October 14, 2003 My dentist’s office is just outside the village, about a 10 minute walk from where I work on Route 20. Much of the walk is past farmers’ fields and just plain fields. Walking along the roadside, I have the leisure and inclination to observe the birds, the foliage, the litter and the […]

June 6, 2005 I don’t enjoy mowing, and because I use a push mower, a reel mower, I have to mow often, before the grass gets too long. One rainy weekend and I’m in trouble. So I decided to cut my work in half by reframing expectations and renaming the backyard “the meadow.” I mowed […]

This was written before we had any clue that we might move to Skaneateles. September 5, 1996 I had the day off last Friday, and it struck us that it would be a perfect day to ride the Mail Boat on Skaneateles Lake. One of my jobs at work is to write nice things about […]

October 2000 Laurie was in Europe with her mother and sister, and Abbie was getting ready for bed. It was 10:30 at night, and I felt like I needed a walk. After reassuring Abbie that I was not losing my mind, I set out. On a week night, Skaneateles is one of the quietest places […]

October 1999 John Milner and I met in high school, in English class, in 1962. I was, in John’s words, “a disarranged teenager,” and John was the teacher, and more. He was someone who listened, encouraged us to read and write, gave us credit for our imagination but gently imposed some discipline. I kept in […]

February 28, 2003 The last two evenings, while walking home from work, I have been taking a left turn just past the jetty and walking out onto the ice over the lake. We have had a very cold winter in Skaneateles, and the ice is solid out into the deep water, out past the Country […]

September 5, 2000 Sometimes, fun comes in clumps. A week ago Friday, Laurie and I saw the Incredible Shrinking Violinist, Hilary Hahn, at the high school. Hilary herself did not shrink. She shrank the pianist, a very large man in a white dinner jacket. He hit the first note as an internationally renowned concert pianist, […]

February 25, 2001 Laurie was returning from Virginia and coming home from the airport we decided that neither of us wanted to cook. This was a task best left to the hands of professionals, and we chose the Hilltop. The Hilltop is a part of a compound just outside the Village, just past the tasteful […]

May 8, 2004 Gully Road is high on the list of reasons I love to live here. Running between the Old and New Seneca Turnpikes, it passes through a marsh that could be a set for a vintage Hammer horror film, then a leafy forest glade, then by a silver surfaced pond where the occasional […]