By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@yahoo.com The average teacher’s pay amounts to about one cent per hour if you consider that for almost all humans, at least one educator proves to be our lifelong teacher, frequently remembered, still instructing us. Yet respect often does not come with the job, at least from government, from taxpayers, […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com No Memorial Day, USA or elsewhere, is without heartfelt words and tribute, parades, wreaths, re-mourning. What is always missing, though, are the voices of the fallen. Would that we could hear them. What would they say? “Mom, I was as scared as you, but I could not show […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@yahoo.com Rockland County, N.Y. — Though this suburb 20 miles north of New York City has been most diverse since the Dutch came in the 1600s, a religious community movement strongly under way threatens the balance of planned growth and opportunity for all, including current residents. In recent years, […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@yahoo.com The world has always had potholes — that’s why it is not Heaven. And it has always had people who fix potholes as well as the many more who fail to do the assigned job. These days in the United States, potholes — the literal type that forms on […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com Fifty years ago, visiting the 1964-65 World’s Fair in New York City was like riding a train on what was supposed to be a vacation, but troubling, intruding bad news from home interrupted the anticipated gaiety you had when you boarded, and you could not concentrate fully — there […]
By Arthur H.Gunther III ahgunther@yahoo.com Older folks like me have become our grandpas and grandmas in complaining that the “good, old days” are long gone, that things were always better back when. Well, of course they were not, at least not always. Advances in medicine, social understanding and tolerance, vehicle safety and quality of life […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@yahoo.com Why does war often begin with a parade and end with one? At the first, youthful excitement, naivete, innocence, natural inclination and lack of experience and judgment as to horror fuel the adrenalin of patriotism as the quick steps of those who would save the world or avenge a […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com We the people must declare war. Our nation has been attacked, this time not by overseas terrorists but by special interests who buy our officials and who cunningly direct growing populist rage against big government and its spending, playing on the fear foaming out of the stirred pot of […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III There are many things a boy or girl must learn if the magic of childhood is to remain intact, as it should in this forever scary world made by adults. One certain skill is the art of burping. I recently instructed my grandson Sam in this most necessary practice, […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@yahoo.com The first rule of old newspapering, when there were composing rooms where pages of metal type were assembled for the press, was to make a friend of a printer. Otherwise, he could do you and your career harm. “Printers” was a general term for anyone working on the production […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@yahoo.com On an expectedly festive St. Patrick’s weekend that began in low spirits with three favorite draft beers out of stock at a village pub in my outer New York area, a mortal sin, my namesake hiked spirits when he ran 13th out of 3,500 in the Shamrock Marathon on […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@yahoo.com With Daylight Savings Time officially installed, the one hour we lost from sleep over the weekend has been quickly forgotten in my parts of the Northeast, 20 miles or so from New York City. But Gotham has had nothing to do with the wonderful freshness of what soon has […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@yahoo.com Westwood, N.J. — Rising taxes, a dwindling middle class, O-Care debate, world events and life itself are so full of uncertainties and dilemma that we all need a day off. I got mine recently in a fabric store in this Bergen County borough. Oy, what an experience. Time does […]
My Nyack view (preferable to Tappan Zee Bridge) AHGunther photo By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@yahoo.com Nyack, N.Y. — There’s a new bridge a-building across the Hudson River just 20 miles from New York City, though the original is nearing a really short but stressed 59 years. Some in these parts, a village in […]
New carriage, old Central Park (AHGunther photo). By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com MANHATTAN — On a snowy Saturday that did not seem to bother hardened Gothamites and assorted visitors, a trip to the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library to see the near end of “The Armory Show at 100” was art in itself. […]
At Tallman Mt. State Park (AH Gunther photo) By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com Snow — pristine, fresh, covering all the warts of ordinary land — is a childhood delight that we don’t give away to growing older, though the demands of getting to work and to the store and to the shovel and […]
COLOR IN THE HILLS, a view off Bear Mountain (Arthur H. Gunther photo) February 3, 2014 Bear Mountain, N.Y. — You would have to be close — about 48 or so miles from New York City — to hear, even in this verdant wonderland of forestation, an urban fellow say to his four year […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com A recent New York Times edition unintentionally offered proof of the growing American economic contrast in this topsy-turvy world of post-recession stall. On its Opinion Page January 6 was a third-position editorial, “Republican Disdain for the Jobless,” which rightly castigated the GOP for not extending temporary unemployment benefits for […]
By Arthur H. GuntherIII ahgunther@hotmail.com My Colorado pal writes on a subject that many of us recall — clothes drying not in a metal machine but on a line. Elaine Muise Calabro, once of Rockland County, N.Y., says she “preferred to line-dry clothes, and always did when weather allowed while the kids were young. Nowadays, […]
By Arthur H.Gunther III “LEAN ON ME,” said the healthy pine to its brother, the roots of which were torn from the earth during Superstorm Sandy in fall 2012. In a metaphor, how many Rockland County, N.Y., residents required help as they did without power and heat, some for weeks? The mighty pine, a symbol […]
