Archive » December 2016 » Columns

On Dec. 20,  Mrs. K’s restaurant in Middleburgh welcomed the Old Men of the Mountain for their annual Christmas Party. The restaurant always puts on a great spread for the OFs as they get ready to celebrate the Christmas season. Usually there is live music (as opposed to dead music) for occasional sing-alongs if the OFs know the tune and stop talking long enough to give the musicians some attention.

The chatter at the breakfast is similar to the chatter that proceeds church as people come in, or any meeting where people who see each other once a week or so get together. In some cases, the persons at these meetings have just visited with each other the day before, but that does not deter them from conversing before the service or meeting starts.

The OMOTM breakfast does not have a beginning or end, no one bangs a gavel, or rings a bell, or comes down the aisle with lit candles to indicate that whatever is going to happen, is going to happen, so the chatter continues until the last OF pays his bill and goes home. This is what the musicians have to contend with as they continue to play through the breakfast with the noise and chatter, and they appear to have a good time doing it.

Much of the conversation among the OFs consists of bringing people up to date on each other’s activities during the week, and some is a continuation of conversations of last week. However, this week we had one OF bring us up to date on his travels to South Africa.

The OF was asked many questions and the OF related tales to us about what life was like during his stay in that country. One thing he mentioned more than once was that the water in the South Atlantic was very, very, cold. The OF said it turned one’s legs red. He thought it was colder than the ocean in Maine and most OFs could relate to that.

Home repair project goes out of control

Another thing the OFs could relate to is, when starting a home-repair project how many times the OFs have to go to the hardware store to purchase additional parts so they can repair parts on something that broke along the way. Fixing one simple thing leads to either breaking something further down the line, or a part is rusted solid and adding a pipe to the wrench is generally not a good idea.

Then the OF finds that he can’t get the part because the guy behind the counter says “How the h--- old is that thing?  They haven’t made parts for that in years.”

Now the OF is stuck paying a couple hundred bucks for a complete new whatchamacallit instead of the two bucks he thought the part would be. Then the OF says he gets home and the new part doesn’t fit because it is different in length and width and none of connections join up.

Back to the store, and by now the OF mentioned he was really ticked off, and didn’t know how much more would break somewhere down the line, so he buys more parts than he needs just to be sure.

One OF piped up, “Why didn’t you just call a plumber?”

“What,” the other OF says, “and admit defeat!  Never, even if cost me a grand.”

Another situation the OFs could relate to. Many of the OFs have started to repair something and chased it to the end after all the trips to the store, and days later to find they have replaced the whole thing, which they should have done in the first place.

Key West is now costly

The OFs went from South Africa, to right here at home, to the Florida Keys. Now that is a lot of geography. When the OFs were at the Keys (especially Longboat Key, Marathon, and Key West the first time and they were younger) prices were cheap, and Key West was, in their opinion, sort of dumpy, but even at the way money was then, it was a cheap vacation.

Today, what a difference! Key West has been spruced up, and the OFs say it is necessary to have a real pocket full of change, just to eat. The OFs said that, when they were younger, it was possible to take the family on vacations and it wouldn’t break the bank.

As one OF put it, the really upper middle-class and the rich can travel there now, but as it stands currently these type of trips are out of reach for the OFs and many of their kids.

Out-of-touch government

One OF added he does not know what planet the government is from because there was no increase in Social Security, and some OFs even took a loss after the increase in Medicare hit their Social Security checks — the reason given by our wise politicians that there was no rise in the cost of living.

The OFs say, “Say what!”

As one OF commented, “The CIA should look around and find out where the officials who came up with that information parked their space ship!”

