Author Archives: Gary Sanderson

A South Deerfield, Mass., native, Gary was the longtime sports editor at the Greenfield Recorder, a daily newspaper in Greenfield, Mass., where he retired in June 2018, having worked parts of five decades over 39 years. A senior-active, nearly 40-year member of the New England Outdoor Writers Association and the Outdoor Writers Association of America, his Thursday column "On The Trail" ran for nearly 40 years, ostensibly focusing on fish and wildlife, conservation and issues pertaining to them in the Connecticut Valley, where his roots reach deep into its oldest burial grounds. He and wife Joanne live in a historic Greenfield Meadows tavern today known as Old Tavern Farm, which has a rich history dating back to the mid-18th century. The home, which became a National-Register-of-Historic-Places building on his watch, served as a small, seasonal bed and breakfast from 1999-2015. Gary's other interests include history, anthropology, archaeology, literature, genealogy, Americana, country auctions, and early-American architecture and landscapes, as well as hunting, fishing and especially reading. His primary focus is the Pioneer Valley, its people, places and critters.

Helping Hand

One down, one to go: That’s how Buckland’s Roger Ward sees it. First, the done deal. Anyone who’s scanned through the 2010 MassWildlife Abstracts may have noticed the $13 youth sporting license that’s available for the first time this year. If so and you wondered where it came from, thank Ward, known to his friends as “Heze,” pronounced Hezzie, short […]

Color Games

I know some readers are sick of this stuff. A few good ole’ boys have even felt compelled to compose scathing letters to the editor. Then again, there are those who can’t get enough. So what to do when you sit in my chair and a story like this one drops into your lap? It came via snail mail. […]

Fair Play

I’ve had a letter sitting here on my desk for a couple of years, one I’ve “been meaning to get to,” if you know what I mean. But here I sit, finally getting back to it, prodded by the man who sent it, dignified octogenarian Edward M. Wells of Leyden, Franklin County roots nearly as […]

Just Because

The brittle leaves underfoot were dry and noisy, the day unseasonably warm for early November, approaching 70. The noontime sky was clear, blue and infinite, not a trace of a cloud anywhere, the southern sun big and bright, the air tomb still. We were walking an abandoned road, me and a man who shares my […]

Still Going Strong

I took my two surviving English Springers on their routine morning run Wednesday, 8:30-ish, to the usual hayfield — a mix of clover, timothy, orchard grass and rye — the shadowed eastern third still frosted brittle. I let Ringy and Lily out and sat in the cab listening to Dennis and Callahan on WEEI. Well, […]

A Sad Ordeal

It should be with euphoria that I greet the dawning of a new bird-hunting season, which opened today for woodcock, Saturday for pheasant and partridge. And, yes, I am looking forward to the exercise, the dogs and wing-shot challenges. But it would have been better with Bessie — that is, Old Tavern Farm’s Brown Bess […]

Another Shop Bites the Dust

Sad news from Noho, where Dave Warren is closing the doors to Dave’s Pioneer Sporting Center on the south side of Damon Road. Tell me, is there a less likely location for a successful gun and tackle shop than Northampton, the politically correct capital of our Happy Valley? No sir. But that’s not what killed […]

Gentelman Jim

I found retiring, longtime state Bear Project Leader Jim Cardoza at his desk Tuesday (Oct. 6, 2009), just after noon, at Westborough’s MassWildlife Field Headquarters, where he’s kept his office during my entire Recorder tenure; more than 30 years, almost unimaginable to me, the South Deerfield bad boy who told many a teacher and coach […]

It’s Lucifer

A thick envelope sat on my desk when I arrived at work. The paste-on return address told me it had been sent by Kim Richter of Heath, color photo of a cougar on the left. “Uh-oh,” I thought, “here we go again.” The mail, electronic and snail, seems to flow hard every time I write […]

Denial Game

Well, well, well … fancy that, a Granite State cougar sighting, this one by none other than a New Hampshire Fish and Game Department (NHFG) official responding to a reported — yeeeup, you guessed it — cougar sighting. The way this potentially hot story with legs ran its short, uneventful course underscores the absurdity of […]

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