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Daily Update
...“It opened with an inmate escaping in the dead of winter from an institution for the mentally deranged,”
Historians Go Fund Me 2022
https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast-2022 Or send a check made out to Bob Cudmore at 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.
Thursday, March 10, 2022
Budding moviemakers in the 1940s
By Bob Cudmore
A recent column with a list of names from the St. Stanislaus School eighth grade class of 1940 provided by Fred Wojcicki prompted class member George A. Tralka to recollect stories from his teen-age years.
Tralka left Amsterdam to join the Army in 1944, later became a medical doctor and now lives in Vienna, Virginia after many years in Washington, D.C.
Tralka’s high school friends included Harold Langley, Donald Blonkowski, Lou Hage and John Donlon. All attended St. Mary’s Institute.
The group hung out at various spots—Rapello’s Pharmacy or Kansas Restaurant on East Main, and Brownie’s hot dog restaurant or Wytrwal’s Furniture on Reid Hill.
According to Tralka, Langley was the group’s Civil War authority and filmmaker. Langley is retired as curator of U.S. Naval History at the Smithsonian in Washington and professor of American History at Catholic University.
Blonkowski was a master of dialects, impersonation and social commentary back in the day. Blonkowski has passed away and was a graduate of Georgetown's School of Foreign Service.
Hage provided sage advice as a teen. He is retired after a long career with the State Department in Washington.
Donlon sang tenor growing up in Amsterdam in a barbershop-style singing group that could be heard “in occasionally raffish song” under Guy Park Avenue’s streetlights. He went to the U.S. Naval Academy and a career as a nuclear submarine commander.
Tralka and Donlon had fathers with similar interests. Joseph J. Tralka was a church organist and Upstate New York correspondent for a Polish language newspaper based in Buffalo. Hugh P. Donlon was also a church organist and a reporter for the Recorder, who wrote a history of Amsterdam in 1980.
Langley, the Civil War buff, got the group to march in an Amsterdam Halloween parade as Civil War soldiers. The boys had gray suits that passed for Confederate uniforms. Tralka won a prize for his portrayal of a wounded Confederate. He still has the prize, a now battered volume of “One Hundred Condensed Novels” donated by Seely-Conover’s stationery.
Langley also had a hand-cranked Univex movie camera back in the 1940s and organized his friends in making a movie called “The Mad Mortician.”
“It opened with an inmate escaping in the dead of winter from an institution for the mentally deranged,” Tralka wrote. “A dark figure is seen vaulting over a brick wall, snow flying. We used the City Hall on Church Street as a stand-in for that institution. This did provoke some brave comments from some of us about the appropriateness of the locale.”
For the shoot, Tralka fashioned a faux brass plaque from cardboard and shoe polish with bold letters reading Insane Asylum.
“On film it looked like a brass plate,” Tralka said.
The group shot the opening scene during Christmas vacation and the following summer, scenes were acted out along the railroad track near James Street.
Exterior stone walls of the Langley home on Romeyn Avenue were used as interior walls for those scenes set in an abandoned building where nefarious events took place at the hands of a demented mortician played by Blonkowski.
The group made other films, one called “Professor Bixby and Dr. Leach.” They used retired Army uniforms with helmets to enact brief scenes for a World War II infantry film on the snowy hillsides of McDonald Drive.
“The National Guard Armory kindly allowed us to use one of their Jeeps, and an exact copy of an M-1 Garand rifle was fashioned by me,” Tralka wrote. “It looked like a grand project until Harold Langley's camera was stolen in the course of a bus ride and we never really resumed our filmmaking after that.”
Tomorrow, Friday, March 11, 2022 Episode 413 with Bob Cudmore
The first highlights episode of 2022 with excerpts from seven Historians Podcasts including Evacuation Day in New York City, 100 years of WGY radio in Schenectady, a chat with New York State historian Devin Lander, the case for Benedict Arnold and more.
Saturday, March 12, 2022
Mendets, paper clips, sporting goods and more
Focus on History in the Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder-Collette’s
Sharpin your shovel and hone your skill at snow removal, or pay the plow guy
Mohawk Valley Weather, Thursday, March 10, 2022
...WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM FRIDAY EVENING THROUGH LATE
SATURDAY NIGHT...
* WHAT...Heavy snow possible. Total snow accumulations of 6 to 12
inches possible, with potentially up to 15 inches over the
western Adirondacks. Winds could gust as high as 35 mph.
* WHERE...The southern and western Adirondacks, the central and western
Mohawk Valley and Schoharie County of eastern New York and the
southern Greens Mountains of southern Vermont.
* WHEN...Friday night through late Saturday evening.
* IMPACTS...Travel could be very difficult and potentially
dangerous due to snow covered roadways and reduced visibility.
* ADDITIONAL DETAILS...Snow rates may exceed one inch per hour
during the day on Saturday.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
Monitor the latest forecasts for updates on this situation.
Dispatch of the days Information
Dispatch of the days Information
Mohawk Valley News Headlines, Thursday, March 10, 2022
Daily Gazette
Mark Morris explores music and movement; dance group at The Egg Friday
Celebrated choreographer Mark Morris is thrilled to bring his company, Mark Morris Dance Group, to The Egg on Friday.
https://dailygazette.com/
Amsterdam Recorder
Attorney seeks dismissal of lawsuits against Nauman Hussain’s uncle in limo disaster
Town of Amsterdam residents oppose variance for solar project
https://www.recordernews.com/
Leader Herald
Johnstown officials failed to issue proper responses to March 2021 audit
by Andrew Waite
https://www.leaderherald.com/
View all episodes
By Bob Cudmore
...“It opened with an inmate escaping in the dead of winter from an institution for the mentally deranged,”
Historians Go Fund Me 2022
https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast-2022 Or send a check made out to Bob Cudmore at 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.
