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.

Ghost Moon

It must have been the backyard brook’s rattle, clear, free and pure, coupled with the brilliant car dinal’s joyous serenade from its burning-bush perch, that got my wheels a spinning. I was enjoying the cool, clear, sunlit morning with frisky Lily, joyful gait, tail wagging, prancing along the south bank’s soft, dirty ice, reduced to […]

Fish Tale Revisited

It’s that cabin-fever time of year when, with little to write about, I’m usually searching for something, anything to fill this space. Such a predicament I found myself mired in this week while preoccupied with other pressing, non-work-related issues. Then, out of the blue, like a gift from the heavens, an envelope appeared in my […]

Going With The Flow

A sparse snow had just started to fall, tiny flakes floating to the ground with the buoyancy of dust particles in a ray of sunlight piercing the woodshed window, as I stood Wednesday morning along the backyard bank of Hinsdale Brook; pooch Lily scampering along its frozen edge, likely following cold scent of a coon, mink or possum, oblivious to […]

Not So Bio-Fast

Back on a pleasant Sunday in December, on vacation, I decided at the last minute to attend a biomass gathering that drew quite a crowd to Bernardston’s historic Unitarian Church. I was curious, wanted to meet the players, inconspicuously work the floor, so to speak, perhaps eat a cookie in passing, kill time before the Patriots game. To my delight, […]

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 […]

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