What's the first thing you know?

Think back to recall the earliest memories. Consider the very first thing you know.

As it turns out there is a universal nugget of knowledge that ninety-nine percent of the population claim to be the first thing you know.

Happy Thanksgiving to my faithful readers. The weather in Millsburg has turned colder.

The news of a big storm dumping snow on Dallas Texas and heading east has the bakeries in hyper dough mode.

The flour is flying as they crank out extra bread that will likely sell out over the next day or two.

We learn at an early age that if there is any snow in the forecast it is critical to have extra bread on hand.

The very thought of warm toast buttered and with jelly triggers an old memory.


Could this be the first thing you know?


Imagine the bread cubes needed to stuff those enormous Thanksgiving Turkeys.

The meteorologists  urgently proclaim that although the various forecast models all seem to have the storm moving away from Millsburg they are quick to cite the historically inaccurate hybrid European Las Vegas forecast model. The constant Thanksgiving Day Blizzard updates urge the eastern seaboard to rush out and get more bread.

On a recent day the lure of an estate sale in Sparrowbush, NY provided an afternoon to look for some eagles up at the Rio Dam. Although no eagles were spotted on this trek we did get to check out a new stretch of road.

Near one end of the Rio Dam there is an intersection in the road. A left turn onto S Plank Road winds through the woods and soon cuts across a camp that is owned by our utility company here in Millsburg.

This camp has been a retreat for Utility Company employees for decades. In between bringing electricity to the house in Millsburg, these folks get to enjoy an amazing spot next to the water.




Just beyond the camp, abandoned in the woods are ruins of an old pipeline. Constructed of wood planks that have been precisely milled and fitted these ruins are visible for quite a distance along the road.

The planks are held together in a pipeline formed by iron rings spaced about six inches apart.

There are thousands of these iron rings. Some sections of this pipe have only the rings left, leaning now against the next, fighting gravity together.

Gravity.

Is this the source of knowledge that almost all people can claim to be the first thing you know?


Unsure of the reason that this pipeline was constructed. It was pontificated that it transported water from the business end of the Rio Dam.

It is clear that the origin or purpose of this pipeline is not the first thing you know.

After making some inquisitions with an engineer familiar with the area it turns out that the ruins are actually an oil pipe. The pipe was constructed to carry oil from the drilling sites in Pennsylvania and through small towns actually named Oil City.

David McFeaters took a picture of this snowy scene in Oil City, Venango County, Pa., where more than a foot of lake-effect snow fell. Roads were shut down with accidents occurring on slick roadways on Sunday, Nov. 24, 2013.

The snow has reached Oil City in Pennsylvania over the past weekend. With Thanksgiving only a few days away the prospects of having snow in Millsburg seems likely. Dave McFeaters will have to somehow dash out to get more bread as soon as the snow stops falling in Oil City, PA.

The old pipeline in the woods provided some jobs for the residents of Oil City, PA. Getting oil inside the pipe must have required a lot of labor.

Once the oil was removed from the ground it was put into the pipe. Gravity takes over again and the oil runs down hill toward more populated locations to the east.

Oil City in the town of Minisink, near Millsburg, is one of these locations.

The pipeline that we saw in the woods many miles from Millsburg carried most of the oil from Pennsylvania to refineries in the Hudson Valley.

Some of the oil of course was returned to the ground along the way.

So what does all this have to do with the first thing you know?

Bread sales during snowstorms and the benefits of gravity both seem to spark very early childhood recollections.

But what about people who live in areas where there is no snow?

Do you really know if gravity is real and permanent?

There is one real fact.

One absolute universal and irrefutable bit of truth that is the first thing you know.

Find out more by clicking on the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_XAPku7SgE