CLOSED ON BROADWAY’/acrylic/gunther By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) Change is part of the march of time. The hands may slow but the moments pass anyway. There can be sadness, loss of cherished routine, worry about the future. Yet as surely as the windows are covered and the door closed, another […]
‘CITY OF MANY COLORS’/acrylic/ November 11, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III The thing about a city is its diversity. It doesn’t get built by one tribe. It doesn’t rise to its heights nor extend to its breadth and length by one anointed species. It doesn’t run on one person’s moxie nor fall […]
‘ONE’/acrylic/gunther By Arthur H. Gunther III Everything begins with “1” after there is zero. The first second of life. First awareness. First year. First grade. First friend. First joy. First love. First job. First success. First home. First child. First heartbreak. First loss. First acceptance. First uppercase. First lowercase. First anything. First everything. The writer […]
‘PATH’/photograph/gunther By Arthur H. Gunther III What paths we take in this life, not knowing the why of the walk nor the destination. The marks of others are there to see, if we but look down. Halted steps, skid marks, a hurried pace, a leisurely one, lessons for the observer. The path is […]
October 21, 2019 ‘FOG’/acrylic on canvas By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com Fog — le brouillard — particularly if it comes on the broad expanse of L’Avenue des Champs-Élysées — is not merely mist in the air from a temperature change. It envelopes, and so you can be alone with your thoughts even […]
‘AT THE CAPE’/gunther October 14, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com Seasons always end, leaving memories whether photographic, in the mind, in the heart, in the soul. They are there for renewal, reinforcement, reassurance. Each of us takes from our particular seasons what we will, perhaps tucking away the […]
October 7, 2019 ‘TUNED TO WSM, NASHVILLE’/acrylic/gunther By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com Defining country music is like translating the ever-growing list of languages, including colorful, highly descriptive idioms, in this immigrant America. Listening to it, from the earliest 1920s radio programs through the metamorphosis that are today’s sounds on smart phones, is […]
‘COBALT IN OCHRE’/acrylic/gunther September 30, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com Sometimes what you look at is not what you see, like when you dream and the events are not reality. In both “readings,” the perceptions already gathered in an individual’s life direct the show. Is this painting a cobalt […]
‘BARN AT SANDYFIELD’/acrylic/gunther September 23, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III Thirty or so modest houses around a Pond called Beaver were more than just structure to the people within and about the meadows, the hills, the great quiet that is both rural and America. Hardscrabble perhaps, basic, but life […]
Acrylic on canvas/gunther September 16, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III CHANGE OF PACE: Song lyrics (mine) instead of an essay… I locked the door last night, though it never had a key. You are gone, and I must forget. Forget the soulful moments, the depth we reached without a word said. Forget […]
September 9, 2019 ‘Lean on Me’/photograph/gunther By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) Depending on the individual, “pride” is a variable. Some are too proud to accept help of any sort. Others extend their hands in need. Truth is, this is an interdependent world, more so […]
Recently, the writer/artist Bill Batson wonderfully cajoled me into speaking before his great Learning Collaborative class of inquisitive adults, at the New City, N.Y., Jewish Center. He asked that my remarks be posted via my essay site. Thanks, Bill, for the invite. The topic was “The Changing Role of the ‘Media’ […]
LETTER TO LIA’/acrylic/gunther September 2, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) How many have received the letter Lia has let slip to the floor, her thoughts now focused beyond that red window? She has not dropped the envelope, perhaps unable to completely part from […]
‘BARN DOOR’/acrylic/gunther August 26, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) There probably is a barn in most people’s youth, whether you live on a farm, or you pass the iconic red structures as you grow up. Barns mean work for farmers’ kids but also a distinct playground for […]
‘ ‘WASH IN THE FIELD’/acrylic/gunther August 19, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) Imagine all the conversations at the clothesline that women have had in urban/suburban/rural areas; count the dreams/thoughts of so many women hanging wash by themselves. Now you have more talk, more dreams/thought than clothes left to […]
‘WHITE ON RED VASE’/acrylic/gunther August 12, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) What is it about white hair? Mark of maturity, gathered wisdom? Life having lived in depth now aging toward its natural finish? Distinction? Grandma? Encouragement for the young that they, too, can achieve? […]
‘IN THE CORNER’/acrylic/gunther August 5, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com No one should be pushed into a corner — by anyone or even yourself — because that is not the place to make the best decisions. Instead, corners should be of welcome and mystery, of imagination and whimsey, of curiosity and adventure. […]
‘TWO WOMEN’/ACRYLIC/GUNTHER July 29, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) These two women are in Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home. One is white, prosperous. One is black, African-American, a slave. Presumably, they speak to one another. They are at the dawn of a new age, this political, social, […]
‘SARAH’/acrylic/gunther July 22, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) This is Sarah, but it could be you. She could anyone — of any sex, age, ethnicity, race, belief. Sarah is alone, but not alone. She is with her thoughts, her “me time,” in her space beyond a door. […]
‘Detail at South Truro’/gunther By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) There is music in this old house, though there is no electricity — disconnected decades ago. There is no radio, no record player, no iTunes. In fact, there are no people. But once, even before electricity, […]
