We had the honor of being able to attend the birthday celebration held last Saturday to mark Nancy Dunn’s 80th birthday. Family and friends gathered at the Baptist church on Elm Street to partake of fantastic food and friendly fellowship not to mention the three time singing of "Happy Birthday." All in all we found it to be an appropriate celebration for an 80th birthday and wish Nancy many more birthdays to come.

It has come to our attention that in his duties as Village Historian Hugh MacDougall received an e-mail asking about Millers-on-the-Lake as follows: "... I remember that we used to get wonderful hamburgers with a fantastic pickle relish at a restaurant (or hamburger place) on Cooperstown Lake. We always ate outside where they had a screened area that looked through the trees to the lake. The last time I ate there was around 1958. Could you please tell who owned it, what happened to it and ... most of all ... do you know how I could find a recipe for that wonderful pickle relish ..."

Hugh being Hugh easily was able to answer the question of who by checking the 1930 US Census, New York, Otsego County, Town of Springfield, p. 83, 49-47 where he discovered the following: "La Vern Miller, white, male, head, age 55, married, age at marriage 50. Proprietor, Road and Gas Stand. Born NY, parents born NY. Owns home $500. Has radio. Bertha Miller, white, female, wife, age 50, married, age at marriage 45. Born NY, parents born NY.

"Ellen Lennon, white, female, mother-in-law, age 73, widowed. Born NY, parents born NY."

So we know who owned Miller’s. Unfortunately we do not know when it ceased operation although we believe it was long gone by the time we came on the Cooperstown scene in 1971. Nor do we have the recipe for the pickle relish. However, Hugh also did reference for us, a column written about Miller’s by the Badger.

According to Hugh, Bob Seaver ("The Badger") wrote a column about Millers ("The Badger Revisits Miller’s-on-the-Lake") on July 27, 1977, which is reprinted (with a picture of the place) in his 2006 book (published just before his death), "Cooperstown, Otsego and the World as seen by The Badger." He says of Millers: "Somewhere in this town, maybe in a drawer or a kitchen file or between the pages of a cookbook, lies a receipt,’ and it tells exactly how to make Ma Miller’s piccalilli. It’s priceless. Anyone who remembers the Lake Road when it was made of cement remembers Miller’s. And if you happen to ask about it, sit down _ you’ll be in for a twenty-minute dissertation. Everyone has his own version of the perfect hamburger or hot dog with Ma’s piccalilli _ or the still-hot strawberry-rhubarb pies _ or the fresh lettuce and tomatoes _ or the inverted bottle of spring water that made the big bubble when some water was drawn off ... balooble-uuump" ... into an unmanageable paper cup."

And we have a feeling that we have addressed the issue of Miller’s and its famous pickle relish before in this column. The he-we used to speak of it fondly. However, we cannot remember whether or not we were able at that time to get the recipe for this delicacy. Therefore we are hopeful now that someone, somewhere, somehow has the recipe and would be willing to share it. Please let us know so we might pass it on.

Not long ago, we came across a piece on the internet which had to do with problems between wild bears and humans. And since Cooperstown had had a run in with a bear earlier this year, we thought we might broaden our knowledge by reading the article. We were doing fine with it until we read: "And in 2005, state officials discovered a one-year-old black bear in the home of a Roseburg man. The bear had been living there for years, it turns out, eating people food, even sleeping in a bed made for humans." Unfortunately, at that point in the article, since we had great difficulty figuring out how any one year old bear had lived anywhere for years, we decided we would not continue reading it. As a result it proved not to be as informative for us as we had hoped.

In closing, we were recently asked how we managed to write this column week in and week out. We must admit that we were clueless as to exactly how to answer the question. We suspect there must be a bit of an art to it although we have never really given it much thought. We just do it. In fact there are times when we think we could, and probably have, done it in our sleep. We will say, however, that we think the process is a never ending one. We tend to jot our thoughts down throughout the week, sometimes even writing some part of the column up should the mood strike us. Then sometime over the weekend, we sit down at the computer and start writing. Thus far at least, the result always seems to be a column.

We remain,

In these Otsego hills,

The Ellsworths

The Ellsworths may be reached by mail at 105 Pioneer Street, 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.