Interestingly enough, the Ides, which is a term from the ancient Roman calendar, fell on the 15th day of March, May, July and October, but on the 13th of the other months of the year. And the Ides actually disappeared when the Roman Calendar was displaced by the Julian Calendar, which has since been displaced by the Gregorian Calendar. Nonetheless, the Ides were part of the vernacular for centuries, used to denote the middle of the month. And while most of us probably pay little attention to the Ides of March, it seems that they are celebrated every year by the Rome Hash House Harriers with a toga run in the streets of Rome, in the same place where Julius Caesar was killed. Fortunately, we know of no such scheduled run for Cooperstown and trust that any sense of doom regarding the Ides of March will be limited to the reading of this column.

A while ago now, we were alerted to the fact that there was going to be an article in the February-March 2007 edition of Memories and Dreams, the magazine produced by the Baseball Hall of Fame for its members, which we might well find of interest. The article, "Addie Joss’ McGuffey Reader: A Hall of Fame Education" by John Odell details the fact that among the many items which the Hall of Fame houses, there is a copy of McGuffey’s Fifth Eclectic Reader. According to the article, the "McGuffey’s Fifth Eclectic Reader acquired 15 years ago, exemplifies the unusual artifacts that baseball brings to our institution. It also shows the many criteria the Hall of Fame uses when accepting an artifact, whether a baseball, a book or a bowling ball, into its holdings." And while the book does have a passage in it from James Fenimore Cooper’s "The Pilot," it would seem to have little else to do with either Cooperstown or baseball if it were not for the fact that the book once belonged to Hall of Famer Adrian C. "Addie" Joss. In fact, on the inside front cover, in pencil, the book is signed with "Addie Joss, Juneau Wis."

Now even though we had never heard of Addie Joss, we did find it interesting that the Hall of Fame has one of his childhood textbooks. It certainly is not something that we would have thought the Hall of Fame would have and find it to be rather interesting that they do. However, the real reason that we were told we would probably enjoy this article has to do not with the baseball player or the book, but with the deductive techniques used to determine whether or not the signature in the book does indeed belong to Addie Joss. And this is where a topic we have discussed before in this column comes into play.

According to the article, "The upper case A’ in Addie’ and the W’ from his home state of Wisconsin are textbook examples of Spencerian handwriting, the careful style you might expect of a youth practicing his name in an important place. Moreover, by the 1890s Spencerian script was already being pushed out of favor by the Palmer system, further confirming the signature’s age." We love it. It’s the old Spencerian versus the Palmer method of handwriting debate. And while the article does conclude that it is unlikely that a definitive decision can be made concerning the signature, "... the ownership history of the Fifth Eclectic Reader and the style of the handwriting suggest that this is Joss’s early signature ..." And our informer was right. We are glad that the article was brought to our attention.

We have received a letter from John Rogers of Brewerton, N.Y., who is presenting "All About Bluebirds _ and More" at the Friday, March 16, meeting of the Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society which will be held beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the Elm Park Methodist Church in Oneonta. The meeting is open to the public and refreshments will be served. And while Oneonta is not that far from Cooperstown, Mr. Rogers tells us that he would really like to present his slide show on bluebirds in Cooperstown. Therefore, he wonders if there is a group here who would be interested in sponsoring his presentation. His only request would be for a fair and reasonable amount to cover mileage expenses. If there is a local group who would be interested in sponsoring Mr. Rogers’ program, please let us know and we will pass on his contact information.

In closing, we have once again survived the change to daylight savings time. We must admit that we always hate the change, springing ahead in the spring and falling back in the fall. And this year, we were forced to spring ahead and it wasn’t even spring. In fact, when we peered out the window on the morning of our first full day of daylight savings time, it was snowing. We quite agree with the person who told us one year that she hated the change to daylight saving time because she thought it just gave her a longer time each day to stare out the window at the piles of snow. And that certainly is the case this year.

We remain,

In these Otsego hills,

The Ellsworths

The Ellsworths may be reached by mail at 105 Pioneer St., Cooperstown, N.Y. 13326, by telephone at 547-8124 or by e-mail at cellsworth1@stny.rr.com. They look forward to hearing from you.