Those OFs who enjoyed the music, supplied by Roger Shafer (OF), Gerry Irwin (OF), Tom White, and Debbie Fish, with the hors d’oeuvres (almost a meal, supplied by Mrs. K’s Restaurant) at Mrs. K’s Restaurant in Middleburgh were: Marty Herzog, Jim Rissacher, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Bill Lichliter, John Rossmann, Harold Guest, Roger Chapman, Jim Heiser, Chuck Aelesio, Ray Frank, Otis Lawyer, Glenn Patterson  (at the table, exactly one week from being under the knife with a complete hip replacement ─ the wonders of modern medicine), Mark Traver, Bill Dergosits, Ted Willsey, Don Wood, Sonny Mercer, Wayne Gaul, Ted Feurer. Jay Francis, Lou Schenck, Mace Porter, Jack Norray, Bob Fink, Bob Benninger, Warren Willsey, Russ Pokorny, Elwood Vanderbilt, Rich Vanderbilt, Harold Grippen, Mike Willsey, Gerry Chartier, and me.

The classic view of the central temple of Angkor Wat is from the bank of the surrounding moat. When a gentle breeze stirs the water into tiny wavelets, the reflection of the temple’s five towers against scattered clouds in the mild Cambodian sky looks like a pointillist painting, with splashes of white and blue and gray and brown producing an image that might have come from the palette of Georges Seurat; when the surface of the water is mirror-smooth, usually at dawn or dusk, low sunlight softly illuminates the looming lotus-shaped towers or silhouettes them against the multi-colored western sky, creating a scene out of an ancient Khmer epic and its perfect inverted image.

But Angkor Wat is only one of hundreds of beautiful structures built by the kings of the ancient Khmer Empire. With the nightmare of the rule of the murdering Khmer Rouge over, archeologists and artisans are today back at work, restoring many of the structures and retrieving dozens more from the choking jungles — which, ironically, have in many cases saved the temples from collapse.

Unlike the great buildings of many other ancient civilizations — the granite and quartzite monuments of ancient Egypt; the marble beauties of the Parthenon and other structures on the Acropolis in Athens; the astounding achievements in concrete and brick of the ancient Romans — Angkor Wat and the many other temples and royal pavilions were constructed from one of the humblest of sedimentary rocks: sandstone.

The term “sandstone” is generic because technically any type of rock can be reduced to sand-grain-sized particles and then cemented together to form rock.  But the term usually refers to rock composed of silica sand — the sand found on many of the beaches and in many of the dunes of the Earth.  In some places, the silica is mixed with shell fragments of many sizes, producing “calcareous sandstone,” which weathers in natural acids just as limestone, marble, and gypsum will.

But the sandstone of Cambodia’s Kulen Mountains from which the Angor temples are constructed is essentially pure silica, which does not easily weather chemically, and, given the often extremely humid climate conditions of Cambodia, is undoubtedly the reason that the Angkor temples have survived relatively intact for so many centuries. Had they been built from limestone or marble, the natural acids of the environment and the entangling vines would almost certainly have erased the many delicate architectural and sculptural features of the temples, leaving behind only sad, stubby remnants protruding from the lush jungle floor.

The earliest of the temples were constructed in the 10th Century by the first kings of what would eventually emerge as the ancient Hindu Khmer Empire, men with melodious names such as Jayavarman, Harshavarman, and Suryavarman.  Unlike the great temples of many Western civilizations, these Hindu religious structures were not intended as gathering places for worship by the faithful but as residences for the gods of the Hindu pantheon.

In this function, they exhibit some similarities to many ancient Egyptian temples. Only the attending priests entered a temple’s inner sanctum and worshippers would gather outside the building’s walls for prayers and rituals.  Thus, the temples’ architects did not have to solve the challenges of constructing and covering immense gathering spaces such as are found in Christian basilicas, Islamic mosques, and Jewish synagogues.

As a result, the temples’ interiors are dimly-lighted and maze-like, with long corridors, steep ascending and descending staircases, and small, often diminutive chapels in which statues of Hindu gods and goddesses — and somewhat more recent depictions of the Buddha — reside in the incensed gloom. Both interior and exterior walls are covered with thousands of square feet of beautifully detailed carved figures from the Hindu pantheon and with the enchanting “apsaras,” the winsome dancing maidens with smiles as enigmatic as that of the Mona Lisa.

