Category Archives: Columns

Published pieces I’ve written, primarily in The Recorder, Greenfield, Mass.

Bull Head Pond Conclusions

I’ve been tempted lately to jump back into the anadromous fish fray, for which local gadfly Karl Meyer has so capably taken the baton and sprinted off toward a distant, cluttered finish line. But first things first — specifically closure on the location of Greenfield’s Bull Head Pond, which I know much more about since […]

Fishing For Forgiveness

That mournful flute was entrancing, spooky. Its deep, hollow, haunting moans filled the bright, airy, riverside chamber called Great Hall and pierced a private internal sanctuary in me that few can penetrate, entering through a slim wound that oozed grief, gushed guilt. The handsome wooden instrument still resonated the next morning, like a spiritual echo […]

Strange Bedfellows

A rattler it wasn’t, but still, how would like to find one in your lingerie drawer? Yes, it seems dangerous-looking reptiles are lurking in my neighborhood. That’s what I’m chasing this week. Just another interesting little tale that piqued my interest after arriving as an email tip from a friend and neighbor. Why? For one […]

Flower Power

It’s that hopeful time of year when things are happening and, no, I haven’t given up on Bull Head Pond. In fact, I have exciting new discoveries about that forgotten spot, now in a different location, just a stone’s throw from the 20th century pond called Bull Head that I reluctantly accepted as the one […]

The Legend Grows

The tulip magnolia is back, and so is that “solitary Indian” camped at the edge of town. First, the magnolia, though, which literally weathered the storm and is now in full bloom, just around the corner from the umbrella table and chairs we put out front for a change, hidden between the main block and […]

Spring Things

The greening of spring can envelop a man with inspiration — a young manured rye field underfoot stretching out in rich, vibrant green to a faraway budding border of faint pastels, high and low, some reds and browns daubed in, the streams at a swollen mumble, soothing from afar, as birds flitter about the beaver […]

Streamside Rebuke

Peter Mallett can be a feisty devil, which comes as no surprise to me after years of entertaining phone conversations. Yes, affable Pete Mallet — president and founder of the Millers River Fishermen’s Association — is a man of principle, not a bit timid about voicing an opinion on important matters, particularly hunting and fishing, […]

Indian Pond

Where to start? That’s the problem today facing me. I know where I’m headed, just am not sure how to get there. Hmmmm? Bear with me. Plus, due to a spring freshet of info overflow, I must run a rare outdoors notebook inside. First, though, I probably ought to begin with what got me started […]

Clockwork

It’s Wednesday morning, column day, and nothing seems to be going right, even choosing a topic difficult. One of those days, I suppose. Always dangerous. Never know where a man might wander on a warm spring day. As for my unexpected issues, well, I imagine you all know the drill. First you go out fiddlehead […]

Food For Thought

Kids and customers, a call from a friend and completion of an old novel about a familiar subject, plus matters related to all of the above — that’s what I’m thinking about as I sit here today; Worm Moon waning; brown, brittle leaves, feeble remnants of fall, tumbling, hopping and tumbling again in blustery winter […]

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