For some years, my son Arthur IV, a writer too, offered a holiday story published in this space. Reprinted here is his Dec. 24, 2007, piece. Franklin was a man of routine. Perhaps such a person had become an antiquated notion in this day and age, the very word “routine” summoning visions of safe […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com Nanuet, N.Y. — There’s a shopping center here that’s never been without parking vehicles since it was built in the later 1950s, a remarkable thing because such strips in suburbia — actually almost all of America — just seem to multiply, knocking one another off, their inevitable fate weed- […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III (ahgunther@hotmail.com) In this time of holiday parties, we went to see Jerry Donnellan at his West Nyack, N.Y., home. For decades now, he has been the veterans guru for Rockland County, and Jerry’s daily, weekend and evening life is centered around helping his fellow comrades. It is a God-given thing […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com NYACK, N.Y. — In the birthplace village of Edward Hopper, the famed American realist artist (1882-1967), it is a simple thing to note the early morning Hudson River light that he bottled and used in all the paintings of his long career. That was his gift, and it is […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com Nearing the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, so much reflection has already been written, some by younger writers who were not alive to absorb the year 1963, the 1950s and God, what happened in the killing’s aftermath, that turbulent continuation of a decade still changing America. […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com On the 11th day of the 11th month at the 11th hour in 1918, World War I mostly ended with the hope that such a dramatic finish would cement the promise: “The war to end all wars.” No such luck, and World War II, Korea, Vietnam and all the […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com New York City — With the April Boston Marathon bombings still pulling at the heartstrings of runners everywhere, some 45,000 of them rallied Sunday in indomitable spirit in the resumed New York City event, canceled last year in the lingering dark clouds of Superstorm Sandy. My son, Arthur 4th, […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com Whether it be global warming, the Tea Party, the Democrats, cranky Mother Nature or nothing at all, fall color seems to be coming later every year. We were in old industrial-town North Adams, Mass., and Stockbridge, last home of Norman Rockwell, during what was supposed to be peak “peepers” […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com Spring Valley, N.Y. — The time: 2:55 a.m. Place: parking lot of the United Church. Reason: Tuesday start for the Rockland (County) Interfaith Breakfast Program. What’s unusual: a special whiff of fallen leaves returning to nature in early fall. Deciduous leaves drop every autumn in so many parts of […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com Civility is what it is these days, which generally means watered-down manners, some to the point of not being recognizable social behavior. It’s as if no one taught some clowns how to act toward others. In my parts, north of New York City in the burbs, some public […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com Always in an age, a theme. In 2013 it is the words and non-words from Rome and Washington. What the new Pope Francis is saying is not being said in D.C. The theme is survival of the middle. The pope is trying to regain the Roman Catholic […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com Though I am a newspaper writer — editorials and essays mostly — I do verse from time to time. So, this week, with not much else to ponder about, I’ll offer three pieces, the last of which is song verse. Thanks for reading. #1: A GLIMPSE […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com About this time of year comes the memory of the apple smell, sweet fragrance that for me opened the door a bit to Heaven when I was a child at my grandmother’s house. She made apple pies, as many nanas did and do, from scratch as my friend Elaine […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com ANYWHERE, USA — It’s back-to-school, and while many cliches can be uttered about that, the fact is this is like spring planting. The renewed hope is there that the new field of fertile, young minds will see germination in gained knowledge, reasoning and a healthy outlook on […]
August 26, 2013 By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com I do not know where you live in this world or where your mind is in it, but I will tell you about the future of this planet. It could be seen clearly, not far from my Blauvelt, N.Y., home. Driving down Western Highway, just […]
August 19, 2013 By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com The price of “progress” is not always worth the results. Once, in my region of the world — “upstate, country” but just 20 miles from New York City — tasty, fresh, clear water came from underground wells, springs and fissures in the glacial rock that covers […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com Not all car dealers are so lucky, but one in Blauvelt, N.Y., offers test drives over a mountain named Clausland, with winding, country-like roads busy enough since this is built-up suburbia. And despite the bromide view, the burbs are never sleepy, especially one less than 20 miles from New […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com BETHESDA, M.D. — Rituals in our lives change, but that does not mean they are easy to get used to, even to accept. Here I was in beautiful Bethesda, a neat D.C. suburb with all modern amenities, expecting 1961 and a few decades after to remain the ruling time. […]
July 22, 2013 Lessons at grandma’s By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com For a child staying overnight at grandma’s, the sounds of a kitchen are never forgotten. It is always an adventure to sleep away from home for a four year old, and a grandparent’s house is a special place, full of treats, nooks and […]
Celebration in Nyack By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com NYACK, N.Y. — You would expect July Fourth fireworks — and the gathering in public area that comes with that — to be boisterous, noisy, of course, celebratory. It was all that in this village along the Hudson River just north of New York City, but […]