Ever since William Faulkner took a year off from his job at the post office to read the Russians, Russian literature has acquired the unwarranted reputation of something American writers have to slog through before they can really write. That’s not too far off the mark. American writers ought to […]

I climbed North Sugarloaf this afternoon, and met some very friendly hiking companions, fellow summiteers. Goats are so intelligent, as I think you can see from these pictures. I happen to know their owner, and we discussed going back to their corral, but when I picked up my hiking poles, […]

I started The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky when I was 14. I read the first chapter and I set it aside for four years until I was ready to read the rest. Then, by golly, I ripped through it and was placed in awe by this man’s mastery of the […]

This week I climbed Sugarloaf Mountain (652 feet) and then North Sugarloaf Mountain (791 feet) and finally Mount Toby (1269 feet).    North Sugarloaf is composed of hard basalt, while South Sugarloaf is made of sandstone, and was formed by the southward moving glaciers in the ‘lee’ of North Sugarloaf, […]

My father and I climbed a lot of mountains when I was a kid, and as our family gathered recollections for his memorial service, more and more memories have come back to me of that world of huffing and puffing on mountain trails. Looking back I reckon he was doing it to […]

Tho’ it was long ago, I remember my first newspaper by-line at the Kingston Daily Freeman, and it was a real thrill. I remember, too, when I wrote a story for the Waltham News-Tribune about a boy’s death at the Fernald State School in Waltham, Massachusetts, that prompted the district […]

Those who do not become orphans early in life, like Harry Potter, become orphans later in life, unless of course they predecease their parents. For my brothers and me, this happened in fast-forward mode. Our parents died within six months of one another. As they moved from their home in New […]

  We had a memorial service for my dad in New Jersey Saturday. When I got back Sunday, in his honor, I huffed and puffed up mighty Mt. Sugarloaf. He was very fond of mountain climbing and we climbed many together. He used to say, referring to your feet, “Pick […]

As I listen to the remembrances of George Steinbrenner, the late owner of the New York Yankees, who magnanimously allowed himself to be ridiculed on Seinfeld, it occurs to me that someone should stand up and say that he was a courageous man who saved American Democracy. If you don’t […]

This ad is from the August 1941 edition of Liberty Magazine. If you click on the picture, you will see a smaller version which you can then make bigger using the funny little box with the arrows in it in the lower righthand corner of the screen. Don’t ask me […]