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The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

If we really want to honor Southern heritage today, more of us should heed the words of the most famous of all Confederate heroes, Robert E. Lee, who in his great wisdom argued against Civil War monuments, saying that these “kept open the sores of war.”

My journey to greater understanding began many years ago in Louisiana when this now old Yankee married a charming daughter of the Confederacy. She is a big part of the reason I fell in love with the South and remain enchanted with much of its culture. Embracing my new life, I mounted a large Confederate battle flag in our living room. I thought it looked cool and was a lot cheaper than other art we couldn’t afford. Continue reading “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”

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Saved by a Great Reporter and Hoosick Falls Living Legend

It took me a long time to figure out that one door closing means it’s time to open another one. This lesson often came  brutally hard because I still needed to smash into the closed door repeatedly until I was half-conscious and bloody, never one smart enough to take the obvious at face value, insisting instead to test the immutable repeatedly until I was so soundly beaten I had no other viable alternative but to reassess and redirect. One of my old newspaper supervisors once said about a colleague, “That guy’s too stupid to quit. I have to fire him.” He could have been talking about me. Fortunately, dogged persistence can be a quality if appropriately channeled, but I sure do wish the channel changer worked a bit easier.

Had it not been for Darlene Ward I might have sought a longer career in newspapers. Darlene was the first good reporter I met on the job, a kind yet incisively agile combatant when this was necessary, and it often is in the news game. As for her caring and gracious side, Darlene quickly taught me many things about the craft and also, indirectly, about my own native abilities, or more accurately, the lack of them with respect to being a reporter. Continue reading “Saved by a Great Reporter and Hoosick Falls Living Legend”

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Small Town Journalism: Mr. Magoo Meets Blind Bob

For entertainment’s sake, I recently made light of much of my first experiences working as a small town journalist, although there was great truth in the comedy and nothing fictional at all in the account. Mostly, I over-simplified and under-explained a great many complex factors that often led me to sitting in an uncomfortable, hard backed wood chair or even more unpleasant metal folding ones for two hours or more listening to the specifications of roofing tar, the need to keep the family dog from using a neighbor’s yard as his restroom, why some potholes can’t be fixed, and the ever-evolving mystery surrounding who siphoned gas from DPW vehicles every Saturday night. Sometimes I could almost cut the high tension with my trusty pen that everyone likes to say is mightier than the sword but in my case was more like a bent butter knife. I was totally unprepared for the monumental importance of issues with earth-shattering consequences that challenged me by the moment, and soon recognized I couldn’t truly convey the deep inner meaning of petroleum products and dog poop. Continue reading “Small Town Journalism: Mr. Magoo Meets Blind Bob”

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One New Year’s Tale from the Washington County Post

Being such a talented journalist I was fired the first week I worked at a newspaper often called, for excellent reasons, either “The Standard Mess” or “Substandard Press,” although the masthead read “The Standard Press.” All three of you who read my writing with any regularity will more remember “The Washington County Post,” but both publications were actually identical on the inside 12 pages, only the outer four reserved for more local readership in Hoosick Falls and Cambridge. Jointly we were called “Horicon Newspapers,” the publications owned by Nick and Laurie Mahoney who made the grave error of hiring me fresh out of college in 1976. I’ve often wondered had they not done so how my life would have wound up, and today strongly believe not nearly as good. It’s astounding what working 60 hour weeks for 90 bucks every Friday will do for the soul, if not more mundane things like the chance to learn necessary job skills. Beyond question, the opportunity was a great gift to a most unworthy recipient. Continue reading “One New Year’s Tale from the Washington County Post”

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The First Dance

On a warm July evening the notes floated across Hedges Lake carried by a soft breeze to the ears of a 12-year-old sitting on a dock at one of Bob Craig’s camps, our first local residence. It was a magical time, but I didn’t know it, instead just another dumb kid with his feet dangling in cool water, fishing pole in one hand, the other tapping out the rhythm on a rough pine board. I hoped to catch “The Big One” and did, but it wasn’t a fish I hooked, it was a life-long love of live rock and roll.

