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Interview with Mr. Allen


“Learn a variety of different subjects; just don’t learn one or two subjects. Keep an open mind and learn about everything that’s going on around here”.

Stories Around the Lake-Interview with Mr. Allen By:Cheyenne Terrell

This is some background of Mr. Allen. He was born and raised here all his life, and he had quite a few jobs you could say. So, here are some of his jobs. He worked at Bassett for 24 years, and for 18 years in Cooperstown Central School, where he still works. His favorite part of working here at Cooperstown Central School is coming in, getting set up, and meeting more people. He was a volunteer firefighter for twenty years. He ran the park at Three Mile Point one summer. He worked on the village street crew for one summer.

Mr. Allen knows about our local area. He loves nature and he picks blackberries and raspberries, apples, and all kinds of different mushrooms out of the local gardens and woods. Some things that Mr. Allen knows about the wild are ostrich ferns and they grow fiddleheads that he picks in the spring and then he cooks them. Rams, that are like wild leeks, are another thing he picks and you could use them instead of onion. He finds elderberry bushes and uses them, too. He also picks apples because he owns his own cider press.

Mr. Allen hunts, but don’t ask him about his favorite hunting spots because he’ll tell you that “a good hunter never reveals his secrets.”

When asked about how Cooperstown has changed since he was younger, he said the population has grown and Bassett Hospital has grown. When Mr. Allen was younger, Bassett would only hire 500 people, and now they employ over 2,000 people.

Mr. Allen remembers going to the Clark Sports Center, pedaling around the village on his bike, and playing with his friends as some of his favorite memories. His favorite childhood memory was to see the full moon rise over Otsego Lake at night with the moonlight sparkling off the water.

Now you’ll know some background on Mr. Allen before you listen to the interview.


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