A few miles from the main temple at Angkor stands a small temple known as Banteay Srei, and though unlike Angkor Wat it does not seek to overwhelm the visitor with vastness and mass, it leaves its impression though the astounding delicacy and intricacy of its carvings. It is familiarly known as “the Citadel of Women” because of its numerous carvings of Hindu goddesses and the ubiquitous “apsaras.”

Perhaps because nowhere do its many chapels stand more than 30 feet in height and the fact that until fairly recently the temple was protected by the vines and tree trunks of the enfolding jungle, the intricate, filigree-like carvings that seem to cover every square foot of the exterior and interior of the structures are preserved in stunning detail.  Here the hard Kulen Mountains sandstone has retained much of its original cinnamon-red color.

To wander through its open-air maze-like layout is to enter a fantastic world of goddesses and other figures out of the Hindu pantheon, alluring or sometimes frightening fantastical animal-headed humanoids, juxtaposed with delicately-depicted trees and flowers.

The Bayon

Closer to the central area of Angkor Wat is the great temple known as The Bayon, which the French archeologist and restorer Bernard Phillippe Groslier has called “the most amazing piece of architecture in existence.”  It was constructed by King Jayavarman VII at the end of the 12th Century A.D. at which time the Khmer kings had briefly converted to Buddhism, and The Bayon shows the influence of both religions, though the Buddhist images dominate.

It is not as well preserved as some of the other Khmer temples; it seems to have been somewhat hastily constructed.  Consequently it has not weathered the centuries so well.  Nonetheless, even in its mildly dilapidated state, it captures the imagination as perhaps no other building on Earth.

The Bayon rises out of the jungle on a series of stone platforms in what a tourist guide describes as “a stone mountain of ascending peaks” capped by 37 towers, though archeologists speculate there may have once been as many as 20 more.  The looming towers are built of layer upon layer of gigantic stone blocks, and each exposed side of the blocks features a carving of the face of the Buddha — or, perhaps, the face is that of Jayavarman VII himself, depicted with his eyes closed in meditation and with the Buddha’s mystical smile.

The visitor tries in vain to count the dozens — then, hundreds — of faces of various sizes and states of preservation, aimed at the four major points of the compass. The fact that some of the faces are only partially preserved — a disembodied smile here, an ear or eyes on an eroded face there — makes the scene all the more mysterious and alluring.

The temple has the same darkened interior maze of corridors, staircases, chapels, and dungeons of many of the other Angkor temples. But the mysteriously smiling faces never suggest danger, even when one is ascending or descending one of the dizzyingly steep flights of stairs or is momentarily disoriented in one of the decorated corridors.

Rather, the general impression is one of peace and connection with the infinite among the smiling visages on the towers reaching toward the sky. As in Angor Wat, everywhere is the odor of incense, and at any turn a visitor may come unexpectedly upon a statue of the Buddha draped in a saffron-colored robe, bedecked with brightly-colored flowers and fruits.  From an unseen source may come the tinkle of copper bells or the chanting of monks: the effect is of a Buddhist mantra become tangible.

Ta Prohm

Besides Angkor Wat itself, the temple known as Ta Prohm is perhaps the most familiar to Western eyes as its setting irresistibly evokes the romantic spirit of the Indiana Jones epics. Situated a few miles from Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm retains — by deliberate design of the archeologists — much of the appearance of the entire vast temple complex when it first came to the attention of Western explorers in the late 1800s.  Its extensive staircases, courtyards, chapels, and hallways have been left to a large extent wrapped in the huge above-ground roots of immense Silk Cotton trees and the smaller vines of the strangler fig.  And therein lies a paradox.

While the process known as “root-wedging” is one of the most efficient methods of breaking down rock — many of us have seen our sidewalks and driveways damaged or even destroyed by the roots of trees that get under or between concrete surfaces — the giant roots of the engulfing tropical trees at Ta Prohm and scores of the other ancient Khmer temples have held its immense carved sandstone blocks in place.

