Paul Dayton—the Sportsman I never knew

This post is the first of a multipart series of posts on Dayton family sports interests. 

When you think of the activities the Dayton family are involved in, sports hardly ever comes to mind. The words Dayton and sports used in the same sentence is an oxymoron. We Daytons are more into books, learning, religion, the fine arts and nature.  Seemingly, the Dayton family is not known for sports at all. We seem to have a distaste for them.  Other than hunting, the Dayton boys seemed quite devoid of sports.  At least that’s what I thought until I started doing research for this story.  Now I’m finding sports stories popping up all over the place.  Hail Dayton Sports!   Viva Dayton sports!

I have several ideas which will turn this topic into a multi-post series.  I’ll cover Paul Dayton first.  By doing so, you will get an idea of types of sports information I’d like to report.  You can help by sending me sports stories or information or leave comments on posts which you’ve read.  Any person affiliated with the Dayton clan is fair game… your patriarchs, father, mother, son, daughter, etc. This post about Paul may give you ideas for subsequent posts.

Paul Dayton–The Sportsman I Never Knew

His Toy

I love sports of all types, especially baseball, and college basketball, but I got that from my Carter side of my family.  The Dayton boys loved hunting.  I’m not sure where they developed their skills because Grandpa (Wilber Dayton Sr) never hunted.  Perhaps their interest came from the White family.  Hunting was certainly in Chop’s DNA, and I think the other boys just followed in their big brother’s footsteps.  I’ve written about deer hunting and probably will again in the future. But can you think of any other sport they liked?

Softball

Softball—As I was recently searching though old newspapers, much to my delight, I ran across the article at the left.  Paul Dayton had hit a home run in an organized, town  softball league.  I didn’t even know he played.  The EMBA was a very respectable town league made up of former high school and college ball players.  I don’t know anything more about his softball endeavors than this article.  I do know that he had another baseball glove dating from the 50’s.  It was also in the garage, buried under more imporyant stuff like firewood. I imagine that glove was the one he used in the EMBA league games. I kept that one, had it framed, side by side with my first glove, and gifted them to my grandson Luke.

Baseball

Baseball—Each year, dad took our family to New York City to see either a Yankees or Mets baseball double header. They did it for me.  Dad was frugal, and two games for the price of one was a deal he couldn’t pass up.  In those days, you could take a picnic basket of goodies into the stadium, so mom packed enough to feed setion 207. The year Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth’s home run record we sat in the outfield stands so close to Maris that we could have hit him with a baseball or a bottle when he went to the fence to catch a ball.

In 1964, dad thought it would be a good father-son bonding experience to take me to a Mets-Phillies game at Shea Stadium in New York.  It was a twi-night doubleheader, game time 6:00 p.m.  We travelled by Greyhound bus, leaving about noon and returning about 5 a.m. the next morning.  It was a long day and one I will never forget.  Thanks, dad.

Stock Car Racing

Pete Corey Fonda Speedway 1950’s

Stock Car Racing—Paul was a fan of auto racing.  Most Thursdays we went to the track in Menands, NY, then on Fridays we often went to Saratoga Speedway.  His favorite track was Fonda Speedway where we enjoyed a Saturday evening filled with entertainment.

Corinth Wesleyan Methodist Church held a weekly Prayer Meeting service on Thursday evening until the mid-1950’s.  That conflicted with the Stockcar races, so Paul petitioned the church to change Prayer Meeting to Wednesday evening.  I don’t know the circumstances or motivation for the other board members’ votes, but dad’s reason was clear to everyone.  And they did change to Wednesday evenings.

Swimming

Swimming—Paul always enjoyed swimming.  He was a good swimmer, and he had to be.  He was in the Navy.  Not one of his five kids nor his wife knew how to swim a single stroke.  One summer he was determined to change that.  He thought it best if we were at the beach at 7 A.M. every Saturday morning.  Probably it had something to do with both modesty and timidity.  We returned home around 9 to the greatest breakfast a mom could make (bacon, ham and eggs with all the trimmings).  However, dad’s mission was a failure.  We never learned to swim, and we kids protested so much he ended the experiment after a month.

