chapter 500

6/27/2018

Lifestyles

rich, famous, or not

So, this is the Fred Luckey I mentioned recently in the 1936 hockey photo chapter. Love the country roads up near his farm so did a spontaneous ride up there. He happened to be home so revisited the progress he's made over the years I've been stopping in (with Tony, Shawn...).

He holds a bottle of his Luckey Spirits Apple Eau-de-Vie (water of life) brandy that took a bronze metal at a this Spring's International Spirits Competition.

I worked with geologist Fred during my ENCON years involved in toxic pollutants around the Great Lakes drainage basin. He is still there but inching toward retirement.

When I say he lives in the country. Easton is on Route 40 north of Troy. You have to make a couple turns off Route 40 to get to his property. This is a property where you make the final turn. You have to navigate observantly to miss the cow manure on the road. Not that it is a bad thing. I think Fred wants to live in the natural world, not the artificial concrete jungle of (his native) New York City. Thankfully his road is now paved (partly). Fred used to commute from this property down to Albany then 150 miles by train to work for EPA in New York City certain days a week. Dedication. He finally got to be assigned more or less permanently in our Albany office but you can begin to see his resolve.

This is a recent rebuild of an original barn on his land. The old one was basically falling down. Past his house (green roof) and across the road is his apple orchard. Just left are his bee hive flats. Further left is another old barn.

Inside this upper barn you find this space craft time machine thing. Actually a custom made stainless steel cooker and distillation chamber with a secondary fermentation still. I'm guessing this is quite a bit more costly than the barrel stills of West Virginia. Guess you have to be committed if you are aiming at high end spirits.

There is a stock room, laboratory and tasting room being developed to sit on this concrete slab (with heating tubing embedded to cope with the winter season).

The Germans are so meticulous and this carries over to the American branch of the company as well. Love the way the name Ulrich Kothe is impressed into the cover plate. The city of Eislingen is city south of Stuttgart in southern Germany.

I mentioned the second old barn. This is a dance floor he put in. He's a member of the Albany Tango Society so members have come here. I recall Fred mentioning something about this years ago but of course it kind of was in one ear out the other. We used to practice ice skating at some of the local rinks at the same time and I think I recall some skate dance moves. Questioned whether he would get more than a handful of dancers to attend considering the ratio of cow to people in rural Washington County, but he said he's had up to 40. They come for all over, and out of state!

By the way he build this pair of cedar strip kayaks, seems to love wood working.

It's a truly amazing thing. How people are driven to pursue different interests. I enjoy just a bit of variety of interests. Loved going to the Great Race as it came into Troy this week. My best shot was capturing this 1935 Auburn Phaeton as it came across the Green Island Bridge just before the rain storm. I suspect the driver, Brad Phillips, is a Hagerty Insurance manager from Maryland, the same guy in this article letting a novice teenager drive his 1983 Ferrari 308 in Arizona. There were about 150 old cars involved in this timed rally situation from Buffalo to Nova Scotia. Mostly the well to do class by invitation only but the competition is a definite daily grind to stay on schedule for a week on a 2300 mile trip with no maps.

How are we living our lives? What will be our retirement lifestyle? Different strokes for different folks. Shall we merely be content to just get by each week or mow keep our lawns mowed. I'm not much for lawns, and I don't really have much of a "Plan". Just live day to day, but for me that's not a bad thing it's what I prefer. 

.