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At the end of August I received an invitation to the SUNY Oneonta Geography Department touting a picnic for Faculty, students and alumni.  It advertised an opportunity to meet with past faculty including Paul Baumann, Martha Corry and Tom Gergel.

When I attended (71-75) Dr. Martha Corry was the head of the department teaching primarily Economic Geography. She had a large, rather pampered black Labrador retriever that I took care of at times when she was out of town.  I remember feeding the dog 1/2 of condensed sweeten milk with it’s food.  I can’t remember it’s name, but it was overweight had the slickest black coat you could imagine.  It was also quite strong and not exactly leash trained.  I am not sure who was leading whom along Main St, Oneonta on the Sunday walk.    Martha is now approaching 90 years of age, mentally sharp and in good shape.

Tom Gergel was one of my favorite teachers.  He used to live on East St or vicinity - it was within walking distance and I remember him arriving in his office huffing and puffing from his frantic hike up the hill.  One of my scariest memories was riding in a car with Tom driving.  We were destined for a field trip to some bog and Tom was quite the sight see-er.  We would bomb along within the speed limit with Tom checking out all the scenery and pointing out and describing interesting geomorphologic features while infrequently making casually glances at the road.   It was a miracle to behold.  Tom was also always reading horticulture articles about growing apples.  If I remember correctly he had started an apple orchard before I left.  I learned that Tom lost a thumb cutting wood in his orchard and it prevented him from another passion - playing violin.

After graduating in 1975 I worked for two years within the Geography Department in a cooperative project between Schoharie County (where I lived) and the Geography Dept.  We were building an early Geographic Information System under the guidance of Paul Baumann. Paul set up the whole arrangement and gave me my 1st professional job.  Back then everything was programmed using FORTRAN and COBOL on Burroughs mainframe computers.  Card punch units and manual data entry ruled our project.  We had boxes and boxes of computer cards stacked in rows 12 wide by 4-5 boxes high.  After awhile we transitioned to computer tapes.     During my stint at graduate school at University of Washington I returned to Oneonta for a summer job - again arranged by Paul - whereby we conducted a study of emergency services for the City of Oneonta.  We lived in Paul’s house for the summer as he and his family were away vacationing for the summer.  Paul was a valuable professional reference for my 1st jobs.  He was an important mentor for many, many years and a good friend.

Friday I drove to Oneonta in the rain to attend the picnic.  It was a nice low key affair.  I got to meet the new department chair - Dr. Tracy Allen, and current faculty Ben Dixon, Jim Greenberg and Wendy Mitteager.  Below I pose between Paul Baumann and Martha Corry.

Skip & I went to St Regis Canoe Wilderness area on Saturday AM. We launched from Hoel Pond, hopped over the RR into Turtle Pond and Slang Pond. We did the short portage into Long Pond and set up camp on the north shore across from the portage as it started to sprinkle rain. We no sooner than got our tent and a rain fly set up and it came down in bucket loads.

We sat under the rain fly, drank coffee, read maps and watched other canoers exit the pond.

Later the rain stopped and we decided to take the short paddle to check out the next day’s portage. We hiked to the Dave Cilly’s CanoeOutfitters outpost and met Dave ( he wrote the ADK Paddler’s map & recent guidebook ). We talked about a friend of mine, John (Jay) Baumann, that used to guide for Dave in the ’80s when he was starting his outfitting service. Unfortunately, Jay Baumann passed away due to colin cancer, but he was a nice person and good outdoors man.

On our walk back to our canoe the skies unloaded and we got drenched as we had left our rain coats back at the canoe! Returning to camp we changed into dry clothes, huddled under the rain fly and cooked our one pot meal of rice and BBQ porkand ate sliced peaches and chocolate chip bars. We heard loons through the night.

The next morning we were paddling at 8:30 and across the portage by 9am. We traversed Floodwood Pond to Square Pond; portaged to Follensby Clear Pond and again portaged to Polliwog and we were back to our car at Hoel Pond at noon. Since we were out so early we decided to grab burger for lunch and head to Round Lake to spend Sunday night.

We found 3 cars in the parking lot and set out around the lake in late afternoon. We checked out the new campsites along the western side of the lake ( which are poor) and finally settled on the bluff at site #3. We sat out on the large rock as the evening set in.

The temperatures dropped after sunset and a decent breeze came in so we turned in at 8:30 for a nice 10 hour snooze. We awoke at 6:30, packed up, paddled out, and had breakfast at the Long Lake Diner by 8:30.It was nice heading out in September - after the crowds had left.

The last week of August was gorgeous weather.  We mixed house chores and a day at Boucheron’s camp.  Kathryn took out the sailboat with Steve.  The boat has been stored in our barn for 10 years and some of the cordage had to be replaced.

Eric enjoyed swimming while the sailors floated in the background.

Eric and Kathryn stayed overnight and returned on Monday while I mowed trails across the road.  The weather held and Wednesday was so nice that Kathryn, Linda and Eric returned for a day of play before school started.

Like every other kid starting kindergarten, there was a lot of anxiety before school started on the 4th.  It shows on Eric’s face as he poses prior to getting on the school bus for day 1.

