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.

Walking the Dogs

As you look southeast over a sea of tall green grass funneling down to a stately hardwood frame, the Mt. Toby range protrudes from afar with distinction, like a giant molar dwarfing lesser teeth on the lower gum of a worn mouth. Between Toby and me is downtown Greenfield, then the Pocumtuck Range, which rises […]

Building Bridges

Colrain historian Muriel Russell put a bug in my ear this week about a subject she knows I’m fond of, that being my third great-grandfather, Asaph Willis Snow, a carriage-maker who farmed some 350 acres surrounding the old Fort Lucas site of French & Indian War fame. Russell, a phone pal with whom I share […]

Spring Chapel

What drew my attention was the salient, bright red head bobbing through the faint putty-green April pasture, a mature tom, beard dangling like a pendulum, as he approached a thin brush line skirting a spring-fed pond. Ahead of him were five or six drab hens, walking alertly, heads high, some dropping to feed. Early spring […]

Family Ties

I spent a nice evening last week with about 25 members of the Whately Historical Society, people who share my interest in old homes, old barns, old taverns and old relics from a kinder day. Among my guests was the new owner of a home where my displaced ancestors once lived briefly after a July […]

Where are we Headed?

Sugar snow snakes through the forested highland crevices like frothy white streams flowing toward their summer delta as sugar shacks exhale plumes of steam dotting the horizon from damp pockets. Below, remnants of winter can be seen along the stream’s bank and the house’s northern perimeter; also where the plow has left the most impure […]

Sixties Rant

”Will you still bleed me, will you still mislead me, When I’m sixty-four?” Paul McCartney (lyrics slightly altered to fit theme) What do Sgt. Pepper and hippie freaks, neocons and fundamentalist Christian nutbags have to do with declining Atlantic salmon numbers? Just you wait and see. There is a connection. Trust me. As for salmon, […]

Hunting Buddies Never Die

I wish I had known, been able to reach out. But now he’s gone, too late to say goodbye. I remember the last time we spoke. It was brief, on my way into the Green River Festival a couple of years ago. His welcoming smile and warm brown eyes, same mischievous glint, were unchanged since […]

Solitary Contentment

Published: Thursday, January 01, 2009 It’s all coming back to me as I sit at my desk, space heater purring behind me, dog sleeping between it and me, noble, 9-point buck mounted above, between the windows. A steady rain splatters off the stone terrace outside as mellow gray light from the dense foggy air filters […]

The Painter

The sad news was fresh, the morning gray. I was backed up to a bluff overlooking the Green River, sitting on my tailgate, sipping coffee, watching my dogs romp up and down the bank, swimming after mallards, flushing them, returning to the plateau, shaking off, bounding through the shin-high hayfield … pure joy. My imagination […]

Chapman/Pierson highboy

Discovery is exciting, precisely what keeps people hunting through moldy cellars, dusty attics and decaying barns, yard sales and crack-of-dawn flea markets. Collecting’s a disease, one that can be highly contagious, a fever that grips you … which reminds me of a recent visit to my Greenfield, Ma., home, one that bore sweet, salubrious fruit, […]

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