As many of the other temples were restored, the huge encasing roots were removed and any stones that had been displaced were returned to their original positions and secured with mortar. But at Ta Prohm, the visitor gets a sense of what it was that the first explorers saw when they trudged through the steamy jungle and laid eyes on the spectacular remnants of the ancient Khmer kingdoms.

The serpentine appearance of the huge roots and vines adds immeasurably to the haunting lure of the mazes of the temple’s interior and, where they hang suspended or wrap around the statue of a Hindu deity or a frieze of dancing “apsaras,” they evoke awareness of the passage of eons and hint at the glories of lost civilizations.

One wall carving that is not obscured by the huge trees presents a mystery that has provoked controversy from the day of its discovery, but it is well known to the local guides — some of whom are children who have played hooky from school and scurry about the temple, hoping to pick up tips from tourists for showing them what the kids call the “dee-no-soo”:  a stunningly accurate depiction of the dinosaur known as a Stegosaurus, triangular back-plates and all.

Given the fact that the critter has been extinct for at least 66 million years, is this carving simply an amazing coincidence — depicting some hitherto unknown figure out of Hindu mythology?  Or is it conceivable that some ancient Khmer sculptor had seen an almost-intact fossil of the beast or heard accounts of it from someone who had?

Needless to say — the accuracy of the carving and its mystical location have produced all kinds of so-called “non-mainstream” theories about its origin of the kind presented all too frequently on cable TV. It represents one more of the conundrums that the Angkor temples present.

Reign of terror

Sadly, visitors to the temples also learn of history that is much more recent than the annals of the Khmer kingdoms.  On the walls of many of the temples — and very obvious at Angkor Wat itself — are ugly, shallow holes: the scars of bullets that bespeak the reign of terror of the Khmer Rouge, the Marxist thugs who took control of Cambodia while the Vietnam War raged to the country’s east.

At first welcomed by the United States and its allies as a buffer against the Viet Cong, the Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot set up a dictatorship that even by the standards of 20th-Century atrocities is remarkable for its truly demonic savagery.  Horrifying evidence of the brutality is provided by the many beggars who haunt the ruins, often missing limbs or eyes.

At first, the Khmer Rouge forced its utopian plans for a pure Marxist state in Cambodia on the country’s peasants and intellectuals and former rulers, but the revolution soon turned inward as so many revolutions do and began killing its own members whose dedication was not regarded as “pure” enough.  Two million Cambodians died in the resulting slaughter, and though both the Khmer Rouge and the intruding Viet Cong called themselves Communist, their struggles for power were sometimes fought right within the Angor temples as control of the great buildings was held to be symbolic of political power.

Statues were beheaded and carvings were torn from walls and the beautiful artworks of the ancient Khmer were sold on the black market to raise money for Pol Pot’s draconian schemes. Miraculously, many have since been recovered and some have already been replaced — but the scars left upon the temples fade slowly as do the memories of the gentle people of Cambodia who lived through the Khmer Rouge nightmare.

The temples today rise like dreams from the misty jungle, their restored beauty and grace testament, perhaps, to the vitality and resilience of the human spirit.  But the scars of conflict that pepper the delicate towers and the intricate carvings also offer validation to the fact that, throughout human history, attempts to use force to bring about a worldly paradise have usually resulted instead in the creation of hell on Earth.

Christmas is getting closer.  On Tuesday, Dec. 13, the Old Men of the Mountain met at the Country Café on Main Street in Schoharie.

A couple of OFs mentioned that, if they had a million dollars they didn’t know what to do with, they would use some of it to purchase the Parrott House and fix it up.The OFs mentioned, with the lights and decorations of the Country Café, to see the Parrott House all lit up too would be great. Done right, the OFs thought it could be like the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, only a tad smaller.