Logging Competition

Logging Competition—Although dad never competed, we went to a logging competition in Tupper Lake, NY every summer.  The logging show was an outdoor extravaganza with all the latest in logging and sawmill gear.  Kids loved it.  They received vendor samples, watched a big parade of logging machinery, and viewed competitions of chain saw log cutting, axe log cutting, tree climbing and log rolling.  Dad was positively sure that he and Red Allen would be undefeated in the log rolling race, but they never tried.  Any combination of Chip, Paul and Roger would probably have won too.  Dad and I would have come in last.  I was pathetic.

Other Sports

Other sports—A few years before he died, I asked dad if he was interested in any particular sport besides hunting and he said, “oh, I don’t care as long as it isn’t football,” and he reached over and teasingly and lovingly slapped my arm.  I had been the MVP running back on our high school football team.  My mom and dad attended every game, and much later in life they told me they went to the games to make sure I didn’t get hurt.  I’m not sure of the logic of that statement, but I appreciated it.  He went on to mention that he ran cross country for Corinth High school.  The coach begged him to play soccer, but it conflicted with his paper route.  In the winter he liked to play hockey with neighborhood kids.

Although he didn’t like sports all that much, he knew I did so he always read the sports page and was prepared to talk about what happened the day before.  I can remember discussions about Cassius Clay (AKA Mohamad Ali) knocking out Sonny Liston, Wilt Chamberlain scoring 100 points in a basketball game, and Warren Spahn pitching his 300^th baseball game win. He knew they were my favorite players.

My mom was involved with sports too…she was constantly yelling at me to stop bouncing the basketball in the house.

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Jim Dayton’s Recollection’s of Growing Up

One of the Dayton-Family-History readers wrote to me, “Here’s a question for you… what was your recollection of growing up in a family of 5 kids?  What memories stick out to you?  Was the age gap a big deal? We’re you close as kids?”

I don’t remember any complicated or unpleasant consequences. Our living, eating, clothing and transportation resources seemed routine.  I guess when you don’t know differently, then what exists is normal.  I suppose our ancient Daytons felt normal living in a two room home back in the 1600’s on long Island. Anyway, our Paul Dayton family of seven lived in a small three bedroom, one bathroom home. I don’t remember it being more inconvenient than other homes I lived in later in life.  I’ll admit it was an inconvenience needing to use the toilet when someone else was using it.  There were no disasters…you accepted all circumstances. 

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Meals were at a table built for four (with one leaf) in a very small kitchen, but we ate as much as we wanted and never went away hungry.  We had a larger dining room table with seating for 8, but that was saved only for company. Later on, Judy and I had 2 girls living in a home with 2 ½ baths, 3 bedrooms, large living room, den, kitchen with large breakfast nook and dining room, but we were no more or less crowded than in my growing up house.

Growing up,  our car was a 2 door Ford Fairlane coupe.  It didn’t seem crowded even though there were 3 persons in front and 4 in the rear.  I have a video of everyone getting out of the car.  It looks like a circus clown comedy drill, but we tolerated the accommodations well.  However, once having upgraded, that becomes the new norm and you can’t go back without great inconvenience. 

My life was sports.  The role of a mother as a taxi driver didn’t exist.  I made my own arrangements to get home after practice.  Most of the time it involved walking home.  After football practice, I walked home with a friend who still had about 6 miles to go.  He hitchhiked or walked, after he had walked with me for ¾ miles. It was normal for him.

The age gap for the children in our family was 13-years from oldest to youngest sibling.  We were never a close, touchy-feely family.  The older you get, the smaller the age gap and the bigger in closeness and adoration.  I’m 72 years old and closer to my siblings than ever before… especially my brother who is 9 years my younger.  I didn’t know him growing up.

I was closest to my older sister mostly because of parental intervention.  My parents expected me, as a 10 to 13 year old, to be a protective escort for Mary.  My dad insisted on it. My sister enjoyed taking evening walks after sundown and going to the local diner to hang out with friends from town and out of town. They hung out at a table, drinking coffee and listening to the jukebox for a couple hours at a time. Mary always was telling me to stand erect so I would look taller.  The point is, we got to know each other a little.  My playmates were always neighborhood friends my age. 

