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Trees are awesome. A world without trees would be a world in which it would be virtually impossible to live. Have you ever noticed that there are no people on Mars? Well, there are also no trees on Mars. Here in Grand Island, New York, back in the nineteenth century, there used to be many […]

The Trumpeter and the three bears Once upon a time, there were four bears. Unfortunately, the Big Bad Trumpeter Fake Wolf (he wasn’t really a wolf and all he did was to embarrass real wolves everywhere) took away one of the bears, who had not been seen since. The Big Bad Trumpeter Fake Wolf said

On Sunday morning, April 17th, I walked to church. It was warm and sunny. The ground was still swampy after all of the precipitation (snow followed by rain). There are a lot of wetlands in Grand Island. Because the majority of the soil here is clay, the water sits on top of the ground. Clay

One of my articles in yesterday’s Island Dispatch was about a donation to the Grand Island Historical Society that was made about ten years ago. It was a shadow box containing stuff that was found on land near the river. The land has had quite the history. Back in the 1890s, the land was going to

A quatrain is a French poetic form. It is a stanza of four lines, usually having alternating rhymes. The quatrains that I wrote today are independent of each other and their rhyme scheme is ABCA. That is to say, only the first and last lines in the stanza end in a rhyme. Each line is

On Tuesday, I did my Big Government Job. I was an election inspector. The polls are open in my county from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m., so it made for a very long day and lots of activity. The polling place that I was working in is a fire truck house. It was a good

This blog post is about the orange. Not orange jumpsuits. Not orange people running for president. It’s about the delicious orange, packed full of vitamin C. Oranges come in many varieties. The orange is a hybrid, a cross between a pomelo and a mandarin. This hybridization occurred over several generations. There are some questions about

On Sunday, April 10th, Father Earle posed in his new robes. He announced that he wanted the entire congregation to pose with him. He was thrilled with the gift of the robes that befit a canon (not cannon). Father Earle and friends. Coffee hour. The socks make the outfit complete. Sharon enjoys coffee hour with

This is the Niagara River. It flows north from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, connecting the two Great Lakes. It is a big part of my world. I live one mile from the river, and I like to head straight for it. It is a thing of wonder and of beauty. I’ve spent many hours

Note:  Today, I went to Buffalo with a group from the Grand Island Historical Society to have a tour of The Buffalo Transportation Pierce Arrow Museum (click here for the museum’s website). The museum was founded by Jim and Mary Ann Sandoro, who have spent 45 years collecting memorabilia about the history of transportation in