The weather guys were at it again by making all the OFs believe that we were in for some snowfall and really bad weather. Some of the OFs did get some snow but nothing to write home about — most OFs just received a dusting. This dusting covered a considerable amount of geography and not just a few spots here and there.

“Work” a dirty word?

One OF mentioned to another OF that he thought that this one OF should go back to work. The other OF bristled and told the first OF to wash his mouth out with soap and not use that kind of language around him again.

It seems like the second OF has really latched on to this retirement bit and likes it. Other OFs like to work and keep on doing work of some kind.

The OF who took offense at being told about going back to work, works a ton and doesn’t know it.  He volunteers in the fire department, the ambulance squad, his church, and in many different capacities, so the OF is constantly busy — it just isn’t “work” work.

Shaving

Most of the OFs shave, although there are a few with beards, and some don’t shave that often. One OF came to breakfast Tuesday morning and announced that he read that vinegar makes a great aftershave, so this morning he tried it. One thing he advised the rest of the OFs was, “Don’t try it because vinegar stings.”

An OF said, “Yes, and you go around all day smelling like a pickle, or a salad.”

“No, you don’t,” the first OF said. “Can you smell it on me now?”

The other OF leaned over and took a whiff of the OF’s cheek and, by golly, the OF could not detect any scent of vinegar.

The other OFs started talking about what they used and it ranged from astringent, to aftershave, to different kinds of lotions. The OFs were wondering when their beards went from hair to wire, and how hard they had to pull down on their cheeks, and stretch their necks out so they can hacksaw off all the hair (also now known as wire) in all those crevices.

The OFs complained that, in the commercials and on the packaging for razors and shaving cream, they show all those young bucks who only need soap to cut off that peach fuzz. How about something for us OFs that will at least straighten out the twisted wires protruding from our faces, so the beards will be soft enough so it is like hair again and the razors will cut it instead of pulling each individual hair out?

Pig: 1 - Car: 0

The next topic was deer (again) so this scribe is not going to touch on that much, but what happens when a car hits a pig? One OF said his brother hit a pig that was in the middle of the road and he did not expect to see it there.

The OF claimed the brother smacked the pig dead on. This was before seat belts and airbags so the impact was felt by the driver who thought he had hit a brick wall. The outcome was the car was totaled, and the pig walked away.

This does not seem correct.  Of course when the car hit the pig, that pig wasn’t fastened to the ground so it moved with the impact.  The result was Pig: 1 - Car: 0 as the pig ran off bruised and disgruntled.

Still shopping

The OFs are still shopping for Christmas and some will be at it until the 24th but the OFs say grandkids or even their kids must have a hard time shopping for them because the OFs claim they really don’t need anything.

Socks and underwear will do, or tickets to a show, or something special to eat, but stuff?  The OFs say they don’t need it. Some of the OFs say they are trying to get rid of stuff, and nobody seems to want it.

Plum Island mystery

A couple of OFs who sat across from this scribe were in the service at about the same time and in the same locale, plus they also lived there for quite awhile. They were talking about an island off Long Island called Plum Island.

According to the OFs, this island is a United States federal research facility dedicated to the study of animal diseases and we really don’t want to know what goes on there.

Under the knife

One OF who should have been at the breakfast but wasn’t had a very good explanation so he would be excused rather easily when the board meets to reprimand those OFs who miss breakfast for no good reason.

This OF was going under the knife to have a hip replaced at the same time the rest of the OFs were putting a fork full of over-easy eggs to their mouths at breakfast in the Country Café.

The thoughts and prayers of the OFs are with this OF and also with the doctors doing the surgery.  We pray that everything turns out OK and he is back at the table soon with the rest of this bionic clan.

Those OFs that made it to the Country Café in Schoharie through the snow (?) were: Roger Shafer, Roger Chapman, John Rossmann, Harold Guest, Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Dave Williams, Otis Lawyer, Mark Traver, Ray Frank, Chuck Aelesio, Wayne Gaul, Ted Feurer, Bob Benninger, Bob Fink, Lou Schenck, Mace Porter, Jack Norray, Gerry Irwin, Warren Willsey, Ted Willsey, Marty Herzog, Mike Willsey, Gerry Chartier, Russ Pokorny, Elwood Vanderbilt, Rich Vanderbilt, Harold Grippen, and me.

