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137

I believe it's perfectly natural that you remember things in your childhood better than things that occurred in middle-age. At any rate, one example of this is my recollection of our house on Highland Avenue and the Halsted house next door. I think I could draw floor plans of both houses and even hit the dimensions of the rooms pretty close. One feature of our house was a door on the landing of the front stairs which opened onto the top of a second flight of stairs descending to the kitchen for the use of the maid. In the Halsted house, I can't recall much about the furnishing and pictures except a few items like the big Victrola and a small white marble statue of a reclining nude woman they had on a pedestal in an alcove of the living room, a beautiful thing. Don't believe I've mentioned that the Halsteds had a Stevens-Duryea car, quite ritzy for the time. If I ever can find the time, which I doubt, I'll draw a floor plan of their house just to prove my claim.

The Strongs, my Chicago kin, had a Winton, another top-flight automobile of the time. Uncle Ned Strong was quite a dude, dressing beautifully and it was said that he used his handkerchiefs once and discarded them; also, believe he did the same with his underpants, now referred to as shorts.

According to Peg Robey, Grandma Craton came north once before my father was married and visited him at "his fancy boarding house." I presume this was where he became acquainted with Herbert Franklin and other Syracuse notables. How interesting it would be to have a record of his life and acquaintances during that period.

Bordering the sidewalk where it passed the vacant lot next door on Highland Avenue, was a hedge maybe six or eight feet through of bushes four or five feet high and bearing numerous small white berries. I loved to crawl into this hedge when I was a very small boy and hide in there and move around among the bushes as if I were in another world but still able to peek out on this one. I suppose it dated back a few dozen generations or maybe a few hundred, to the time my ancestors hid in the woods against their enemies.

One famed industry in Syracuse was the Onondaga Pottery Co., the makers of Syracuse China, famed the country over. Went through their plant once and was fascinated by the potters shaping up various vessels and dishes of all kinds. We still have one unusual piece of Syracuse China, a plate my father brought home from a dinner at the Onondaga Hotel of Aprip 8, 1912 in honor of Woodrow Wilson, given by the Chamber of Commerce. This evidently was preliminary to Wilson's campaign for the presidency that year. My father was a Democrat, like all good Southerners were in those days, and I doubt if he voted Republican although I can't remember his ever talking about politics when I was around.