The Wolf returns to Denmark

     In about 1812, wolves disappeared from Denmark. It wasn't a magical disappearance but a dedicated hunt brought about by farmers with chickens and shepherds guarding flocks. In medieval times, the body of a dead wolf was hung in the town gallows for all to celebrate but, later, a private shot in the head would do. Them, in 2012, the wolf was returned to Denmark.  This show focused on the wolf in the Round Tower in Copenhagen. explored the history and the current story. 

 

      In fairy tales, there is a wolf who tracks Little Red Riding Hood. Some version of the story has been found in French in the 10th century. The one familiar to Americans is likely the German version by the Brothers Grimm. An Italian version is called The False Grandmother and there is an ancient Chinese story called Lon Po Po. Ed Young translated that in 1989. 

     The wolf might chase a little girl or go after house building pigs in stories but the threat to livestock is a real world story, one seldom mitigated by the ecological benefit of wolves. That story is in the documentary about bringing the wolf back to Yellowstone. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQGKuPbi1EY)

    Both sides of the story were presented. As is often the case, I got caught in the story and forgot to take many pictures. The exhibit of dogs from tiny to huge was striking and also a little upsetting. I did look for a sign indicating that no dogs were harmed in the creation of this exhibit. It may have been there in Danish which would have been only mysterious notations to me.

     

Copenhagen City Hall

 Any building with a door this beautiful has to be worth a trip inside. The first thing we saw in the City Hall was the perpetual clock designed by Jen Olsen. That was worth the visit in itself.

    

There is a separate blog on this clock built to run for thousands of years.

This door, with the striking brass plates, is inside the building and through the glass, you can see a stained glass window in the stairwell.

These are images from the courtyard. Europeans know how to create beautiful doors and doorways.

I'm going to put several images below to give an idea of the lovely details in this building. Of note are the graceful trash cans and the beautifully painted walls in the stair wells. 

With a mural of early days in Copenhagen there is an image of a person hanging in a gallows. There is no great deal in this portion of the mural but it is clearly a person. This was how thieves were dealt with in earlier centuries. One thing that we later learned is that if a farmer killed a wolf, the wolf would also be hung in the gallows. Apparently farmers, particularly sheep farmers, were adept at getting wolves because Denmark had none for quite a long time. They were recently reintroduced and the populace, particularly the shepherds, seem unsure that they are willing to share space with wolves.

   

Jens Olsen's Fantastic World Clock

     Clock is a small, innocent word. Most people reading it might think of a small little alarm clock or an old digital clock radio. I imagine the clock Clement Hurd drew in Good Night Moon.

      Of course, one might think of something spectacular like Big Ben but rarely would anyone think of a masterpiece like the Jens Olesen  (1872-1945) clock. In 1897, when he was 25 and saw the astronomical clock at Notre Dame, he decided to build a perpetual clock. Decades later, his youngest grandchild started this clock in motion.

                        

      I'd never heard of Olsen's clock before seeing it. We went to the Copenhagen City Hall because the building is gorgeous (and free) but from that day, I most remember this clock. 

     I was immediately taken by the lovely, golden brass works visible all around through the clear case. Like a sculpture, it draws one around and around. Olsen planned for the works to be covered and only have the faces visible. Whatever was he thinking? 

     After staring at it, I started reading the signs. What staggered me more than the beauty was the fact that it takes 25,753 years for one of the small gears to make a complete revolution while the fastest gear turns once every 10 seconds. 

      Since the clock was started on December 15, 1955, the accuracy of this is still untested but think of the precision of the works where one part revolves a complete turn in 25,753 years. Agog? Right?

     Jens Olsen was a locksmith in 1897 when he became inspired to design and build an astronomical clock. He learned clockmaking and built and repaired grandfather clocks, pocket watches, and binoculars while, in his spare time, he designed the world clock. Here are some details:

My favorite face - the planets

     Olsen made plans for the clock working alone until 1928 when  astronomer Elis Stromgren joined the project. Drawings for the clock were made between 1934 and 1936 but the production was delayed by fundraising and WWWII. Finally, the clock was built between 1943 and 1955- a portion of which included the Nazi occupation of Denmark.

      The clock has 12 movements.

     There are 15,448 parts.

     In spite of it starting the same year as the atomic clock was invented, it is mechanical and needs to be wound each week.

     Displays include lunar and solar eclipses as well as the positions of the planets and their moons. It shows “true solar time,” the Julian period, the date in the Gregorian calendar, and time zones as they were introduced in 1884.

     

      The city of Copenhagen helped to finance the construction of the clock. It became a symbol of Danish craftsmanship.

     The case was designed by Gunnar Billmann Petersen. He chose to create a transparent case and feature the workings as well as the faces. Good choice.

     While we live in a world where technology becomes obsolete before things are delivered and packages opened, this clock is meant to tell the time and date for thousands of years. The sign at City Hall states, “The World Clock…will still be able to show the starry sky above City Hall, the date when Easter Falls and the time in Singapore.”

Stepping in Style with Hamilton's Shoes, circa 2002

An article written in about 2002

Stepping in Style 

Take a good look at this old photo of Hamilton’s Shoe Store.  The name of the building proudly adorns a rooftop attachment with ornate splendor. It‘s easy to envision the removal of that adornment either when it became unstable or when the building name was changed but what about the steps? That building doesn’t have stairs now. What happened? Did the level of the street change?  Are there old steps buried under the sidewalks? Nope, nothing as easy as that.

