All for a sip from the Grey Cup

November 9, 2023

This past Sunday was terrific. I attended a mini-reunion of fellow employees from a design firm where I worked during the eighties. Together, we built custom kitchens, baths, and family rooms. Sunday, eleven of us lunched, laughed, and shared old stories. It was like we had never left, except for the deepened laugh lines and the gray hair. I sat next to John whom I didn’t even recognize for the first five minutes. John is the youngest of our bunch, “the kid.” For forty years, John was the talented engineering draftsman who also drew artistic perspectives so customers could ...

Music is still making memories

November 3, 2023

Lately it seems like Facebook has been flooded with various devices that make music or at least play music. Although I have not experienced all of them, I had some of them. Let’s start with the earliest device I remember. I had a Victrola. I had a lot of 78 rpm records to play on it. The one that I remember the most was “Teddy Bear’s Picnic”. I loved that song and played it often. My Victrola was housed in a back bedroom of Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I could go up there and play my music to my heart’s content and not bother anyone. Somewhere in the great shuffle of ...

A Saturday miracle at Shea’s in Buffalo

November 2, 2023

In last week’s column, I mentioned that I love it when my children buy me tickets as a gift rather than more stuff. An hour after I finished writing on Tuesday, my son called to say, “What are you doing next Saturday?” When I replied that we had no plans, he said, “Hold that – I’ll get back to you.” Then he called my daughter. Together they bought theater tickets for my birthday. When he called back, he said, “It’s a matinee of Moulin Rouge, the musical at Shea’s Buffalo. I was able to get handicapped seating for you and Richard. Check it out on Ticketmaster.” I ...

Voters make a difference

October 28, 2023

By SUSAN STOUT On Nov. 7, voters will select members of our School Board of Directors and our County Commissioners, other local offices, and several statewide judicial positions. Yet in Warren County, only 27 percent of eligible voters participated in our local primaries last spring. In some ways, local elections make the most difference in our day to day lives. We know that big changes are being implemented in our school system, and we know results from a new county-wide re-assessment will be delivered to the County Commissioners whom we elect. Even though there are few contested ...

Is U.S. on a troubling path?

October 28, 2023

The conservatives’ Project 2025 Plan is to seize control and the plan is working. The Federalist Society founded in 1982 with an annual budget of $18 million has determined who the GOP considers for federal judge appointment, including the Supreme Court. The Heritage Foundation founded in 1979 has a 2023 budget of $22 million (tax exempt) and has promoted state legislatures’ gerrymandering, voting restrictions, and the GOP has had its platform replaced with the Heritage Foundation’s political agenda. The emphasis is on gaining control of government as opposed to policies thus we ...

History keeps horrifically repeating in Israel

October 28, 2023

As important as history is in classes, and as crucial as learning about the Revolutionary War and how countries and many others came to be is for us, history is happening right in front of our eyes every day, and it is flying over the heads of people who aren’t experiencing it. On Oct. 7, a military group of Palestine blew up multiple communication buildings in Israel, along with killing over one thousand two hundred civilians at a music festival and even kidnapping around one hundred and fifty more, starting a war between Israel and the Palestinian government group, Hamas. Even though ...