Category: Essays & Stories

     I honed my trail maintenance skills as a young man on a DEC Trail crew team in the Adirondack high peaks.  There I learned a wide variety of valuable skills and techniques, everything from axemanship, to two-man blowdown clearing bowsaw skills, crafting freshly felled cedar trees into water...

Commandeering a “Yankee Clipper” On the Shores of Cape Cod ********** There Once Was A Time When Every Town Had A Team  Every Team Had A Star  Every Boy Had A Dream ********** Author’s Note: This is the second in my series of baseball card stories.  Since my first...

An Adirondack Outlaw Survivor Approach To Living Life Forward      We’ve all heard the phrase “Think outside the box.”  It’s all too frequently offered as a euphemism for innovative thinking or creative problem solving.  It’s even been used by many “experts” as a foundation philosophy for a long list...

There Once Was A Time When Every Town Had A Team Every Team Had A Star Every Boy Had A Dream ********** Author’s Introduction:  For me, baseball cards are a combination fountain of youth/time capsule. That musty bubble gum cardboard aroma transports me. When I hold one of my...

My 2021 “Trail Cam” review, plus a map of planned 2022 Adirondack Outlaw adventures. **********      As we each pack our gear and map out individual routes forward into 2022, I thought I’d take a moment to share a glimpse of several upcoming Adirondack Outlaw adventures, as well as...

 Celebrating my Adirondack Bottle Diving adventure forward into 2022      This past year brought what appeared to be an exciting culmination point in my three- year Adirondack bottle diving adventure.      First, I discovered a one-of-a-kind vintage Saranac Lake “F.M. Bull” glass & wood stopper pharmacy bottle. Then, Historic...

Author’s Note: This is a little something different, an experiment of sorts that I wanted to try. Combining a photo with a single word in an effort to capture a particular emotion, feeling, or moment using just one word. ********** “BE” ********** “MEMORIES” ********** “LIFE” ********** Until Our Trails...

Author’s Note: This story appeared in The Adirondack Almanack’s December 6, 2021 online edition under the title: “Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction, So Too, Is Life’s Circle”.      Truth is quite frequently stranger than fiction. Each day that I spend in life’s circle re-proves it.     At this point...

Author’s Note: This story appeared in The Adirondack Almanack’s November 18, 2021 online edition.      Early one fall, several years ago, my wife Robin & I were planning our Christmas gift shopping list.  We asked my mom, who lives with us, and has everything; “Mom-What do you want for...

My True Father/Son Adirondack Outlaw Duck Hunting Survival Story Author’s Note: This story appeared in the October 29, 2021 online edition of The Adirondack Almanack. “The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee’ The lake it is said, never gives...