The huge, white half-moon dominating the southwestern sky Tuesday night got me pondering, as prominent moons often do. This one to me suggested a mouth agape, half opened in astonishment at what has transpired over the past month. First Irene, then this surreal winter snowstorm that visited us last weekend, two months before winter. What […]

I’m assuming pheasant season opened with a bang Saturday. I wasn’t there to witness it. Why buck opening-day crowds? That’s my motto. Crowded coverts are not for me. But I’m not here to chat about hunting today. We have other issues, ones I pushed onto the backburner last week after learning of an old Whately […]

A familiar landscape it was, viewed from a new vista, flavored by a soft southern breeze that helped inflate a solemn affair with a touch of charm. Old friend Dave Scott, ninth-generation farmer on a proud Whately spread — that alone worthy of tribute — was being laid to rest at a place of his […]

Here I sit, once again wondering where I’m headed, akin to taking an old path through new woods. Unafraid, I’m confident I’ll find my way back to the truck one way or another. So why not stretch my legs and see where they take me? I know where I should be going. It’s the final […]

With grandson Jordi in town for Labor Day weekend, I was sleeping in a small upstairs room when my wife appeared at the door after 4 a.m. Sunday. “Honey?” “Yeah.” “Sorry to wake you. A cop just left. He said a neighbor complained that Buddy was barking and there’s a skunk in the kennel.” “How […]

A lot of questions, few answers: That’s what’s facing me this week, especially Tuesday, on what would have been my late son’s 29th birthday. I remember Gary’s 1982 birth well. There I was, marching with a bare-bones, pick-up softball team toward the annual Athol Labor Day Tournament finals, and my wife went into labor around […]