Thursday, March 10, 2022
Budding moviemakers in the 1940s
By Bob Cudmore
A recent column with a list of names from the St. Stanislaus School eighth grade class of 1940 provided by Fred Wojcicki prompted class member George A. Tralka to recollect stories from his teen-age years.
Tralka left Amsterdam to join the Army in 1944, later became a medical doctor and now lives in Vienna, Virginia after many years in Washington, D.C.
Tralka’s high school friends included Harold Langley, Donald Blonkowski, Lou Hage and John Donlon. All attended St. Mary’s Institute.
The group hung out at various spots—Rapello’s Pharmacy or Kansas Restaurant on East Main, and Brownie’s hot dog restaurant or Wytrwal’s Furniture on Reid Hill.
According to Tralka, Langley was the group’s Civil War authority and filmmaker. Langley is retired as curator of U.S. Naval History at the Smithsonian in Washington and professor of American History at Catholic University.
Blonkowski was a master of dialects, impersonation and social commentary back in the day. Blonkowski has passed away and was a graduate of Georgetown's School of Foreign Service.
Hage provided sage advice as a teen. He is retired after a long career with the State Department in Washington.
Donlon sang tenor growing up in Amsterdam in a barbershop-style singing group that could be heard “in occasionally raffish song” under Guy Park Avenue’s streetlights. He went to the U.S. Naval Academy and a career as a nuclear submarine commander.
Tralka and Donlon had fathers with similar interests. Joseph J. Tralka was a church organist and Upstate New York correspondent for a Polish language newspaper based in Buffalo. Hugh P. Donlon was also a church organist and a reporter for the Recorder, who wrote a history of Amsterdam in 1980.
Langley, the Civil War buff, got the group to march in an Amsterdam Halloween parade as Civil War soldiers. The boys had gray suits that passed for Confederate uniforms. Tralka won a prize for his portrayal of a wounded Confederate. He still has the prize, a now battered volume of “One Hundred Condensed Novels” donated by Seely-Conover’s stationery.
Langley also had a hand-cranked Univex movie camera back in the 1940s and organized his friends in making a movie called “The Mad Mortician.”
“It opened with an inmate escaping in the dead of winter from an institution for the mentally deranged,” Tralka wrote. “A dark figure is seen vaulting over a brick wall, snow flying. We used the City Hall on Church Street as a stand-in for that institution. This did provoke some brave comments from some of us about the appropriateness of the locale.”
For the shoot, Tralka fashioned a faux brass plaque from cardboard and shoe polish with bold letters reading Insane Asylum.
“On film it looked like a brass plate,” Tralka said.
The group shot the opening scene during Christmas vacation and the following summer, scenes were acted out along the railroad track near James Street.
Exterior stone walls of the Langley home on Romeyn Avenue were used as interior walls for those scenes set in an abandoned building where nefarious events took place at the hands of a demented mortician played by Blonkowski.
The group made other films, one called “Professor Bixby and Dr. Leach.” They used retired Army uniforms with helmets to enact brief scenes for a World War II infantry film on the snowy hillsides of McDonald Drive.
“The National Guard Armory kindly allowed us to use one of their Jeeps, and an exact copy of an M-1 Garand rifle was fashioned by me,” Tralka wrote. “It looked like a grand project until Harold Langley's camera was stolen in the course of a bus ride and we never really resumed our filmmaking after that.”
Tomorrow, Friday, March 11, 2022 Episode 413 with Bob Cudmore
The first highlights episode of 2022 with excerpts from seven Historians Podcasts including Evacuation Day in New York City, 100 years of WGY radio in Schenectady, a chat with New York State historian Devin Lander, the case for Benedict Arnold and more.
Saturday, March 12, 2022
Mendets, paper clips, sporting goods and more
Focus on History in the Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder-Collette’s
Sharpin your shovel and hone your skill at snow removal, or pay the plow guy
Mohawk Valley Weather, Thursday, March 10, 2022
...WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM FRIDAY EVENING THROUGH LATE
SATURDAY NIGHT...
* WHAT...Heavy snow possible. Total snow accumulations of 6 to 12
inches possible, with potentially up to 15 inches over the
western Adirondacks. Winds could gust as high as 35 mph.
* WHERE...The southern and western Adirondacks, the central and western
Mohawk Valley and Schoharie County of eastern New York and the
southern Greens Mountains of southern Vermont.
* WHEN...Friday night through late Saturday evening.
* IMPACTS...Travel could be very difficult and potentially
dangerous due to snow covered roadways and reduced visibility.
* ADDITIONAL DETAILS...Snow rates may exceed one inch per hour
during the day on Saturday.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
Monitor the latest forecasts for updates on this situation.
Dispatch of the days Information
Dispatch of the days Information
Mohawk Valley News Headlines, Thursday, March 10, 2022
Daily Gazette
Mark Morris explores music and movement; dance group at The Egg Friday
Celebrated choreographer Mark Morris is thrilled to bring his company, Mark Morris Dance Group, to The Egg on Friday.
https://dailygazette.com/
Amsterdam Recorder
Attorney seeks dismissal of lawsuits against Nauman Hussain’s uncle in limo disaster
Town of Amsterdam residents oppose variance for solar project
https://www.recordernews.com/
Leader Herald
Johnstown officials failed to issue proper responses to March 2021 audit
by Andrew Waite
https://www.leaderherald.com/