Editor’s Notes by Greg Klein: Taking a vacation from COVID, but not for long About six weeks ago, we went on our first vacation since 2019. The teen has the benefit of a summer birthday and the best parenting idea we ever devised was birthday trips. Not only do we get to schedule some summer fun (and summer time off) but we have gotten to see the Empire State. And as a bonus, or perhaps this was by design, we…
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Opinion - Page 123
Editorial Friends with benefits It’s no secret there is a significant labor shortage in America at the moment and we are seeing its effects clearly here in Otsego County. Help wanted signs are everywhere. While the problem touches most businesses, local restaurants appear to be particularly affected. Many have been forced to close multiple days per week; some have closed permanently. One local food service has become a food truck because of a lack of employees. At the end of…
Letter by Frances Marx: Glimmerglass ensures customer satisfaction despite snafu I’ve been visiting your area and going to the opera for more than 20 years. This year it was Friday, Aug. 12, and we were leaving from Rochester and anticipating Mozart’s “Magic Flute” at The Glimmerglass Festival. I rejoiced that I had remembered to look on the back of my calendar for the envelope holding the tickets I had ordered about a month before. WHAT A SHOCK! No such luck…
Opinion by Tobacco Free Communities: Smoke-free lives are more crucial than ever The excitement of a new school year is buzzing around us, along with anxiety about new challenges posed by the more transmissible Delta coronavirus variant. This means public health will continue to be a critical issue nationwide and in our region as we begin welcoming our college students back into our communities and our youth back to school. Reducing tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke and aerosols…
Opinion by Richard Sternberg M.D. Taking chances with other people’s lives is evil Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Man walks into a bar talking to the other people at the bar. He has a few drinks, gets somewhat inebriated and then announces “Oh, by the way, I have COVID-19. What are you gonna do about it?” Several days later everybody who was at the bar tests positive for coronavirus and they start to have secondary positives in…
Editorial: Charge! Summer has come and almost gone here in Cooperstown, and there have been more people visiting us than in 2020. The streets are abuzz with eager baseball fans, casually swinging their newly made bats, avid bike riders waxing eloquently about their explorations of the hills and valleys of Otsego, and lake lovers fresh from a full day on and in the water. The shop owners, lodgings and restaurants have seen an uplift in sales from 2020, and the…
Up on Hawthorn Hill by Richard deRosa: Quite a week on hill, on road, in air It has been quite a week. Some of it up on the hill, a few days in Maine to pick up our grandson Grant from camp, then a round-trip flight to Oregon to deliver him safely home. The week started with my sitting down in the barn, a tray on my lap into which I was shaving off oregano leaves from stems that had…
Life Sketches by Terry Berkson: Swimming with the manatees leads to ideas Homosassa Springs is one of the stops we always make when visiting Florida. It has great fishing, though I only catch and release, because Alice doesn’t like to cook while on vacation. Luckily, there are some great restaurants that, especially for this year, had open, outdoor accommodations. Motorboats, paddle boards and kayaks are readily available for rent if you want to swim with the manatees, which is one…
Letter by Dan Butterman: Vaccines are safe, effective and helping us get back to life My 12-year-old daughter just got the COVID-19 vaccine. As soon as the guidelines changed to make 12-year-olds eligible, she declared that she wanted the vaccine on her birthday. So, we made it a family excursion, just as though she were getting her ears pierced, and now she’s protected. She is not the only 12-year-old I know who has stepped up to take that shot. Most…
Bound Volumes 8-26-2021 Compiled by Tom Heitz/SHARON STUART with resources courtesy of The Fenimore Art Museum Research Library 210 YEARS AGO The Great Western Canal – To save expense in the execution of this great national work, Mr. Fulton has invented a machine for digging or removing earth by means of horses, or a steam engine. A steam engine of eight horses’ power, and rendered portable, will do the work of 150 men. The wages of 150 men may be…