Everything went fine and we celebrated day 1 by having pizza for dinner.  Friday night Eric came home as a tired kid, but stated that he liked school.

We spent Monday evening taking Eric to the emergency room.  He was sick during the day with stomach pains and fever and then at 5pm he broke out in rashes - face, eyes, lips all swollen.  His hands, feet and groin all covered with rash.  The call in doctor said we needed to get him checked out for Coxsackie disease.  It is a hand, mouth, foot disease exchanged among children.   After long hours, blood tests, etc they said no - it was just a fever viral reaction.  He missed school on Tuesday as well and we had a marathon Monopoly game encompassing 3 sessions totaling 3-4 hours.  Wednesday things went back to normal.

On Friday night we took Erin & Andy fishing at the pond.  Eric caught 3 large mouth bass, Erin caught 3 large mouth bass and a 20 inch catfish and Andy got skunked.  Andy had a large fish on, but his line broke and he lost his whopper.

After fishing we were joined by Skip, Bonnie & Cindy for a cookout in the woods.   Below Bonnie loads up the wagon with soaking sweet corn.  Erin, Eric and Andy wonder how much water will slop out and Cindy brings more stuff.

We grilled hamburgers, salmonburgers, hot dogs and corn. Skip, Andy and Eric await the final grilling.

We sat around the fire and had a nice chat.  Ron & Jody joined us around 9:30pm.  Afterwards, Skip shot off bottle rockets for our grand finale.

Saturday morning Skip & I went in the Woodsman’s Field Days Canoe Race 3.2 miles upstream on the Black River Feeder Canal.

We were beaten in the C2 class by Paul Olney and his daughter Joanne and
Joe Siegel / Mark Olney.  Paul Olney set the ADK 90 Miler record in 2004 when Skip & I paddled the race.

Saturday night Kathryn and I went to Matthew Tryon’s wedding.  It was a nice ceremony.  Matt was joined by several members of his Civil War renactment troop, that added to the atmosphere.

Sunday Eric & I went in the BHA Hunter Show leadline classes.  Eric got a 2nd in the Equitation Class, out of 6 participants!  I credit Eric’s good posture, my draped lead line which enabled Eric to ’steer’ and the mare Onyx with all contributing to Eric’s win.  In the Leadline Suitability class, I believe the horse is judged as being ’suitable’.  Eric got 4th as the class order was nearly reversed as I believe the judge was just trying to even things out.  All the horses in the suitability class were quiet and well behaved.  Eric got a red ribbon and sticker book in the 1st class and a carrot and chocolate bar in the 2nd class.  Below Onyx enjoys her carrot, models the ribbons, and Eric is a happy boy.

This past Thursday, 8/14, was the playoffs and conclusion of our Adirondack Lanes Thursday night volleyball league.  We started on what seems a long time ago - back on 22 May.  Our main team included returning members Ron, Jim, Kathryn and Rob along with new members Brian and Julia.  Our subs included long time associates Josh, JoAnn, Becca  and Joe with new additions Dan, Scott A., Scott T., Stephanie and Rachael.

A common theme over the summer was our shifting line-up as we utilized 15 different players and the substitute team played in 31% of the games. While I greatly enjoyed playing with the large number of friends, it did have it’s challenges as we all worked to understand one another’s strengths and tendencies.

Some of the highlights were:

• The temporary return of Becca early on as she fulfilled a local nursing internship
• Rob’s injury in early July that sidelined him for the season
• Julia (or someone looking like Julia) showing up on the night of her birthday celebration
• The mid-season addition of Rachael, our ninja setter
• Scott T.’s “It’s on!” after taking a hard spike to the chest

We won 2/3rds of our games and went into the playoffs seated 4th in the 10 team league.

We got a 1st round bye and faced Matt Sudol’s team with a team of Jim, Kathryn, Julia, Rachael, Josh, Scott T. and Ron.  We missed serves, botched passes and did everything we could to hand the game over.  Down 10-6 we called time out, re-captured the serve and pulled a tie and finally pulled out a 15-13 win.  The 2nd game we jumped out to a 9-0 lead and coasted to 15-6 win.

In the semi-finals we faced #2 Parson’s team and again played poorly, giving the game to Parson.  Unfortunately our time out did not change our fortune and we limped to game 2 licking our wounds.  Game two was competitive, but our mistakes again caught up with us.  We lost 15-12 and bowed out of the playoffs.

Ron, Kathryn and I hung around and watched the finals (there were only 3 other spectators) and Swingers easily beat Parson’s in two straight games.

I want to thank everyone for being part of the 2008 Sand Fleas volleyball team.  I especially want to thank Josh, Joe, Dan, Becca, JoAnn, Scott T., Scott A. and Stephanie for helping out during the season. Thanks to Kathryn for acquiring and making T-shirts.

While I was disappointed in my individual performance and our team performance in the playoffs it is really about the journey – not the destination.  The journey was great.  I got to play decent volleyball with a bunch of great people.  We got better as a team as we went along.  I already look forward to Sand Fleas 2009.