I can only vividly remember two instances of direct interaction with my brothers.  I suspect there was daily happy interaction, but it was normal, not memorable. 

I haven’t done these questions justice in this brief account.  I wrote an autobiography for my family a few years ago, and it took about 15 chapters to answer the growing up questions.  I would highly recommend that each of you write or “video” an autobiography so your descendants can carry on your legacy to future generations.

Deer In The Notch

The Dayton brothers loved to hunt deer.  Chip and Paul played “hooky” from work a couple times each fall to hunt, and they hunted most Saturdays and Thanksgiving day.  They never hunted on a Sunday, but their minds may have drifted there during Sunday dinner.  They were at home in the woods. They loved the outdoors…it didn’t matter if they were working at the sawmill, or going hunting.

Nowadays, most hunters hunt from behind blinds.  They set up for the day in a likely speciific location and wait for the deer to come to them.  Not Chip and Paul.  They walked all day long…over mountains, around swamps, though the forest.  They were constantly on the go, tracking them, looking for runways, looking for their beds, driving them…anything to gain the upper hand and spot them.

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I asked Chip to tell me a hunting story, and what a treat it was to hear him excitedly recall the event.  It had been many years ago, but he told it like it happened yesterday.  Listen in while he invites us to the hunt one fall day.

Jim Dayton interviews Chester Dayton circa 1990

Dr. Donald Dayton Rememberances

If you would like to Send a rememberence for me to publish, please forward it to jim.dayton@att.net

Paul Dayton, Almost a Big Shot

I never knew about my dad’s [Paul Dayton] military rank until I found it in a news clipping as I was researching him. Paul was the Navy’s equivalent of an Army Sergeant.  He was a 1^st Class Petty Officer.  There are four grades of Petty officer, 3^rd class being the lowest and Chief Petty Officer being the highest.  The Army equivalent would be a Corporal or Sergeant depending upon which grade of Petty Officer you were. 

Paul worked on technological improvements to the recently invented RADAR and had told me that the Navy regarded the men in his unit [aviation bomber training unit] to be more elite than the naval pilots.  Apparently, the military top brass viewed their pilots as expendable; it was a high casualty assignment, but Paul had so much electronics training and skill that he was too difficult and costly to replace.  The naval officers treated the men in his unit in high esteem.  They rewarded the men, including dad, by allowing them to promote themselves. For example, dad’s head of his unit let the men promote themselves to the rank each man felt he deserved.   Most became Chief Petty Officers, but you know dad.  He promoted himself to 1st class, instead of chief.  Chief would have meant more money, but dad was realistic about the matter. 

Here’s a story which demonstrates the knowledge and creativity of dad’s unit.  They solved an electronics problem which Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT] scientists declared impossible to solve.  MIT was so impressed that they send a contingent of scientists to dad’s unit to review the problem’s solution and how they went about solving it.  I don’t know what dad individually accomplished on that project, but his colleagues were the best in the world at what they did.  I imagine that dad was right in the middle of it all.  He never talked about it because he didn’t want to brag.  He was too humble.

After the war, dad was offered a lucrative contract in the Philippines by Philco Corp, but dad chose to return to the Adirondacks.  Shame on me, but I cannot find that Philco offer letter anywhere. I used to have it and I’ve lost it.

Dad’s Horrid Christmas Tree

Christmas memories are some of the fondest of a lifetime full of memories. When I published a Sunday School Newsletter in Texas in the nineties, I asked the class to send me stories of their fondest Christmas memories.  Here are some that I wrote for that newsletter.

