I spent my early years in rural Locust Valley, Nassau County, which though only 30 miles from Manhattan, seemed like a hundred. Our house was set in the middle of six acres surrounded by a chain link fence and had been the caretaker’s property for one of the old Gilded Age Estates. It was ...

As I cruised Facebook the other day I saw a post about Lower Saranac Lake and the efforts by environmental groups to determine the lake’s carrying capacity. No one seemed to like the idea. The comments ranged from conspiracy theories, “They want to make the lake private access only for ...

If you were a boy growing up in the 1950s you loved at least three things: rock and roll, cars, and rock and roll songs about cars. If you do a quick Google search, you’ll find lots of lists of the top 10 and even the top 100 car songs, nearly all of them made between 1956 and ...

There’s a great deal of head-scratching going on regarding solitude and its role in wilderness. It appears that if some people have their way, solitude, as an integral part of wilderness, will go the way of the buggy whip. And sadly, that’s OK with some wilderness advocates. Let me ...

While the original Woodstock Music and Art Festival was revered for its aura of Peace, Love and Music, Woodstock 99 was characterized by heavy metal, chaos and destruction. As a regional captain for one of the nine camping regions, I witnessed carnage and capitalism at its worst. I suppose ...

Fifty-five years ago, the greatest musical event of the Boomer generation — perhaps of all time — occurred: The Woodstock Music and Art Festival. Michael Lang, 24, and Artie Kornfeld, 27, created the memorable weekend of “Peace, Love, and Music.” Thanks to Kornfeld’s ...