Nary a trace remains of the long, slim, silver tracks that once carried the olive-drab, wicker three-seated trolley cars through our neighboring city of Albany to the town line of Mckownville in Guilderland.   Those trolleys once brought businessmen to work, students to school, and shoppers to the super clothing stores at Whitneys and Myers on North Pearl Street in the heart of the Capital City.

The United Traction Company provided transportation for the city from 1890 to 1946. The operation had 93 miles of tracks with 434 trolley cars.

But there is a more historic story about the trolleys that for so long were the transportation in Albany.

“The big metal doors were shut on the car barn in North Albany and the streets were quiet on February 8, 1921,” the Albany Evening Journal story read, “when suddenly the barn doors burst open.”

The trolley leaving the barn had a police guard aboard, a strikebreaker as a motorman, and an escort of six mounted policemen. Stout steel wires encased the car’s windows.

“The street soon became black with men, women and children. Boys still in knickers, women wearing long serge skirts beneath their winter coats joined 200 men as they tried to surround the trolley,” the story went on. “Anger permeated the air as police cleared a passage. The trolley completed its first run without incident. When the second run started,  the crowd pulled down guy wires and immobilized the cars.”

This started Albany’s Great Trolley Strike.

On Sunday mornings, the cars were usually filled with picnickers headed for the Six Mile waterworks on Fuller Road and Lagoon Island, or with families traveling to relatives in Troy.  This came to a temporary halt when the trolley strike began.

The dispute was over salary when motormen and conductors wanted a raise to 85 cent per hour from 45 cent per hour and other employees wanted raises as well. The  UTC, owned by the Delaware & Hudson Railroad, refused these demands.

Following post-World War I inflation, the cost of labor and materials had doubled, and in some cases had gone up by 500 percent, according to management.

Dickering about wages continued and UTC officials responded by cutting back a recently negotiated 60-cent hourly wage to the former 45-cent per hour.  Idle trolleys in North Albany and North Troy car barns left Albany without public transportation.

Several enterprising automobile car owners started a “jitney service” and charged riders 10 to 25 cents to drive people across town.

A three-day riot on the streets of Albany started. Mayor James A. Watts ordered the Albany Police force to maintain order, yet violence continued in Albany and Troy as trolleys attempted to make their runs.

Trolleys were cut, switches were clogged, and cars were stoned. Policemen were assigned a 12-hour-a-day duty.  State Troopers were called in.

Near the final days, about 300 men, women, and children armed with stones and bottles gathered outside the building where newly employed UTC workers were housed. The recently retired police captain, John T. Begley, on duty at the time, recalled the thunderous sound of about 150 mounted Troopers galloping down Broadway and charging into the crowd.

People dispersed quickly. No one was injured. The Troopers stayed three days and that was the beginning of the end of the violence, but not the end of the strike.

Although violence began in smaller episodes and trolleys had no schedules, it was a long labor dispute that never came to a decisive end. Citizens urged UTC to arbitrate. Many families were without salaries.  Just a small number of the original employees were ever rehired.

By 1922, however, the city of Albany was dealing with a new problem that overshadowed the trolley strike. Motor buses were being considered that would eventually bring an end to the electric trolley in the city.

Twenty-five years after the Great Trolley Strike ended, Albany’s government authorized a renewal of bus franchises, and trolleys and their tracks started to be removed from the city. In September of 1946,  Trolley 834 made its last run through the city.

Albany residents, including this historian, lined the old trolley line, and awaited the final clang, clang of the trolley’s bell.

For the past several years, I’ve read one book about every two weeks on average. It got to the point that I was reading so many books I'd be at a tag sale or benefit sale and buy books I'd already read. So I decided to keep track of all the books I was reading just to keep that from happening. I hate more record-keeping but I couldn't think of any other way to do it.