DFH Volume 1 Issue 25

By Jim Dayton

When it came to harvesting a Christmas tree, my dad, Paul Dayton, could hold his own with Charlie Brown.  If they ever held a contest for worst looking tree, my dad would retire the trophy.  He sometimes cut one from the woods behind his sawmill.  He delighted in his manly duty of choosing and felling “just the right one” for our small home.  He preferred spruce or balsam over pine, even though pine was the wood of choice for his livelihood.  Pine was too messy.  His pride and joy was usually about 6 feet tall, and it sprouted about one or two branches per foot.   It was pathetic.  My mom never complained, but she must have been disappointed year after year.  She did the best she could to cover its nakedness, but it was hopeless.  Starting when we were old enough to discern its shame, my brothers and sisters and I would always joke about how bad it was.  Now we have come to enjoy memories of our dad’s trees because of their, and his, unique character.  [Footnote: Some years he purchased one, so this story is a little exaggerated.  However it makes a valid point.]

Thanksgiving in the Mountains-Mountain Man Apprentice

DFH Volume 1 Issue 24

By Jim Dayton

From 3rd grade until I was a junior in high school, my dad, Paul Dayton, took me deer hunting on Thanksgiving morning.  We’d drive one or two hours far into the heart of the Adirondack mountains, park the car by the side of a logging road and wait for dawn so we could find our way. 

Dad would hunt like the Iroquois Indians did.  He went to the deer, instead of waiting in a blind for them to come to him.  He found their bed and then he would track them, trying to stay down wind so the deer wouldn’t catch our scent.  We used to walk miles, climbing over mountains and ridges, around swamps, across streams and creeks, through thickets…he’d stop every so often and survey the terrain.  Then he’d tell me where the deer probably were based on weather, topography and vegetation.  Then he would explain how we would get there based on wind direction and noise factors… we’d sneak up on them.  We always whispered or used hand gestures.  His two-hundred-pound frame walked silently, but my hundred- and twenty-pound footsteps thundered through dried leaves, and twigs and small branches which snapped underfoot. 

He always carried a compass, but he hardly ever took it out of his pocket.  He depended more on observing nature to “get his bearings.” He was a master at reading the sky, but the frequent cloudiness made following the sun undependable.   So he relied on the tell-tale signs of vegetation to get his orientation.  The density and location of moss and fungi, the “pointing” of the forest canopy, and the species of trees growing in that location were all tell-tale signs of north, south, east and west. 

It used to scare me half to death when he would say to me, “I’m going to go over that ridge over there.  I want you to go around the ridge in that direction and meet me at the other side.  Maybe you’ll stir him up and I can get a shot off as he’s running away from you.”  I immediately pictured myself getting lost, but my dad always had confidence that I could find my way.  He never carried binoculars or a rifle scope, so I was truly on my own.  I think he was testing me.

After walking for hours in unfamiliar forest, we would came out of the woods within a quarter mile of the car.  I could never understand his precision.  I think it’s instinct.

He was at home in the woods.  He wouldn’t dare drive a car in Irving, TX, because he would get lost driving from O’Connor Blvd. to Grawyler Ave, two miles away with one turn. He was very uncomfortable in cities and urban sprawl.  But if you dropped him, by parachute, onto an unfamiliar peak in the Adirondacks mountains, he would find his way back to civilization before the plane landed (a slight exaggeration).   He taught me to follow a stream downhill if I was lost.  I wish I could remember a tenth of the survival skills he taught me.  He couldn’t pass by a winterberry without stooping to pick two—he’d always expect me to eat one whether I wanted it or not.  “No thanks, Dad”, was not a part of his vocabulary.  I’ve eaten dozens of different kinds of berries, nuts, grasses, and roots, but I don’t remember most of them anymore.  He always called it hunting, and it’s taken me sixty years to realize that the actual hunting part of the Thanksgiving ritual was just an excuse to get his young apprentice in the woods for a day of mountain man indoctrination and training.

Sometimes he’d stop and gaze at something on the ground.  He’d say, “Look, a wolf has been here in the last 24 hours.“  I didn’t even see anything.  He knew the footprint of every animal that roamed the Adirondacks.  His deductive reasoning told him how old the track was.  He often pointed out bear paw tracks, but we never hunted them.During the few hours we had spent in the woods, I had stepped out of my childhood and had become a man.  By the time we got home, I was a boy again.   We always made it back home in time to dry off, warm up and sit down to a Thanksgiving feast that was made better because of the huge appetite we had worked up.  Those Thanksgivings in the woods were some of my dad’s most precious memories.  They are mine too

West Chazy Campground–Observance Present, Memories Past

DFH Volume 1 Issue 23

By Camilla [Dayton] Luckey, daughter of Rev. Charles and Josephine Dayton.

