On Tuesday, Feb. 4, at 7:30 p.m., the Friends of the Village Library will sponsor a talk by Hugh MacDougall, who will speak on the Vikings who discovered North America a thousand years ago and who lived and survived on the desolate coast of Greenland for almost 500 years before disappearing about the time Christopher Columbus set forth on his travels to the New World. The talk, which will be illustrated with a number of slides, will be given at the Cooperstown Village Library. All are welcome.

And on Saturday, Feb. 8, from 5 to 7 p.m., Christ Church will hold a fund raising spaghetti dinner in the dining of the Parish House located at 69 Fair St., Cooperstown. A minimum donation of $5 per person is asked for the dinner. Proceeds from the dinner will benefit C.C.S. senior Natalie Green.

A while ago we asked the question of why the colors for Christmas are red and green? And we are happy to report that Gail Nagel, daughter of Alice and Harvey Eckler and soon to be appointed research librarian for this column, sent us the results of her search. She writes: "According to World Book Encyclopedia, (and the Christian religion) green is for 'continuance of life through the winter and the Christian belief of eternal life through Christ.' Red is the blood that Jesus shed at his Crucifixion." She continues: "I'm sure there is some more interesting pagan explanation, but I just did a quick check ... More likely, red and green are the only natural colors around in winter other than black and brown and white. Actually, I'm thinking green stands for money. They didn't have credit cards back then." We thank Gail for her input and trust that she keeps up the good work.

Each year, the Fenimore Quilt Club, which is currently busily getting ready for the 12th annual Cooperstown Quilt Show, holds a Twelfth Night plus or minus the number of days away from Jan. 6 party. At this year's affair, conversation turned, for whatever reason, to the subject of Candlemas. (Don't ask, we don't know.) There was, at the party, general confusion as to exactly what Candlemas is and so, without turning to our newly appointed research librarian, we were able, with the help of Jean Lyon of Delaware Street, to gather information on Candlemas.

According to Celebrations: The Complete Book of American Holidays, "Candlemas is actually the celebration of two events which took place at the same time and in the same place: the presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary." By the seventh century it had become known as the Purification of Mary and was celebrated on Feb. 2. It was Pope Sergius I who added a procession of candles to the celebration from which its got the name Candlemas.

In our somewhat limited research, we also discovered "An old tradition still kept in some places, but for the most part set forward to January 6, was that Christmas decorations were taken down by Candlemas." Here on upper Pioneer Street, we have, of course, moved the removal of Christmas wreaths back to Easter, a fact of which the Celebrations book seems blissfully ignorant.

In closing, we read an article in the Dec. 6, 2002 Christian Science Monitor on one of the hottest art commodities, namely quilts. It seems that a traveling quilt exhibit, "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," was currently at the Whitney Museum in New York. Since we have a more than passing interest in quilting, we dutifully saved the article to share with fellow quilters. Then, several weeks ago, we tuned into "Breakfast with the Arts" on A&E only to discover that this same quilt show was being discussed. No sooner had we finished watching that TV show, when the wee-we called to say there was a show on, we think, CBS on quilts which we might want to check out. Sure enough, it was the same Gee's Bend quilt show. And finally, later that week, we saw a piece on the Gee's Bend quilts on the evening news. It isn't often , we think, that a quilt show gets such great exposure. Not only are we happy with all the publicity, but we are truly delighted to see quilts being recognized as works of art.

We remain,

In these Otsego hills,

Where nature smiles,

The Ellsworths

P.S. We hasten to note that the column which appeared in last week's paper was not quite the column we had written. Due to a glitch of some description, about half of the column was replaced by a news release from UCCCA. Unfortunately, the following information went missing:

We recently encountered an article in the Christian Science Monitor about a trip to Sweden for students at the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music. The trip is somewhat unusual in that it allows the students to actually give recitals on six organs at the School of Music at Goteborg University in Sweden. They will also attend lectures, seminars and lessons at the University. We found all of these to be even more interesting when we learned, from Matthew Tabor, a graduate student at Boston University, that C.C.S. graduate Eric Dombrowski is one of the students on the trip. We are certain that Eric will enjoy the experience and we hope, upon his return, that he reports, one way or another, about the trip.

Former Cooperstonian Jim Rowley, now of Oneonta, was kind enough to send us an article from the Jan. 8, 2003 edition of The Tri-Town News entitled "The Way We Were," by Charles Decker, Afton Town and Village Historian. The article, obviously historical in nature, is about the Otesaga Hotel here in Cooperstown as well as the A.C.C. Gym, the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital and the Farmers' Museum. We enjoyed reading it and than Jim for sending it to us.

In closing, we would like to salute the crew of the Village of Cooperstown Street Department for all of the hard work that they have done in dealing with the more than necessary amount of snow that we have received thus far this season. We realize that getting around can be a problem. For example, with our side of upper Pioneer Street being constantly parked full, two way traffic on the street is no longer possible. In fact, to avoid having to back out of our driveway, we have taken to backing into it. Nonetheless, without the hard work of the dedicated street crew, we are reasonably certain that things could be, and would be, much, much worse. We thank them and trust that they keep up the good work.

NOTE: The Ellsworths may be reached by mail at 105 Pioneer Street, Cooperstown, NY 13326, by telephone at 607-547-8124 or by e-mail at gbecle@wpe.com. They look forward to hearing from you.