Then I figured, as long as I'm keeping track of the books I read, I might as well rate them. I decided to use a movie-like star rating system — five stars is a totally wonderful read, and one star is suitable for birdcage lining. I haven’t had a one-star book yet.

With all that being said, here are the books I gave five stars to. Any of these I guarantee would make a great read or a great gift for someone who likes to read:

— “The Sheltering Sky,” Paul Bowles, 1949: A sprawling novel about a couple with marital problems traveling with a friend through the North African desert. Expansive and thought-provoking on many levels;

— “The Big Sleep,” Raymond Chandler, 1939: A true crime novel with detective Philip Marlowe. This is the seed of Garrison Keillor's famous “Guy Noir, Private Eye.” Think trench coats and dames;

— “The Stories of John Cheever,” John Cheever, 1977: I’d never read Cheever and this just blew me away. Masterful in every sense. If you ever fantasized about what goes on in the tony Upper East Side of Manhattan, look here;

— “Deliverance,” James Dickey, 1970: You know the movie; it’s even more intense in print. When you read something like this, you just wonder where it came from. This chilling story still resonates today and I’m sure will for a very long time;

— “The Power of Habit,” Charles Duhigg, 2012: Very insightful. Master this and you can do anything. Makes you wonder if you really have as much control of yourself that you think you have;

— “The Narrow Road to the North,” Richard Flanagan, 2013: Epic prisoner-of-war tale. Superb, and based on true events. There is nothing pretty about war;

— “Gone Girl,” Gillian Flynn, 2012: A modern true-life thriller. Like something right out of the news. It may be a little cliched, but, then again, if you watch any TV, you see that every day. If you like plot twists, here you go;

— “Fortunate Son,” John Fogerty, 2015: Autobiography from the Creedence Clearwater Revival legend. Wonderful. What this American songwriting genius had to go through to survive the slimy recording industry is truly eye-opening. Money just has a way of ruining everything;

— “The Old Man and the Sea,” Ernest Hemingway, 1952: I read this in high school and it’s even better with age. You cannot not love it. The old man is the kind of guy we should all have in our lives (and the boy is too);

— “Fortune Smiles,” Adam Johnson, 2015: Just brilliant personal fiction. This is the kind of writing that I myself aspire to. Nothing is more fascinating to me than the way people deal with and react to the world around them;

— “The Basic Kafka,” Franz Kafka, 1946: If you have never read “Metamorphoses,” where the narrator wakes up as a giant insect, you'll find it here. Incredible. This brilliant writer was ignored in his lifetime, but his words will live forever;

— “The Trial,” Franz Kafka, 1925: The classic treatise against bureaucracy. I think of this when I'm waiting on hold, or filling out a tax form, or trying to find the customer-service phone number. There is nothing funny about it, which really makes it hit home;

— “Jailbird,” Kurt Vonnegut, 1979: Nobody satirizes our imperfect society better. I've read all of his books and I only wish there were more. Another great one is “Breakfast of Champions.” If you’ve not yet discovered Vonnegut, a Schenectady native for cryin’ out loud, what are you waiting for?;

— “The Railway Man,” Eric Lomax, 1995: A true-life prisoner-of-war story. Very moving. I don't know if I could have lasted with all he went through, described in excruciating detail. An amazing story of survival and redemption;

— “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,” Carson McCullers, 1940: Truly moving and brilliant. A very special work. It will stay with you for a long time. This is a real gem;

— “Chesapeake,” James A. Michener, 1978: A monumental study of the southeastern seaboard area. How he can write these kinds of huge, all-encompassing books is a miracle for sure. A masterpiece;

— “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage,” Haruki Murakami, 2015: A wonderful introduction to the haunting and introspective world of the great Haruki Murakami. When I read him, it’s like he knows my thoughts. I don’t know anybody better who is currently writing;

