Category Archives: Uncategorized

   You can call the total solar eclipse throughout St. Lawrence County on April 8 the event of a lifetime, and you’d still be selling it short.    Event of a century? Keep going. These celestial events are so rare that your grandchildren’s grandchildren won’t be around to watch. Still, I’m not doing the eclipseContinue reading “During April 8 eclipse, Moon will steal the Sun’s spotlight”

 Editor’s note: After this column was posted, Black Lake Fish & Game Association announced it has postponed its ice fishing derby until Feb. 24. The Black Lake Ice Fishing Derby Dave Roll’s upcoming weekend just became less complicated.    The owner of Black Lake Marine Cottages can focus Saturday on the Black Lake Ice Fishing DerbyContinue reading “Ice fishers need a cold snap to avoid a walk on the wild side”

   By day, Tom Luckie prepares for the afternoon onslaught when 140 children descend on the Ogdensburg Boys & Girls Club for afternoon programs.     By evening, he is monitoring an older population – the 60 or so referees who work high school basketball games throughout the North Country.   The number of children seemsContinue reading “Tweet! Schools may cry foul when ref shortage is intolerable”

     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”