Author Archives: jimholleran29

    As a worldly friend once chided me, “Not all sports have a ball or a puck.’’ The Black Lake Fish & Game Club members figured that out about 80 years ago, and may have assembled the biggest sports team around St. Lawrence County.    Fish & Game members have helped to develop high schoolContinue reading “Black Lake Fish & Game Club aims high with shooting range”

    I don’t recall how Eileen Holleran’s nickname started, perhaps from her sisters who also were nurses, maybe from her Morristown moms group, but it fit aptly. “Florence of the St. Lawrence’’ worked on several levels – her home overlooking the river, her 47-year career at A. Barton Hepburn Hospital, and the alliteration stemming fromContinue reading “Florence of the St. Lawrence was more than a family nickname”

Reprinted from March 28, 2021 Imagine players soft tossing during warmups at the Morristown Central School baseball diamond when a Green Rockets player spies the sign in the left-field corner – Holleran Field. He wonders aloud to his throwing partner, “Who was Holleran?’’ If the players are 16, perhaps their parents have reached their mid-40s,Continue reading “Fran Holleran’s 100th birthday”

In this age of wild conspiracy theories, the question remains – “How does tiny Hammond Central School, champion of the girls Class D state basketball tournament, win so often?’’ Try these: Granted, those are as preposterous as saying space lasers created California wildfires. Administrators don’t slip a secret sauce into the school lunches. Town officialsContinue reading “Uncovering the secret formula for Hammond, hamlet of champs”

St. Patrick’s Day resembles a wedding each year at our home. If a wedding and reception entail a church, priest, flowers, music, limousine, bridal party (the list goes on and on), our annual St. Patrick’s Day party includes at least 35 pounds of corned beef, borrowed pots from neighbors, four starter cases of beer, bottles of JamesonContinue reading “Snakes would be more welcome than another St. Patrick’s disaster”

During my childhood, my father used to share a silly rhyme about two brothers. “Skinny and Fatty went to bed; Fatty rolled over and Skinny was dead.’’ His version of a Grimm Brothers fairy tale seemingly has been replaced in today’s society by two more brothers – Civility and Entitlement. Entitlement is hogging the coversContinue reading “Civility and Entitlement”

When Burt Bacharach died a couple of weeks ago, my favorite jazz station devoted plenty of air time to his songs, kind of a musical obituary. He was considered Hollywood hip back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, a classically trained pianist with an ear for lyrics, handsome, square-jawed husband to Angie Dickinson, writer of aContinue reading “What once passed for hip, trendy has become dreadfully outdated”

As I drive to Reading, Pa., to meet my week-old granddaughter, the title Grandpa Holleran remains surreal, although I’ve heard it a hundred times. My grandson Wes, who is approaching 2½ years, has begun to use that term. But it remains odd, as if somebody started the DVD of my life story, advanced the sceneContinue reading “Grandpa H sounds surreal; hope it lasts for years”

On New Year’s Day, I checked the St. Lawrence River level at my sister Maureen’s home at Merry’s Point in Morristown. You didn’t need to find a yardstick to realize only 6 inches of water stood against the base of her dock. The conditions that had peeved shore residents and boaters last summer and fallContinue reading “Shall we gather at the deep parts of the river?”