— “The Kind Worth Killing,” Peter Swanson, 2015: A modern-day “Strangers on a Train,” Hitchcock-type thriller, and a great page turner. You will want more;

— “Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit,” Andy Rooney, 2009: Don’t you miss the old master? His writing is just like his talking. I just love finding the magic in the ordinary. He’s gone but his words are still with us, thank goodness;

— “The Confessions of Nat Turner,” William Styron, 1966: A controversial but nonetheless amazing work about slavery. The new movie is controversial as well. It’s just the nature of the subject. Still, the writing is powerful and direct. You will never again think about slavery the same way after reading this; and

— “The Importance of Being Earnest,” Oscar Wilde, 1895: So funny and timeless from the master of wit and satire. He was truly brilliant. One can only imagine what he’d think of Facebook, the Karsdashians, or our president-elect. The male master of the one-liner (the great Dorothy Parker is, of course, the female one-liner master).

  So there you have it. If you read one of these and enjoy it, please let your friends know. We could all use a little good news these days, and these books are all that good. Enjoy!

Why volunteer?

Joel Edwards says it’s a way to put his faith in action.

Joel’s first assignment from Community Caregivers was to pick up a sample of urine at 6 a.m. and deliver it to a doctor’s office. The woman lived alone, Joel recalls, and she didn’t drive.

As a doctor of veterinary internal medicine with a specialty in cardiology, he volunteered around his job. Finding time to volunteer, he said, “…wasn’t easy. The administrative part was ‘schedulable’; the service part was weekends and early morning.”

Joel’s connection to Caregivers started in 1993 when he and a friend of his wife, Cindy, Mary Therriault, were exploring ways to put their faith in action. Joel said, “I stumbled across an Interfaith Caregivers Program.”

Robert Wood Johnson was trying to establish units of caregiving throughout the country. So the next two years, 1994 to 1996  saw an organization forming — Community Caregivers. And it began providing services in 1996.

In the early years, an organizing committee was formed; 10 people were handpicked — ministers, nurses, people in the community who had gifts and the desire. They were connected through the four (at the time) churches in Altamont, Joel explained.

When asked how he recruited people to become volunteers, Joel said that the group went to churches and civic organizations like the Lions, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the American Legion — “anyone who would listen to us.” He said, “Nowadays, when I’m talking with someone, I’ll just ask them to consider volunteering.”

Joel himself has performed administrative services: a founder, twice president of the board of directors, treasurer, and chairman of the Grant Team. Direct services he’s provided include transportation, respite care, visits, and some home repair.

“It doesn’t matter what I do,” he said. “Having the ability to give back is what’s important.” He did say transportation, “volume-wise” was the service he spent the most time on.

“Visiting,” another service Caregivers provides, “is,” he said, “a  different relationship with the care receiver. In a way, it’s more rewarding. You get to listen to the person’s story.” He explained that folks who receive visits are usually alone, not able to socialize, and not having an adequate social life.

“You realize,” he observed, “you’re just a little piece of the puzzle; you’re not going to fix it.”

When asked for a memorable experience from all his years of connection to Caregivers, Joel told this story. Early in 1994, when Caregivers was organizing, he was driving on the Taconic, “…feeling overwhelmed, mumbling away. Out of my radio came, ‘Go forth with boldness.’ I reached down to shut off the radio, and it was already off.”

Ever since, Joel has done exactly that. He is no longer on the administrative end of Caregivers, but he is still on the service end. Joel says, “The aging population is increasing. There is a socio-economic stress of, often, both adults working. And our families aren’t near. We need volunteers. We always need more volunteers.”

Joel says, “One of the beauties of the organization is you can freely say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ No guilt. Trust me, they will call again.”

As you begin to think about what goals you have for the new year, why not consider finding out more about community Caregivers? Go online to www.communitycaregivers.org, or  call the office at (518) 456-2898 to inquire about an orientation. Or talk to Joel Edwards. He knows a lot.