Life Sketches by Terry Berkson: A silo salesman striking with a sledgehammer Over the years, Paul Sarafin had come to believe that silos were like barometers. “When the economic weather for farming was good they went up” he says. “And when it was bad, they often came down, sold secondhand to someone looking for a buy.” Sarafin, 78, lives near Richfield Springs, and had been in the silo business for almost 50 years. At first, he built them for the…
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Life Sketches by Terry Berkson: Swimming with the manatees leads to ideas Homosassa Springs is one of the stops we always make when visiting Florida. It has great fishing, though I only catch and release, because Alice doesn’t like to cook while on vacation. Luckily, there are some great restaurants that, especially for this year, had open, outdoor accommodations. Motorboats, paddle boards and kayaks are readily available for rent if you want to swim with the manatees, which is one…
Life Sketches Bunker lived life like it was an adventure Donald Hill was the first kid I met in Richfield. His family lived in an apartment in back of my aunt’s house on Lake Street. It was in late August of 1950 and my dad had brought me and my cousin Leo up from Brooklyn for a stay in the country. Donald and Leo were about 12- or 13-years old and I was a seven-year old kid who insisted on…
Life Sketches Letting go of the past is a challenge at any age My son Jonathan called me the other night to tell me he missed the old house in Brooklyn. He had lived there his whole life, as I did mine, except for the Army and my longest winter in Richfield Springs. I told him I missed the house, too, and described my last days there. We had sold to a builder, so I knew the old Victorian was…
Life Sketches Howling at the moon to help ‘the chickens’ During a cold snap several years ago, night temperatures up on our hill on the west side of Canadarago Lake were hovering around 22 below zero. Worried about my chickens freezing their gizzards off, I hung a 100-watt bulb on a wire in our small coop inside the barn and let it burn 24 hours a day. I’m sure it raised the temperature a bit, but it also increased egg…
Life Sketches Remembering the sad story of a Soviet Prisoner He sat under the apple trees at Holy Trinity Monastery outside of Jordanville as the warm breeze lifted the thin pages of the book he was holding. Lush foliage seemed to exude an abundance of life. Church bells marked the time of day, but he didn’t appear to notice as his thin, intent face strained to absorb the words. The thick book he was reading was nearly turned to its…
Life Sketches Saying goodbye to Bert, man’s best friend Bert always watched me, even though he didn’t let on. He was an Irish setter and thought his only purpose was to hunt birds. I’d come home from work and peek through the fence to see him lounging upside down in the grass. Then I’d enter the yard and as soon as he’d see me he’d jump to his feet, his old bones grinding and start hunting up the mourning doves…
Life Sketches Vivid memories were made working on the farm Of all the farms I worked on as a boy, the most memorable was the old Borden Farm, which was on the east side of Canadarago Lake outside of Richfield Springs. By the time I came along, it had recently been sold to Bill and Shirley Weingates. Back then, they were milking about 200 cows on one of the biggest operations in the area. The first job I had was…
Life Sketches ‘Impetuous 30s’ led to Richfield Springs farm In what my dad later referred to as his “impetuous 30s,” we left Brooklyn one summer and headed for Richfield Springs to stay with my father’s older brother William and his wife Ruta. One afternoon, Dad returned to Uncle William’s house, his car steaming after a long trip. “I’m buying a farm,” he announced as we all sat at a big round oak dinner table. “A farm?” Uncle William said. He…
Life Sketches The amazing mind-reading machine claims a victim Sometimes my father would sit in his chair, lost in thought, for hours. I’d often wonder what he was thinking about. Maybe it was about my mother who had a nervous breakdown several years before and was still in the hospital. He used to take me in his yellow taxi to country auctions, where he’d buy things that we would need on the farm he would buy some day. Even as…
