Category: Real Personal History
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Spider Dilemma, My
I wanted desperately to write a blog about Daddy-Long-Leg spiders. But, there was a technical problem that I could not solve. It’s not that there is a shortage of this species here in the North Country. Indeed, just the opposite is true. They are everywhere. But try to get a photo of one…it’s not impossible,…
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56 Years Along The Blue Trail: Then And Now
Like brave mountaineers, we weren’t bothered much by time. –Gordon Lightfoot It’s late August in the North Country. The green of the leaves and shrubs are looking tired. Some hints of the colors of autumn are emerging from the maples and oaks. Late summer flowers like Black-Eyed Susans and Ragweed are everywhere. The quarter moon…
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Day And Night At The County Fair–August, 2015
It was my third visit to the Franklin County Fair. I came on Senior’s Night when the admission is a mere $2.00 for older gents like me. It was crowded with North Country folks of all sizes, shapes, and ages. Teenage girls clung to the arms of their ‘guy’. Wounded vets were pushed in wheelchairs…
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The Moth
There are stories told around the world about a strange figure referred to as The Mothman. These are compelling stories that are, it is claimed, substantiated by eye-witness accounts and news articles. A Hollywood film was made about the Mothman, which starred Richard Gere. It was a pretty good film. Apparently, the figure of the…
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Is This Really Happening?
It’s 5:01 pm on July 23. Thirty-two days ago was the summer solstice. It’s 64.9 F. I’m standing on the back deck of our house at Rainbow Lake. I’m chilled. I have a thin blanket over my shoulders like a cheap superhero. It’s one of those free “blanket” covers they give you on long distance…
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After The Party
I wasn’t that hungry to begin with. Blame it on the oppressive heat and humidity in the city that evening. Blame it on the seven block walk to our favorite Ramen place on 28th Street. Or, best of all, blame it on the viral bronchial whatever I pick up in late June. I just didn’t…
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Bryant Park On A July Afternoon
I remember a time, back in the 1970’s and ’80’s when Bryant Park was a certain kind of place for a certain kind of person. I was not one of those people. There was a public restroom…a small stone building on 42nd Street. If you entered to use the urinal, in the day, in the…
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My Dreams Are Made Of Iron And Steel
I don’t dream the way I did in past years. I miss that because those nighttime adventures were something to behold. The visions of H. P. Lovecraft, Bram Stoker and Steven Spielberg were mere cartoons when compared to the places I would go in the hours beyond midnight…when REM sleep was most active. Very rarely…
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The Empty Bedroom
This was once my bedroom. There was a time when this room was packed full of the stuff of life… From a crib made in the mid-1940’s, I would look out at the flowered wallpaper. Maybe a mobile hung just out of my reach, and moved about when a breeze caught it from a partly…
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Finding Peter
[Lenny is on the left. Peter is happy to be in Pennsylvania] It was here in the Adirondack Mountains that I walked up to the wall of a ranger cabin. It was a far off December night, when my heart and body were young. I had a flashlight in my shaking hand, and read by…
