A Place for all the Old Timers to Get Together

 

The Pioneer's Club

The Pioneer’s Club Newsletter

Volume 3, Issue   

April, 2009

April Holidays

Obituary Page

I found myself updating the Obituary page too many times last month.

 

· Mark Keogh - Fairport/Canandaigua, NY: March 3, 2009. Mark retired in 2003 as the Treasurer.

· James F. Cole - Knoxville, TN: March 8, 2009.  Jim retired from the Rate Department.

· Salvatore Bellitta - Fairport, NY, March 13, 2009 at age 88. Sal was a retiree from Gas Eng. 

· Daniel P. Horrocks - March 13, 2009, Rochester, NY at age 62. Danny was a lineman .

· Thomas R. Grant - Sparta, NY: March 14, 2009 at the age of 68.  Tom was a retiree from Forecast and Budget.

· James F. Dunne - March 24, 2009, Fairport, NY.  Jim worked as a nuclear engineer at Ginna for 19 years.

· George Edward Paul - March 26, 2009, Hamlin, NY. at age 76. George retired from Beebee Station.

They will be missed by all who knew them.

 

 

1st - April’s Fools Day

5th - Palm Sunday

8th - Passover

12th - Easter

13th - Easter Monday (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, & UK

22nd - Earth Day and Administrative Professional’s Day

24th - Arbor Day

25th - Anzac Day (Australia & New Zealand)

27th - Anzac Day Observance (Australia)

Anzac Day marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War.

Recreation

I know it doesn’t seem possible, but Spring is really coming.  And with spring comes all the outdoor recreation activities.

 

This newsletter is dedicated to keeping you all informed of what’s going on.

 

Now I know it seems a bit early, but soon the golf leagues will be starting up again.  So if you wish to have your leagues listed here, now is the time to contact me.. 

 

There are a lot of things going on that would be of interest to Pioneer’s Club Members.  If you know of anything you’d like to publicize just drop me an email with all the details and I’ll be glad to do it.

 

The Missing RG&E News Mystery

We are putting the middle years (1930-1979) of the RG&E News on the web site.

 

While doing this, Barry Nenno noticed an editorial in the June 1944 issue that it was the first RG&E News published in six years!

 

So we started a search to find out why.

 

In the November 1938 issue, I discovered  the reason.  It seems that the company was in financial trouble and looking for things to cut in an effort to save money.  So the News was a causality.

 

If you want to read some interesting history, look at these issues.

 

 

Manufactured Gas

When we were putting together the 1938 issues of the RG&E News, we struck gold.  (Or at least that’s what the gas guys said).

 

We found of booklet detailing the RG&E History of Manufactured Gas complete with pictures.  The booklet showed and explains how gas was manufactured, stored and distributed.

 

It is a real trip back in our history because this book is dated 1938.

 

To top it off, the September 1938 issue of the RG&E News does a story on the “Second Annual Old Range Round-up”.  This appeared to be an advertising blitz to sell new gas ranges with all the safety features.

 

There were parades and floats promoting these ranges.

 

You can find the Manufactured Gas Booklet by clicking here, and the September 1938 issue of the RG&E News by clicking here.

Thank you

I’d like to thank Carm Vaudo for letting us copy her RG&E News for March, April and May 1948 , March, April 1977, July, August, November and December 1979.

 

The 1948 issues make fascinating reading. They give an insight into what was going on with the RG&E family.  There are department reports, and a special on the chorus.

 

If you have any old issues of the RG&E News, let us borrow them.  Barry Nenno will photograph them and I’ll put them on the web site.

 

We are also looking for Service Anniversary booklets from those great meals.

Face Book

I must be a glutton for punishment!  I started a group site for the Club on Facebook.

 

If you are not familiar with Facebook, ask a kid.  No actually it is a social networking site for friends, families, and/or groups. 

 

On it you can post messages, pictures, events, and other stuff for selected individuals or groups to view.

 

I’ll try to keep our group site up to date as far as events are concerned.

 

It’s up to each and everyone of you add any information you’d like other group members to know. (Like this is a perfect place to brag about the grand kids).

 

To join Facebook, just click here, and you’ll be taken to the sign up screen.

 

If you already have a Facebook account, just search the “Groups” for RG&E Pioneer’s Club, and join.

Niagara Falls

And you thought this winter was cold! 

 

Vinnie Plumeri sent me these photos he found on line.

 

They are pictures of Niagara Falls in 1911, when it was frozen over.

If this article sounds familiar, that because since I didn’t hear from anyone, so I’m reprinting it.

WWII Monopoly

Normally I don’t reprint or email anything I receive via the web.  There’s just too much junk out there.  But this article caught my attention, so I did a little research and it seems to be factual.

 

Since I received it from quite a few people, I’d like to say thanks to you all.

Starting in 1941, an increasing number of British airmen found themselves as the involuntary guests of the  Third Reich, and the Crown was casting about for ways and means to facilitate their escape. Now obviously, one of the most helpful aids to that end is a useful and accurate map, one showing not only where stuff was, but also showing the locations of 'safe houses' where a POW on-the-lam could go for food and shelter.
 
Paper maps had some real drawbacks -- they make a lot of noise when you open and fold them, they wear out rapidly, and if they get wet, they turn into mush.
 
Someone in MI-5 (similar to America's OSS) got the idea of printing escape maps on silk.  It 's durable, can be scrunched-up into tiny wads, and unfolded as many times as needed, and makes no noise whatsoever.
 
At that time, there was only one manufacturer in Great Britain that had perfected the technology of printing on silk, and that was John Waddington, Ltd. When approached by the government, the firm was only too happy to do its bit for the war effort.
 
By pure coincidence, Waddington was also the U.K. Licensee for the popular American board game, Monopoly. As it happened, 'games and pastimes' was a category of item qualified for insertion into 'CARE packages', dispatched by the International Red Cross to prisoners of war.
 
 Under the strictest of secrecy, in a securely guarded and inaccessible old workshop on the grounds of Waddington's, a group of sworn-to-secrecy employees began mass-producing escape maps, keyed to each region of Germany or Italy where Allied POW camps were located (Red Cross packages were delivered to prisoners in accordance with that same regional system). When processed, these maps could be folded into such tiny dots that they would actually fit inside a Monopoly playing piece. As long as they were at it, the clever workmen at Waddington's also managed to add:
 
     1. A playing token, containing a small magnetic compass
     2. A two-part metal file that could easily be screwed together
     3. Useful amounts of genuine high-denomination German, Italian, and French currency, hidden within the piles of  Monopoly money!
 
  British and American air crews were advised, before taking off on their first mission, how to identify a 'rigged' Monopoly set -- by means of a tiny red dot, one cleverly rigged to look like an ordinary printing glitch, located in the corner of the Free Parking square.
 
  Of  the estimated 35,000 Allied POWS who successfully escaped, an estimated one-third were aided in their flight by the rigged Monopoly sets.. Everyone who did so was sworn to secrecy indefinitely, since the British Government might want to use this highly successful ruse in still another, future war. The story wasn't de-classified until 2007, when the surviving craftsmen from Waddington's, as well as the firm itself, were  finally honored in a public ceremony.

  It's always nice when you can play that 'Get Out of Jail' Free' card!
 
  I realize most of you are (probably) too young to have any personal connection to WWII (Dec. '41 to Aug. '45), but this is still interesting, isn't it?