The original Baldwin Block Building, now the Ebenezer Oil Building, had stores on the first level and a door leading to the upper level theater with a stage and auditorium seating. The back of the building came down decades ago and the rest was transformed into offices. The corner store was a bank, then the Newhouse Shoe Store, and finally Hamilton’s. 

Early in the 1900s, theatergoers and customers used the stairs but those stairs also attracted unemployed people who would sit and while away the time, interfering with foot traffic. The landlord responded to the merchants’ needs by bringing their floors to street level. Evidence is behind the basement door at Hamilton’s. Like a flood water level recorded for posterity, this wall sports white paint showing where the first floor level once was and no paint where the wall was originally in the basement.

Workers detached the floor from the building, cut the steel supports in the basement and lowered the floor. The ceilings and windows were once reasonably placed but, with the floor lowered several inches, the windows are now so high that anyone would need a ladder to look out. A drop ceiling was installed but there’s plenty of headroom left.

Amazingly, all the work was done around scheduled business. Stores didn’t close for even one day because of the reconstruction. At Hamilton’s, the customer was always right and the store was always open. Now, that’s extreme service and a legacy that Rich Shear tries to live up to.

Rich followed his father into the business.  Dick Shear could have gone to Colgate or Alfred U with a free ride courtesy of his football skills but his dad died when there were still two kids at home so Dick took a job at what he called the Newhouse Shoehouse to help support his younger brother and mother.  The elder Mrs. Shear was a hard-working, German  person who was up and baking long before most others in Wellsville stirred.  Every morning by six, she had a smile on her face and finished pies on their way to Scoville Brown Grocery.   

In 1928, Newhouse sold the shoe business to William Hamilton for $2,200.  Mr. Hamilton changed the name of the store but kept young Dick Shear.  Dick was the people-person at Hamilton’s and William provided the capital.  Dick Shear wore out shoe leather and treads as he learned and changed the business.

Bach then, the local businesses bustled.  In the ‘30s, ‘40s, ‘50s and even into the early ‘60s, people bought locally.  Yes, cars became common over those decades but traveling to purchase things didn’t. The Sears catalog was full of great stuff but if you really wanted shoes that fit, you went to a pro.  At almost every shoe store, both feet were always carefully measured and, for several years, an x-ray machine was used to give the inside picture of the fit. 

During the time that he was in charge of making sure that people had comfortable shoes, Dick Shear developed a method of creating felt pads to customize shoes.  He knew that people don’t have perfectly matched feet and that most people needed modifications glued into one shoe or the other.  He also learned to use a set of antique stretchers to customize shoes.  It’s uncommon to find stretchers like these in use anymore.  The stretchers can help get a new pair of shoes “broken in,”  preventing blisters and adding comfort.  Rich Shear sees the stretchers and the custom-fit pads as components of a customer-service ideal that he strives for. 

Dick Shear brought service to his customers even if they didn’t come to the store.  He would send out notices of his schedule and then take a car full of shoes to a room at the Sherwood Hotel in Hornell, the Olean House, or hotels in Coudersport or Smethport.  During the day, people tried on what he had and if they needed a larger or smaller size or a different color, they came back in the late afternoon when someone from the store brought out the needed items.  The service, offered twice a year for over twenty years, faded away as hotels closed and customers became more mobile.

Rich has worked at Hamilton’s since 1967 when he started learning to make pads and fit shoes while still in college.  Following his Dad’s example on a smaller scale, Rich, when asked, takes shoes to customers at nursing homes.  He also has fourteen drawers full of catalogs in the back of the store so, if a customer doesn’t find the right footwear in one the 3,000 shoeboxes covering the walls, Rich will custom order the right shoe. 

Footwear has changed over the decades.  One big thing is that it is harder now to predict how a shoe will fit.  Shoes were made in the United States when Rich started (women’s shoes in St. Louis and men’s throughout New England) and there were standards – a size six was pretty much the same for any company. 

Now shoes are made in Asia and South America with sizing that varies from manufacturer to manufacturer.  The variety in sizing makes measuring, fitting and modifying important, but hard to find, services.

There’s been a big shift in style.  Years ago, many shoes were ordered in narrow sizes.  “We would order women’s dress shoes in quadruple A.  Have feet changed in one generation?  No.  Women just jammed their feet into these narrow things.  They didn’t ruin their feet but they were uncomfortable for years.  Now there is more acceptance of the rounded-toe, Euro Style and more concern for comfort.”

Another shift is that athletic wear, once a small section in the store, now  commands nearly a full wall.  Rich offers his experience as a runner to help other athletes.  He considers the person’s biokinetics, analyzing how the runner moves and helping to select the best shoe to address a problem.

Hamilton’s has always tried to provide mid to high quality footwear from a variety of manufacturers while giving attentive service to their clients.  Early in our lives as Wellsville residents, my husband gave Hamilton’s a try.  City and mall shoe stores often told him that they didn’t carry his size but Hamilton’s made special orders.  

Among Rick Hardman's favorite small town memories is the day that he was pumping gas when someone yelled out to him, “Hey, Rick, your shoes are in!”  

Events like that makes small towns feel like home.  Hamilton’s has been a part of this small town for 74 years.