So far this winter, ORDA’s Mount Van Hoevenberg staff and volunteers have hosted an array of back-to-back and — at times — simultaneous events, often under very trying conditions. Taking days off is, at times, catch-as-one-can, as when working with weather-dependent events, as ...
The blackbirds should be showing up any day now. I’m on the lookout. When the blackbirds are back in town it means spring is coming. Or at least the blackbirds seem to think so. I watch for them every year. Blackbirds, like the Summer People, are seasonal residents. The blackbirds’ ...
Editor’s note: This is the second of two parts. Following my escape from the Nazi slave labor camp, and after encountering my brother-in-law, Bela Engel, on the streets of Budapest, he took me to one of the Swedish Safe Houses, established by Raoul Wallenberg, the legendary Swedish diplomat, ...
On Friday, Feb. 28, the Mount Van Hoevenberg and Ski Jump crew installed a 10- by 15-foot mural representing the U.S. flag on the sliding track finish platform as U.S. bobsled and Skeleton athletes and their competitors arrived in Lake Placid to begin their final training and practice runs ...
“I’m not watching the news,” people say. “I can’t stand it. If I have to hear about” — say, for example — “the radioactive wild boars of Fukushima one more time, I’ll take the bridge!” Then, all at once, the subject is dropped, and we never hear of it again. Another topic ...
Editor’s note: This is the first of two parts I am allergic to birthday celebrations. Nevertheless, my Williamsburg friends organized an elaborate gathering on my 99th birthday. In fact, if they had followed the ancient Chinese custom of considering a child one year old at birth, I ...