Author Archives: jimholleran29

     A basketball buddy passed me a page of comments from an old-timers magazine. You’ve seen those journals. They deal in nostalgia – fashion, dating, prices, social taboos, cars, life in the country, movies, etc.     The editors want you to lament how “simple’’ life was in the good old days, and hope you continueContinue reading “The whining from 1957 is worth listening to, but never returning”

 Five-hour car rides can unlock a lot of sentiments that the average husband never comprehends, even 39-plus years after the trip to the altar and the reverent “I do.’’    Somewhere between Erie, Pa., and Buffalo, we were conducting the post-mortem on the three-day Christmas visit with Herself’s parents, noting how the nieces and nephewsContinue reading “After 39 years, a husband still learns fashion basics”

 Christmas is here. Tomorrow marks Boxing Day. That’s not a day to return presents to stores in boxes. It’s a day to give to the needy.     If you need a laugh or two, here is my gift to you – my favorite one-liners. The Star-Spangled Banner  I’m standing next to my fellow referee atContinue reading “Closing the calendar year with my favorite one-liners”

     This sounds like the makings of a B movie.    A dashing German prisoner of war escapes from a train in snowy Quebec, makes his way across a mostly frozen St. Lawrence River, wanders through the streets of Ogdensburg, briefly becomes a local celebrity, then bolts for New York.   Too preposterous?  Seems moreContinue reading “Nazi pilot’s Great Escape across an open river at Ogdensburg”

   I swear Taylor Swift is following me. I turn on the TV and she is frolicking like a high school cheerleader in a Kansas City Chiefs luxury suite.     I change the channel and she pops up in a Capital One commercial, in not one image, but 10, all posing in an elevator.   Continue reading “Taylor Swift began as a ‘Love Story’ and she emerged as a billionaire”

      Baseball teams conduct spring training, basketball players go to summer camps, and NFL franchises work out every month.     The Black Lake Fish & Game Association is bringing that level of sophisticated training to high school trap shooting this Saturday, Dec. 9, when it opens the Al and Illeane Ames Youth Outdoor Education CenterContinue reading “Black Lake Fish & Game indoor shooting range grew from lifelong friends, loyalty”

  If this had been a funeral, it would have been a sunrise service. The final respects to the golf gods began at 7 a.m. on a late November Friday amid unseasonably warm temperature and great conditions – dry ground, little breeze and no rain.    Three hours later, the golf season had been givenContinue reading “Golf season ends with miraculous shot and penalty strokes for bad humor”

   I had avoided this invasive exam for seven years. I was scheduled for the procedure last year, but two heart stents delayed it. But this year, there was no recourse.    Call it the seven-year itch without a tryst, romantic liaison, even Marilyn Monroe. The only itch I’d be scratching was on my bottom;Continue reading “Finding the humor and the absurd when undergoing a colonoscopy”

    If you have a Walter Mitty imagination, you can dream of German submarines lurking beneath the surface of the St. Lawrence River during World War II, firing on unsuspecting ships or delivering messages and spies along the shores.     A Clayton marina owner recalled as a 10-year-old in 1942 that he witnessed American aircraftContinue reading “Twice a German submarine was spotted in St. Lawrence”

By KATHY M. CONNORGuest columnist   Around this time of year, the solemn, cooling temperatures of November stir thoughts of a somber nature.    Gordon Lightfoot sang of how “the lake it is said never gives up her dead, when the skies of November turn gloomy’’ in his Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.    Certainly,Continue reading “Honoring veterans’ sacrifices on both sides of the St. Lawrence”