“Louie Louie” was hugely popular in the summer of 1965 and even today most people can recognize the first five notes and easily name the song. No one will ever know how many local bands played the enormously popular rock anthem after a cover by the Kingsmen first cracked the pop charts in 1963, and most unusually, once again in 1966. A few years later Joe Vitello sang it at a CCS dance, I’m not sure which one, but it may have been my first, our seventh grade waltz into the dating scene, one marvelously introduced by two great teachers. Continue reading “The First Dance”

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Teacher’s Last Day

In the spirit of alumni competition I’d like to nominate the Class of 1972 as one of the most difficult to teach and eagerly anticipate worthy challengers to the title: “Class Most Likely to End a Teacher’s Career.” For concrete evidence I submit our eighth grade version, a year we lost almost 50 percent of our teachers. I believe all three quit, or were fired, before the end of the year. I’m completely certain Chesty Charlie didn’t make it to the end, not as certain about the other two who most definitely didn’t return for round two, but I don’t think any of the three finished the school term. We were a most talented group of junior insurrectionists, and while I had my moments, I can’t claim topflight status. I’m tempted to formally name my betters, but hope they will soon step up to claim their true rewards independent of my nomination.

And then there’s the much more serious side, the terrifically challenging task of guiding young people to knowledge and better choices while staying safe and sane in the process. Continue reading “Teacher’s Last Day”

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Unsafe at Any Speed

Lots of you will remember this title from Ralph Nader’s book blasting the Chevy Corvair. I owned two, but one only briefly because a very close friend wrecked it on my 18th birthday, and before that my dad’s car, and before that a motorcycle I owned, a triple play which I can’t top and will write much about later as I recall the life of one of the best friends I ever had, John Virtue. I maintained a friendship with John through adulthood. He’s been gone quite a few years now and I still miss him a lot. We also stayed as close as we could with John’s wife Carol who finally civilized John as did their two great kids Debbie and Scott. Good friends or not, I was still hesitant to let John drive anything I owned. I did, however, trust him with my life, and now that I think about it, this happened every time I let John drive. Continue reading “Unsafe at Any Speed”

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The Last Football Game

As far as I’m concerned, it’s all Keith Saunders’ fault. That guy, and maybe some pretty bad blocking assignments, cost us all championship jackets. Of course, I don’t really mean this, especially about Keith. He was one of many superior athletes on the 1971 team that could have been champions if not for a great deal of misfortune. Such is life, and brutally hard lessons are all part of it. Continue reading “The Last Football Game”

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How Not to Build a Campfire: More Tales of Troop 62

Everyone in Cambridge who participated in the Boy Scouts for any length of time will have fond memories of Camp Wakpominee. These were often created by a combination of absolutely spectacular natural settings that surrounded a picturesque lake. Equally significant was Camp Wakpominee’s extremely well designed program. But no place this side of heaven is flawless and mistakes were made, a big one occurring when I was hired as a CIT, counselor in training, when I probably should have been breaking rocks in some youth reformatory. Continue reading “How Not to Build a Campfire: More Tales of Troop 62”

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The Kavanaugh Conundrum

“It is of great importance in a republic, not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.” James Madison, often referred to as “The Father of the Constitution”

It’s not often we get to witness a major historic event live, but the Kavanaugh hearings certainly qualify. I don’t recall being so emotionally moved and feeling I viewed something that will be long remembered since I watched Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV when I was a little kid. I will always view both events as assassinations, but the Kavanaugh hearings slowed the bullet down to a crawl so that we could all witness in stop action vividness and instant replay the blood and bone hit the cameras. I never thought I’d ever agree with Lindsey Graham, but I’d have to call the whole scene a dehumanizing display. The thing Graham conveniently forgot was that Republicans were every bit as guilty as the Democrats, but a good case can be made the Democrats constructed the original bomb. Continue reading “The Kavanaugh Conundrum”