AUGUST 2019:   It was my high school 50th— Beekmantown Central, the sprawling, district school a few miles south of West Chazy on Rte. 22. Yes, class of ‘69, summer of love, Age of Aquarius, Woodstock. My class! Maybe I’ll get to my part of that story later.  

Joyce Timpson Schauer, lifelong friend from Corinth, had mentioned that Norma, her sister, spends lots of time in West Chazy these days. Norma stays on the campground, I believe with Lori, John’s widow, who has Uncle Paul’s cottage. It occurred to me that if I were to attend my Class of ‘69 reunion I might as well pay the campmeeting association instead of LaQuinta, if, that is, the new campmeeting association would allow. They would.  Phil Hunter, of that long-faithful Glens Falls family, was my contact, suggested by Norma. Phil seems to be the official groundskeeper, although association members share never-ending tasks such as leaf-raking and roof repair; there are prices to be paid for that glorious old-tree canopy.

I stayed at the Perry “Motel,” built in the sixties-seventies cement-block frenzy that followed whatever year it was that my dad’s autumnal leaf burning ritual—a solo task that year—turned disastrous. One of his several simultaneously burning piles of leaves (he was always a person to multi-task) turned to embers the dorm and two or three cottages that directly faced the tabernacle. In those days, towering shade trees, heavy with leaves, graced the now bare, blistering lawn today used more for parking rather than for picnics.  The century-old wooden dorm and cottages were tinder boxes. Dry leaves had collected underneath and lay there, waiting.  I remember the afternoon but not the year. I know from other afternoons the crafty, peek-a-boo glint of those sparkly orange snakes as they try to curl their way onto the route and destination of their own choice That day they succeeded, and the campgrounds were forever changed.

The Perry “Motel” was built for tabernacle access, like the wooden dorm it replaced, but the Perry is sited at one side, not the front, of the main tabernacle (Charles Dayton Tabernacle) and is equally close to the Missionary Tabernacle, sometimes called the Ladies’ Tabernacle.

The Perry is located approximately where stood what I believe was the Hewitt cottage, the one with the friendly screened-in front porch, the one that should perhaps be intentionally typo’d ‘perch.’ The Hewitt cottage was heart and center of the campground, a watchman’s perfect tower or a gossip’s paradise. Every flow of pedestrian or vehicular traffic was visible and, it seemed, every passerby’s conversation or crunch of gravel was clearly audible. Jo Hewitt’s porch rocker was probably closer to the tabernacle pulpit than was the back row of tabernacle pews, and Jo was anything but a gossip. She was a person of fewer-than-few words and a perfect person to overhear material that needed to be lifted in prayer. She, widow of Rev. Reginald Hewitt, conference president who preceded my father, was a watchman who had suffered much. Reginald had died in 1961(?) in a flaming car crash only a few minutes from West Chazy camp, his destination. My own last memory of the quiet Mrs. Hewitt—remarkable to a child (and to me even as a young adult) for her veined apple-red cheeks and cute little apple-shaped body bestowed dignity by a permanently flawless French chignon and super thick rimless spectacles—was my mother greeting Mrs. Hewitt the summer after Mrs. Hewitt had just endured a winter of chemotherapy. Mrs. Hewitt nodded, not speaking aloud, her cheeks still rosy with red spider veins set now upon a palette of pea greens. Her chignon, maybe a bit thinner, was unchanged. My mother held her horror till we’d passed from earshot. My mother didn’t know, of course, that only a few summers later she herself would have her own pea green chemo pallor.

The Perry, as of 2019, is twenty bucks a night.  It’s a little rough but the water’s hot, the sheets clean, very few spiders (nothing worse!), and there were two bottles of water as well as a souvenir frig magnet in my welcome packet. And air conditioning!  Alas, to have AC, a window unit, meant the sole window was sealed, at least it could not be opened (!), and thus I could not enjoy the melodious sweet summer breezes which I believe are the campground’s hallmark natural beauty, a glory of the leafy trees.

