, "here's how to stop a fox Jennie," and blow his "bugle" in her face. She'd take a swipe at him and say, "Get away from me you drunken ! @)#$% A&*+*&A%$#@ !. He would retreat four or five feet and give her another blast. True love runs deep!

Floyd never had a job or worked for anyone until he was about 55 years old, but he ran out of property to sell and he needed money for beer. I believe it was during World War II when my brother Bill and I were away in the service that he went to work as caretaker for the Palmers, the New Yorkers that bought the old Couch farm. He also worked off and on with the town highway crew.

After WWII, my brother and I were in the tree business when Floyd came to work for us as a groundsman. Floyd was in his element working for us, although he would always refer to his job as "helping out the boys." He knew all the trees and shrubs and kept a sharp ax. The New Yorkers loved him and his Berkshire idioms and local knowledge. When he was describing a place he would say, "Down on Fox Flats by the big hickory tree," or "turn by the old Deck Gengle place." (Deck had been dead about 50 years.) His similes were wonderfully archaic such as "big as a butter tub" or "in pot auger days" (in the old days).

Floyd always dressed the same, a plaid shirt tucked into non-descript trousers tucked into L.L. Bean hunting packs. He always wore suspenders and an old cap. Jennie always wore a house dress - Jennie was a good housekeeper and always kept their clothes clean and ironed.

A big day in their lives was when they got electricity in their cabin. This must have been about 1953 or so. They picked up an old refrigerator someplace and with the electric lights their living conditions improved immeasurably.

After World War II our family decided that city life was not for us, so we moved to the Valley full time. These were the winters when the snows came in early December and stayed on the ground until March or April. Once a week during these cold winter nights they would invite brother Bill and I down to the cabin for dinner and an evening of "setback." Jennie was a good cook and I'll always remember her orange pie. The only place I ever tasted it. It was made like an apple pie, but with orange sections. A real treat!

They could be enjoyable company when they were sober, and these card nights were some of the best of Jennie's life in later years. It beats getting a cigarette shot out of your mouth!

One time when Floyd was working for us, I mean "helping us out," he said that Jennie's birthday was in a few days and he was going to get her a new stove for her birthday-would we give him a hand and help him bring it back on our truck? We scheduled a short job for that day and went over to Gordon's Second Hand Shop and picked up a combination gas and wood stove. This was a vast improvement over the wood stove that had to be kept going all summer and made the cabin hotter than Hades in July and August.

Floyd would have been a hero if we had gone right home, but he insisted that we go to "The Lantern" for a few beers. He had a few bucks left in his pocket and it was burning a hole. Well sir, by the time we could get him out of the place he was really in his cups. When we arrived at the cabin Jennie was sitting in her chair reading a dime novel with her usual cigarette hanging out of her mouth. Floyd went over to her and asked her if she knew how to stop a fox. He gave her a good blast and she took a swipe at him with her dime novel and said, "Not again you !@)#$%A&*&+!@#$% $A&*&%$ drunken officer's boot licker."

With their greetings exchanged, Floyd decided to install the new stove at once. The only problem was that there was a roaring fire going in the old stove. He put on his gloves and took the lids off the stove, reached down in the fire box and pulled out a chunk of wood and threw it out the kitchen door onto the lawn. Smoke filled the room, sparks were on the floor, Jennie was swearing in an octave above "high C." Every once in a while he would stop and show Jennie how to stop a fox. Bill and I are outside rolling in the grass laughing so hard that our sides hurt.

When he pulled down the stove pipe the smoke drove Jennie outside and we sat there and watched as pieces of the stove came flying out the door. Ashes, soot, smoke and sparks filled the place and Floyd decided it was time for a beer. He went into his root cellar and came out with three bottles of "Creamo" beer, New Britain, Connecticuts finest.

After a few beers the smoke cleared out and we helped him put in the new stove. "Happy Birthday old girl" he said and he gave her a kiss on the cheek. She said, "!@#$$%A&*+)($#@%AA%$$!"

One spring thaw the brook was unusually high and the water had risen high enough to cover the floor of the cabin. Jennie deserted the sinking ship, but Floyd chopped a hole in the downstream side of the house and went back to bed. In the morning the water was almost up to the mattress. He cut a bigger hole! Floyd was a perfectionist with his ax. When we would buy him a new one he would take it home, take the head off and shave the handle so the blade would toe in one third. He then ground it down on his grindstone until you could cut the hairs on your arm with it and then he buffed it until it was shining like a new nickel. "Woe unto" any man who picked up Floyd's ax!

When Floyd was sober, which happened more frequently as he grew older, he was not bad company. He had a Yankee wry dry sense of humor, and was interested in many subjects. There was a slight resemblance to Spencer Tracy the actor if you ignored his nose, which must have been flattened in some long ago fight. Some summers Crystal Carlson stayed with Floyd and Jennie. Floyd and Jennie had no children of their own, and they doted on her. She remembers them as "Fun summers," so I guess that Floyd was on his best behavior when she was around.

I was away at an Army Reserve Seminar in Atlantic City that February that Jennie died. She was full of cancer and she went fast. There was so much snow that Doug Carlson had to come up with his tractor and trailer to get her body up to the road. From what I heard, it was a frigid winter night and snowing hard. My mother said it was quite an ordeal. She was taken to a funeral home in Great Barrington, and her body was cremated. She had told my mother many times, "Make sure I'm cremated." When they were having an argument Floyd was apt to say, "I'll piss on your grave." She made sure that he wasn't able to.

With Jenny gone, Floyd was devastated! I have rarely seen anyone that was less able to cope. He started to drink hard liquor, which he had never used much. A friend, Bob Monroe, stayed with him and they were drunk morning, noon and night.

It only took him 30 days from the day Jennie died before he went. It was early one Monday morning - I was still in bed when Bob came up and yelled under my window -"Jack, can you take Floyd to the veterans hospital! He's terrible sick." I told him I'd get dressed and be right down. In 15 minutes Bob was back and said, "It's too late, when I went back down he was deader than hell."

Floyd didn't have enough money left for burial expenses, but there was the veterans allowance. I told Roger Newkirk. the undertaker, that my brother Dick and I would dig the grave. When we had the hole half dug, Dick said to me, "This is the last thing I'll do for Floyd." "No sir," I replied, "You are going to help carry him here and then you are going to help fill the grave!"

The funeral was held on one of those rare March days that was unseasonably warm and sunny. There were about 20 people there as we laid him in the family plot next to the rest of his family. Roger Newkirk said a few words over the grave.

We put a few bottles of "Cremo beer" down with him before we covered him up.

John J. Koneazny, Sheffield

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