Category Archives: Uncategorized

   Remember the old proverb? “Charity begins at home.’’   Its original intent was simple — be good to your family, then extend similar kindnesses to the world.   That’s why wordsmiths at the proverb-making factory came up with “no good deed goes unpunished.’’  You can get into a lot of trouble simply by helpingContinue reading “Forget charity and kindness; no good deed goes unpunished”

      At 66, I entered the Morristown Firecracker 5K & Fun Run three years ago, hoping I might place in the old-guys division. My four-day-per week training regimen consisted of walking 18 holes while chasing errant golf shots and lumbering up and down the basketball court while the 40-year-olds zipped past.     Surprisingly, I joggedContinue reading “A new strategy to compete with North County running guru”

    When I saw the truck parked at the end of my neighbor’s driveway and watched the man load a metal bed frame, I felt I let one get away, missed a layup, botched the $100 answer on Jeopardy!     That’s when I knew my spouse of almost 42 years was right – a difficultContinue reading “‘Scrapper’ had been a dirty word until recycling made it positive”

    Unless you were living under a locker room bench for the past 40 years, you’ve probably become familiar with the movie “Hoosiers.’’ Rural Hickory High School emerges from the cornfields and achieves the improbable with guys like Ollie, Strap and out-of-this-world shooter Jimmy Chitwood, knocking off a string of basketball powerhouses to win theContinue reading “In 1967, Hammond basketball became Section X’s ‘Hoosiers’”

     As a young basketball player, Chris Murray dreamed of playing for the Syracuse Orangemen. As an accomplished adult artist, he has joined the team.     The 2002 Norwood-Norfolk graduate is completing plans for his second major mural of the Orange in downtown Syracuse. “SU GOATS’’ will capture likenesses of some of the greatest playersContinue reading “He didn’t join SU hoops lineup but his murals preserve stars”

   When you lock the front door for the final time or turn your back and walk down the driveway, a sense of loss persists when you close a house.    Maybe you’ve sold off your first home or closed your parents’ estate. If the walls could talk, they’d recall stories of children’s birthday parties,Continue reading “It can be tough saying goodbye to this old house of memories”

   Patrick Ashley is working meticulously to preserve Ogdensburg’s history. But you won’t find him at the library researching border skirmishes with the British, or French settlements along both sides of the St. Lawrence River.   He works from his home computer to post enhanced photographs of street scenes and homes of the Maple CityContinue reading “‘Burg native preserves history in enhanced photo restorations”

   Working the chute at the parish rummage sale means you see just about everything.    Cars arrive alongside our school building, donors unload their treasures, and you pass them through the window. The donations are sent down a wooden chute to the gym floor where sorters dispatch donations to any department imaginable – housewares,Continue reading “Spotting treasures amid junk at the church rummage sale”

   The game was entered into my lacrosse schedule weeks ago, but in truth I had been plotting this road trip for more than a year.    A game assignment at Haverling in Bath, N.Y., our southernmost school, requires an 80-mile drive and three hours back and forth in the car.     My colleagues inContinue reading “The road leads to friend’s grave, covering 50 years of memories”

   Throughout history, a cast of characters has emerged that did notable work but received little credit.    Long before the Artemis moon mission, mathematical genius Katherine Johnson calculated spacecraft trajectories, launch windows and emergency routes for the Mercury and Apollo space programs 65 years ago. But the credit was given to a horde ofContinue reading “The backstory behind names of North Country villages”