A few weeks back, we Marriners continued our summer of lighthouse excursions. This time we headed north, and it was a gorgeous day for a road trip. Our first stop was in Port Ontario, NY, at the Salmon River Lighthouse, which just about everybody calls the Selkirk Lighthouse. Built in 1838, this gorgeous light sits at the mouth of the Salmon River (hence the official name). This lighthouse is privately owned, but the owners are fine with people walking around the property and taking pictures. I was completely charmed by the stonework on the house, and that red tower. A classic lighthouse look. Fun fact: the Selkirk lighthouse has one…
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As I was perusing the headlines looking for this week’s news roundup, I noticed that there has been a lot of nature-type stuff going on recently. So here I present you with my very first themed edition of News of the Week! Note: Starting today, News of the Week is moving to Saturdays. A trip to the UK brings us our next story, also featuring creepy-crawlies. This time the critters are…earthworms? And people are trying to get them to come out of the ground? Has the world gone mad??? This week the town of Cornwall hosted its third annual Falmouth Worm Charming Championships. Third? Was this not silly enough the…
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July 26, 1942, 7:30 P.M.Squadron 310-Flight-B. Army Air Forces Technical SchoolKeesler Field, Mississippi Dear Virginia, Well here I am, way down in Miss. and right in my glory. This is certainly a wonderful place. Our air-base is practically a city in itself. I would dare say it is larger than the city of Oswego. There is no need to go off the post for anything. We have all our hangars, schools, stores, restaurants, beir gardens, dance halls, bowling alleys, ball park, and theaters right here. There are approximately 75000 men here and quite a few women. But they don’t bother me any. I get a kick out of listening to…
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A weekly look at all of the silly stuff I download to my phone and then never look at again…
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One of the things you should know about me is that I tend to get a little bit obsessive about whatever interests me at the time. I’ll be all in for one activity or another, I’ll do only that one thing for a while, and then I’ll pretty much never do it again. Especially when it comes to time-waster games on my phone. Candy Crush? I got bored when it got more challenging. Tiny Tower? Started taking way too long to add floors so I bailed. Royal Match? Kinda fun but I lost interest. Mahjong tile games? These tend to be my fallback games when I’m tired of everything else.…
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CO.B. 1213-R.C.Fort Niagara,Niagara Falls, N.Y. My Dear Virginia, Well, here I am in the army and missing you every minute. It certainly is a swell place and I am perfectly satisfied except I miss you terribly. Maybe the army will make a good and respectable man of me. It certainly hasn’t done me any harm so far. They keep us busy from one minute to the next and at bed-time we are ready to turn in. I don’t think you had better write to me while I am here, as I may shove off anytime. If I get time, I hope to go to the show tonight. There is a…
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I’m starting a new Rants and Raves feature here on the blog, and for my first rave I’d like to put the spotlight on one of my favorite places in the whole world – Aqua Spa Float Center in Oswego, NY. Now, let’s start with some honesty – I really was not at all interested in the idea of float therapy when my friend Tammy told me that she was starting up this business a few years back. The whole idea seemed a little…wacky??…to me at the time. Intentionally putting yourself in a sensory deprivation tank sounded like a recipe for my claustrophobia to run rampant. But I was still…
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Dear Virginia, Just came home from a show, so I thought I would write. I received your very sweet letter and was glad to hear from you. How is everything out in Niagara? There isn’t much change here, everyday about the same. I worked Mon. thru Fri. at the mill, and Sat. down at the gas station, today Beck and I went over to the coffee shop, dancing for the afternoon, and took in a show tonight. The show was swell, a good mystery, “Dangerously We Live,” was the name of it. Don’t forget to write and tell me when you are coming home, I will try to get out…
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Happy Father’s Day to all the dads, grandads, stepdads, fur dads, and like-a-dads out there! I hope you have had a fantastic day. A week ago I traveled down to North Carolina for my father’s big 75th birthday bash. And since his birthday is always so close to Father’s Day, I thought today would be a good day to share pics from my trip. To start, some idiot decided that a 6:30am flight was a good idea. OK, I am that idiot. But Southwest doesn’t have a lot of flights out of Syracuse every day, so I grabbed what I could get. My flight to Charlotte, NC was pretty uneventful…
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After our trip to Maine and the lovely lighthouses we saw there, Vance and I started thinking about the lighthouses closer to home. I think we kind of take them for granted, seeing as we live so close to Lake Ontario and they’re kind of just there? I mean, we find ourselves in Oswego a lot, and the West Pierhead Lighthouse is something we see all the time, and we never think about how special it is to live so close to such a piece of history. So, in search of a family activity for the summer, we decided to visit as many of the Lake Ontario lighthouses (US side)…
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Last year I attended my first Pride parade and festival in Syracuse. I had joined our local chapter of the Free Mom Hugs organization because their mission is important to me. I walked in the parade with the other moms (and a couple of dads) and gave out hugs all along the route. It was such an incredible feeling to be able to give some love to folks who may not get that from their own families. I was having so much fun giving out hugs and exploring the festival that I kind of forgot to take pictures? If you know me you are probably asking yourself if someone had…