Those fabulous trees are losing the battle to practicality  “Fire and ice” prudent board members have forever intoned, understandably. That’s a lot of leaves to rake. Fires are a proven danger.  Just read the above paragraphs! And who will pay for the roof when age or ice brings down a limb from one of these high and mighty beauties? and the roof moss!! I note that several cottages have been given shiny metal roofs, including my dad’s cottage that Shirley Pauling now owns. Cottages that have been let go, and there are several, belong on movie sets, romantically covered and drooping from pretty, green decay. Nevertheless, if you, dear reader, are looking at these lines  “in future years” and the pragmatists have won and the entire campground is scalped to a silent but easily mown-and-raked grass green, not moss green, with no standing timber.  Be aware that there was another time, a time when Mother Nature (and the Atwood family, local farmers) gifted West Chazy with a sanctuary much bigger than the cement-block tabernacle interior and naked front yard. There was a place where the psalmist would have felt at home, where Nature’s praises of her Creator were in glorious concert. There are just enough trees and just enough space between them to make beautiful worship music, as well as problems.

I was given, besides my Perry key, which I never used, and two water bottles and a frig magnet and registration form, a standardized and very general “holiness” statement requiring my signature. It was so general it presented no problems. Anyway, who doesn’t want holiness?  It’s just the type of lifestyle that puts ten-year-old girls into garters that I find problematic!

 Anyway, the entire experience felt very strange and very precious on counts too numerous to give in detail. One I will mention: the continuity of some of the population.

(to be continued next month—November 2019, Vol 1 Issue 24)

Dayton Brothers Sawmill-“Green” Long Before Its Time

DFH Volume 1 Issue 22

Dayton Brothers’ Lumber Company was an “environmentally green” company as early as the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.  This was 30 years before we began to hear about “green” on a national scale.  Besides their obvious cash crop of lumber, the brothers sold every scrap product of the log, letting nothing go to waste. 

Most obvious was the sawdust pile.  Sawdust was sold to farmers for spreading over the floor of the barn’s cow stalls to make cleanup more sanitary. One day a farmer drove his truck into the lumber yard expecting to pick up a load of sawdust.  The truck had a Budweiser sign on it.  Dad refused to service him because of the sign.  Dad was opposed to alcohol of any kind.  The farmer came back later with a milk sign on the truck and dad sold him his load of sawdust. 

If we did a lot of sawing, then the sawdust pile grew to mountainous heights (25-30 feet).  Kids loved to play in it.  I remember one time it was covered with newly fallen snow and Roger skied down it.  Under pressure and decay from both high concentrations of moisture and lack of sunlight, the sawdust would generate lots of heat.  In fact, sawdust piles have been known to spontaneously combust into flame. Kids would dig deep into the pile just far enough  to feel its heat.   Sawdust serves as an excellent insulator.    Around the periphery of the pile where internal temperatures remained normal, you were guaranteed to find snow if you dug down about a foot to two feet…in July and August.  I can remember Roger and I throwing snowballs at each other on a hot July day when the air temperature was probably 85°. 

When the lumber had been airdried in the yard, it was taken to the planing mill where it was “”smoothed’ on all four sides.  The dry shavings were sold to butchers to spread over the flooring of their butcher shops.  There was an old, deaf, Afro-American man who used to buy shavings by the large-truckload and resell them to butcher shops.  He had exclusive rights (preferential treatment) to Dayton Brothers shavings.  Dad called him “the darky.”  This was before desegregation and dad meant no disrespect.  Dad knew his name, but we didn’t.  We knew him only as the darky.  When dad had a load of shavings ready, he would call the old white-haired man and tell him that a load was ready for him.  Humm…something is suspicious. How could dad call him if he was deaf?  Must be his wife answered.  He always arrived with a cup of coffee and a doughnut for each of us. Dad would send me to the shaving pile to help the old man fill his truck.  He would put the shavings into potato sacks (burlap bags) each weighing probably 20-30 pounds when full.  It was my job to pack them into his truck as tightly as I could. I was only a pre-teen, so it was hard work.  I remember that one day on a Saturday evening dad and I drove to the sawmill to do a security check and discovered that the old man had left a bird house kit for me in the planing mill.  The world would be a far better place if we only had more great men like the darky.  He was like a grandpa to me. Even though we couldn’t communicate with speech, we communicated in many other ways like the exchange of genuine, loving grins at each other.

