Is Tully the home of the local favorite, the Tully Burger? A Tully Burger is essentially a hamburger with lettuce, tomato, onion and cheese--a dressed burger as the New Yorkers say. We will never know...but the Tully Invitational Race was exciting...blue skies, low humidity, good loud music, and tons and tons of running kids. A. came in 10th and got a golden teeshirt and a pink ribbon. Once again. Not top 5 but for the first season and his third week into it...not too bad. Form looked good. Attitude was good. The girls are all over him. Do you think he might think this is a good thing. It's the teenage version of a cocktail party--where they all mingle, eat, chat and mix it up. I think it is actually on par or could be better than the socializing and party that the ski bus and skiing provides. Either way...who thought you could have so much fun with a sport and have cute girls cheering you on and hanging on you every broken sentence. Let the good times keep coming.
The Tully-ites were wonderful selling really good pizza to the kids, and had a huge, farm style crate on piece of wood to keep it off the ground for everyone to help themselves to the local specialty of the week, macintosh apples...all cold,crisp and wet...We each had one to our delight. Heaven. The school was beautiful with a brand new everything from greenhouse and track to the lineup of perfect schoolbuses K exclaimed over.
The drive over was okay..but the drive back was filled with all sorts of fun. First, outside of Homer NY is a wonderful barbeque call Bobs. It's an open air operation offering pulled pork, barbequed brisket or the NYS classic, halfs and whole chickens. No fried food. Just a good slaw, some beans (I don't get it), salt potatoes (another local favorite) with a load of pie offerings (sweet potatoe, raspberry, blueberry, fresh peach, and the "creams" (you can guess)). We sat outside at picnic tables and took in the perfection of the mowed grass, the mulched to the nines trees and these engineered plantings. It was the best of Central New York. It is a must! They close at the end of October and open in May...so make your plans soon or pencil it in for next spring...Worth it if you are in the area.
Then, on through Homer, which was beautiful with a wonderful Main Street with truly perfect and magnificent houses with the best of the lot being over the top Victorians that have been maintained and restored to perfection. Then on to Cortland and a drive through SUNY Cortland which is a very pretty campus on top of a hill...Everything seemed very spit and polish, very maintained and clean. Seemed very, very, nice. Put SUNY Cortland on the college list (either to pursue for teaching or sending kids as an option).
We then went on to discover a place that somehow exists near a black hole. Freeville, NY or if K. had her way with the naming, it would be Free(k)ville. R. claimed it was a trip to recognize an early birthday. Whatever it was, it was wonderfully wierd. Once you near the town of Freeville, the fields get very tidy and maintained. Lots of horses. Beautiful buildings, old--but with good paint on them etc. with worlds on them like "Massachusetts" or "Cabinet Shop" and you are in the world of the George Junior Republic. Impressive facilities and scale. Money is being poured into it. In the spirit of the former millenium, read a bit of what George Junior is all about>>. It emerges and one is submerged in an almost antique feeling of community and then, you turn the corner and its vanished. But wait, there's more. Around the Corner was a stark, handlettered sign announcing another millenial community, the Temple of Truth, a spiritualist and healing community. I will put images up tomorrow just to show you what's what. It is very odd--lots of small single room, wooden structures clustered together with an odd fountain constructed of brick with an afro spray of water. There was an old 1970s style, brown bus shelter in the middle, off the single lane road that had signs designating qualified/certified healers and spirituals as the only pros that could practice on the grounds. There is a tiny building designated as the gift shop and another tiny building for rest rooms. K. likened the whole feeling and look of the place to a movie she saw on nudist colonies. Succinct. That's our girl. I am imagining a Sunday at 11:30 in the summer with the tiny church filled with seeing and healing, the gift shop rockin and people sitting on the linear benches not looking at each other, but out at the passing parade. Wierd city.. or do I just need to say Free(k)ville? Need to learn more.
One blog entry on Freeville:
There are several communities of Spiritualist mediums in the US. In NY (where I am from) there are two of them, Freeville and Lily Dale. (These are small communities...Freeville is 2 blocks long and 2 blocks wide, with maybe 20 houses, Lily Dale is 8 blocks long and 4 blocks wide with maybe 200 houses.) There are about a dozen mediums who live in Freeville and about 3 dozen in Lily Dale. In addition, there are hundreds of other working mediums who are spread out from one end of NY to the other. Most bigger cities have one or more Spiritualist churches (Buffalo, NYC, Rochester, Syracuse). I know that there are similar set ups in Ohio and Florida. (from beliefnet.com)
From the National Spiritualist Association of Churches the Temple of Truth is affiliated with--their description of what their mission/vision/values are:
NSAC …The object of this Society is to effect a complete organization of the Spiritualists of the United States of America into one general association … for the advancement of those purposes, undertakings and enterprises germane to the study of the phenomena, the promotion of the Science, and the promulgation of the Philosophy and Religion of Spiritualism.
Spiritualism is the Science, Philosophy, and Religion of continuous life, based upon the demonstrated fact of communication, by means of mediumship, with those who live in the Spirit World.
Spiritualism is founded upon a Declaration of Principles, nine in number, received from the Spirit World by means of mediumship. They provide a firm and tangible foundation on which to base the knowledge of Spiritualism.
Here is the history (abbreviated) by the NSAC (http://www.nsac.org/history.htm). Fascinating--that the Fox sisters were first.
Read on, dear readers. This is more "live from the burn-out zone"...
Then on the mundane:to Staples to buy stuff for the Ithaca Art Trail, and get Rob a haircut by the best barbers in Ithaca (Pesco in the Chinese Dollar Store Plaza, next to the Salvation Army Thrift Store).
We are back. I am sorting through the piles in my office to figure out what goes, what stays, what is stored, what is shelved. You get the idea. Working through the pile. Need to call Picture Salon to get some status on my cards. Holiday cards are all printed and boxed (thanks to the sleeves and boxes I got for this sort of thing from Clear Bag>>see list). Lulu book goes out early next week.
Rob put forth an amazing idea for the Betsy and Ted Lewin Book for UH next year. Need to incubate the idea...Its a winner.
Got my diploma in the mail yesterday from SU. I guess I done matriculated. And, it's finally paid for too!
I will upload the pix a little later!
(picture above is of the famous Fox sisters--downloaded from Wiki entry on spiritualism)..
Hemlock Grove, Q. Cassetti, 2010, pen and ink“painting with scissors.” Matisse said, “Only what I created after the illness constitutes my real self: free, liberated.” 
