Midday has passed, it’s cold as a witch’s heart, wind blowing, ice getting harder and slicker by the second. The phone rings. The caller-ID informs me it’s old pal Killer, a hunting buddy who spent many a day with me chasing pheasants and deer, more of the former than the latter but plenty of both. […]

It’s a hot, hazy mid-afternoon, storm threatening, me standing atop Mt. Sugarloaf, a Pioneer Valley landmark whose summit view never gets old to an old guy who climbed it often as a kid. Standing beside me on the lower tier of the observation tower is Dr. Marjorie Holland, a scholar passing through old haunts from […]

The loud, sudden, crunching, crashing halt to a power mower’s roar — the kind of sound you’d hate to hear when mowing your lawn — and a maiden voyage to the top of a Pioneer Valley landmark are on the front burner of discussion this week. First, the grinding, earth-rattling sound I heard while walking […]