Horse chestnuts and their husks cover part of the Liberty Street sidewalk outside the perimeter fence of the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Albany Saturday.
It’s that time of year when it rains horse chestnuts — if, that is, you stand under a towering tree of the species Aesculus hippocastanum and there’s a gust of wind.
There are a bunch of those stately trees on the grounds of what used to be the Bureau of Mines in Albany. It hasn’t been called that since 1996, but old habits are hard to break. The place has been the National Energy Technology Laboratory since 2005.
The part of the lab’s campus across Liberty Street from West Albany High School used to serve as kind of a park accessible to the public, including students at West. Then came 9-11 and security fences went up all over America, including here.
You can find chestnuts on the ground on three sides of the NETL campus, outside the fence, on Liberty and Broadway streets and on Queen Avenue too.
I went there Saturday on the bike. I’ve always liked these seeds, the way they look and feel when first they pop out of their green husks.
Too bad they are inedible. Various references, including one from Oregon State University’s Department of Horticulture, mention that the seeds are poisonous. Not even Albany’s squirrels will touch them.
The OSU publication says “the fruit’s bitter taste prevents the consumption of large amounts.”
As commenters on previous horse chestnut stories noted, in the United Kingdom they call the nuts conkers. They have a children’s game where you thread a chestnut on a string, then swing it and try to conk and break one held by your opponent.
Conkers, the game, has not caught on around here. If it ever does — unlikely as long as the motto with children’s games is “safety first” — players will find plenty of ammo on Liberty Street in Octobers to come. (hh)
No longer fresh, these conkers have been on the ground a few days.
When I was very, very young we lived in Westport, Oregon, which was a company owned town and saw mill on the Columbia between Portland and Astoria, there several Horse Chestnut trees along the street leading from Highway 30 to the ferry (believe it is still operating) which connected to Cathlamet Island where a bridge connected with the Washington side.
We used the nuts as hockey pucks and made hockey sticks out of lath that came from the saw mill. No, there wasn’t any ice, our “rink” was the asphalt street and our skates were roller skates! When the asphalt got hot it slowed down activity because it would stick to the skates. No helmets, no knee pads, no paddy gloves, and on the few occasions when a car approached a time out was called.
No one got hurt and everyone had fun.
Anyone else have that kind of home made, DIY childhood?
Yes, I had a homemade, do-it-yourself childhood. I loved to walk in the rain with my raincoat on and a hat and rubbers (which was the name for galoshes (boots)!). When I was less than 5 years old, my mother let me do that on my own. I walked about 2 blocks and turned on a street and then about 2 blocks more and turned again, and then walked across a little vacant lot to get back to our house. And my mother was an excellent mother. Little kids played outside on their own all the time in those days. The world was a better place then in many ways.
I’m 65 so it will always be the Bureau of Mines to me. Plus, it’s a lot easier to say.
Unfortunately, complacency and safety equipment have replaced common sense while doing anything driving, playing, working and other lifestyle choices. Learning to be safe no matter what you are doing makes life more fun and happier. My kiddos want to play the Conkers game now. They like simple stuff like that. We will go pick some up for fall decorating too! Thanks! Hasso
Please tell me why this blog feels like making the 1950s great again?!
It does not work that way!!!!
Trying too damn hard.
We have a few horse chestnuts along 8th St. A few people walking along call them “buck eyes”. They must be midwesterners, maybe even Ohio Staters. Not many threre. I see kids and squirrels running off with them