In May, as the weather creeps up to above 60 degrees and it edges past likelihood of snow,(although it still might), we enter my favorite season. Summer.

In the Mohawk Valley, the months of June, July and August are liking waking up from a horrible collective nightmare. All the rest of the long year is slogging through snow and frost and sleet and waking up in the dark and heading home from work in the dark. Everyone burrows into their homes. I only go out to go to work or walk the dogs and absolutely no one shovels, not even businesses. A blanket depression settles over the city. There is one thing that keeps me from going totally Donner Party, Hunting For Books.

I spend the winter scouring the internet for books to buy and hoard until I can part with them for hopefully a small profit. It gives me a wild satisfaction and its usually just enough money to support my craving to buy more books. There is no such thing as a garage sale in Utica in the wintertime. Very few estate/moving sales too, but in spring and summer they pop up like crocus ripe with promise. Maybe crocus isn't the right metaphor, because I have seen some weird stuff here. Some creepy stuff, that I now wish I had taken pictures of. Utica isn't like anywhere else I have ever lived.
This immediate area has been culturally and genetically isolated for decades. The '80s and '90s saw a huge population drop and anyone without connection to the area fled. The remaining Utica natives, and by that I mostly refer to the second and third generation Italian and Polish families, have entrenched themselves as an unofficial higher cast. There is a distinct Utica accent, special Utica only foods, easily identifiable Utica facial traits, a fond remembrance of the Italian mafia, supposedly not active here anymore, and a 'friends and family' system of government which I believe is a direct result of the former.
As an outsider but with an Italian last name I can get by, although sometimes I get weird looks and asked if I'm really Italian. Technically neither are they. I don't mention that.
All that was a long way of saying that sometimes I go to a house sale and its like stepping back in time and into another country/dimension. Sometimes I remember to take a photo and I'll be putting them here, in this blog. Also, sometimes I find some really cool stuff and I feel like sharing. I'm also going to be documenting how to speak Utican, eat Utican, and stuff that generally fascinates or repels me about this area. Oh and weird stuff I find in books.
How's about we start with what I hope to be the first in a continuing series I am calling I don't need to spell it to sell it.