The first cuts of the log are called slabs which are sold as firewood for heating homes and for campfires.  Dad would load the “slab truck” and, when it was full, then we would head out across town to deliver it to the person who had ordered it. The slab dump truck was very old and beat up and was an embarrassment every time I rode in it.  I hoped I would not be seen by anyone I knew.   But it did the job and helped to keep the community green (except for the smoke that was emitted as it was consumed by fire).

Conveyer for cutoff saw

The lumber was sold by length, width and thickness (board feet).  The lumber’s length was always an even numbered size between 4’ and 14’.  So the cutoff saw cut the length to conform to these dimensions.  This was perfect for campers.  Dayton Brothers had already cut the lumber into a length that could be tossed into the fireplace or firepit.  As I recall, the price was $5.00 per pickup truck load.  This “dirt cheap” slab wood, kept the slab pile empty or small, which was Dad’s objective. Too large a pile of “cutoff” slabs was a nuisance.

So the Dayton brothers were “Green” long before it was a politically correct treatment of our environment.  It didn’t make them rich…it made them responsible community citizens.

Paul Dayton-Child Protege on the Cornet

DFH Volume 1 Issue 22

My dad [Paul Dayton, son of Wilber Thomas Dayton, Sr.] , often got out his cornet from the closet, wiped it off with a rag and began playing it at home when I was growing up.  Occasionally, he played a cornet solo at church and he organized a church orchestra which played each Sunday evening during my teenage years.  The coronet is a slightly smaller version of the trumpet.  The only difference is the way the tubing flares.

I never knew just how accomplished dad was until I started researching old newspaper articles.   The first public performance which I discovered was in a March 24, 1934 vaudeville show when he was 10 years old.   He was playing with the Junior class band.  That was quite an accomplishment, but his career was just taking off. There was an article in the May 15, 1934 issue of the Saratogian, titled School Band and Chorus score at musical festival, Paul was listed in the high school band.  He had not yet attained his 11^th birthday.  In December of that same year, he performed a solo which the band director said, “received high praise.”  This was all before his 12^th birthday. 

I could go on and on with news articles (perhaps a dozen) that carried his name as a soloist in band program performances until his graduation in in 1940.  He played a solo at nearly every performance the band played.  In his junior and senior years, he was secretary of the band.

My dad was a humble man to a fault.  I wish he had told us kids about his experiences so we could have passed it on as a part of his legacy.  Don’t make the same mistake.  Tell your kids stories about yourself, even if you think they are trivial.  My kids laugh at me and poke fun every time I tell one….over and over and over and over again. They’ll never forget them and they will cherish them.

Paul Dayton’s Injury: Does pneumonia burn the skin?

DFH Volume 1 Issue 17

My dad never told us kids about being injured when opening a barrel of pneumonia.  And I never knew that pneumonia would burn your skin.  It’s really a curious thing.  I didn’t get so much as a little red spot on my skin when I got my pneumonia shot recently.  Hum…I just wonder if the reporter or editor made a typo just like I do sometimes in this newsletter.  I’ll bet he meant ammonia.  After searching and reviewing ammonia in google, I’m quite sure it was industrial strength ammonia which burned my dad.  It’s quite dangerous, and I thank God that his eyes were spared any injury.  Here is what the New York State Department of Health says about exposure to ammonia. ” Skin or eye contact: Exposure to low concentrations of ammonia in air or solution may produce rapid skin or eye irritation. Higher concentrations of ammonia may cause severe injury and burns. Contact with concentrated ammonia solutions such as industrial cleaners may cause corrosive injury including skin burns, permanent eye damage or blindness. The full extent of eye injury may not be apparent for up to a week after the exposure. Contact with liquefied ammonia can also cause frostbite injury.”