Gunther painting/acrylic on canvas July 9, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) Open a window, and you might get fresh air. Or fresh perspective. Depends on what’s out there, what you see, what you want to see. The window frames a scene, and you are in control […]
July 1, 2019 STAIR LANDING/Edward Hopper House, Nyack, N.Y./gunther By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) The vestibule, the foyer, the landing of any house is initially what makes it a home. Visitors — family, friends, strangers — enter there, introduced/reintroduced to what else is in the house that makes it […]
‘HOUSE IN DONEGAL’/gunther June 24, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) There is your ancestry, whether you visit it, know it, appreciate it or not. It is in your DNA, in your features, perhaps in mannerisms, speech, beliefs. Ancestry may affect the genes in the way you are gifted […]
‘TOP OF STAIRS’/gunther June 17, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) NYACK, N.Y. — Once there was a door at the top of the steep steps in the 1858 birthplace home of Edward Hopper, the foremost American realist painter. It was not there in his childhood, 1887 birth-on, […]
‘CANYONS’/gunther June 10, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) You think of New York City “canyons,” the long alleys created by ever-taller buildings that eat light and cast shadow, and you think starkness, loneliness, monoliths of isolation. But, no. All that, yes, yet there is color […]
‘VOICE’/gunther June 3, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) In this time of overdue recognition of women, the root of all existence really, the essential nurturer, the balancer, the multi-tasker, the comforter, the rock upon which there is always a mooring when any of us must re-anchor, in […]
‘HOUSE IN FIELD’/gunther May 27, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) There is no driveway to our childhood home, immersed as it is in dreams and fantasies and those anchor memories which help keep sanity in adult life. There is no driveway because within the house we […]
‘BLENDED’/acrylic/gunther May 20, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III the column rule (also on Facebook) Individualism builds the world as the genius within the person — the particular moxie — moves at its own speed and direction. Yet there is always a time when one joins another, and another, and the group becomes its […]
‘ABSTRACT CORNER’/gunther May 13, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) We all turn a corner somewhere, perhaps every day, maybe in a month, or just once a year. Maybe only in a lifetime. The view straight ahead might be cloudy, and perhaps that’s why we go to […]
‘Seven A.M./gunther May 6, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) UPPER NYACK, N.Y. — On the charming corner of School Street and Broadway, in this charming village 24 miles north of Gotham, there is a charming former store made famous in an iconic 1948 painting — “Seven A.M.” — […]
‘TALL HOUSES’/gunther April 29, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) In dense forests, trees grow tall in competition for light. Yet each stands straight and proud, keeping the species together. Though the single tree seeks its majesty, it is also there as a buttress against storms that might take […]
WORLD OF HUES/gunther By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) There’s this thing about color — it’s supposed to be this or that, according to scene. You know, bright blue sky, white sun, green mountains, straw fields. Every hue in its place, and the world’s clock keeps perfect time. But […]
April 15, 2019 (in advance) ‘HER ROOM’/gunther By Arthur H. Gunther III (also on Facebook) There can never be full existence for any of us if we do not have our space. It is even truer if you are a woman — every woman must have a room of her own. […]
‘VERSO,’ gunther April 8, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) Perhaps this column should have been written for April Fool’s Day because the accompanying painting seems a joke. But it is not. The piece, titled “Verso,” Latin for reverse of a painting or document, looks like the […]
GUNTHER/photo April 1, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) There is a literal “hook” to the Hudson River shore just 25 miles north of New York City. It is Hook Mountain, its high cliffs dwarfing the mighty waterway. Subject of countless photographs, drawings and paintings, it was saved […]
GRAND VIEW ON HUDSON/gunther March 25, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) Porches are the soul’s resting spot. They are also the teaching sit-a-spell for one generation to the next. Whether it’s a traditional American small-town front porch, a Southern veranda or an urban stoop, there is emotional gold […]
‘IRISH TEA’/gunther March 17, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) (For St. Patrick’s Day) There cannot be the Irish without tea. When the person holds a cup, it is the soul that comes to visit, both to nourish and to be nourished. Every sadness, every joy, […]
‘CUPBOARD’/gunther March 11, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) A very long time ago, a young fellow staying overnight at his grandma’s house would get up before his brother so he could put one of those small, individualized cereal boxes on the kitchen table. There might be just one […]
March 4, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) On the South Mountain, in Pomona, N.Y., named for the goddess of fruit, there came in 1711 Nicholas Concklin, a descendant of an English family arriving in 1637. Nicholas bought 400 acres and began the orchards that continue today. Looking toward […]
‘FLAG,’ acrylic on canvas/Gunther By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) The flag of the United States of America is a sacred cloth consisting of a field of 13 equal horizontal stripes of red alternating with white, with a blue rectangle or “canton” proclaiming (since 1960) 50 states. The stripes recognize […]
‘BARN IN NYACK’/gunther February 18, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) The thing about barns is that many of us have a thing for them. Barns are America. Well, they are also Germany, the Netherlands, the British Isles, Spain, varieties almost anywhere in the world. In the […]
Light emerging from Edward Hopper’s childhood birthplace/room in Nyack, N.Y. (Gunther photo) February 11, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) Imagine being born into light, not necessarily spiritual though it cannot be denied. The first opening of the child’s eyes, then awakening each morning into young adulthood with […]
‘JOURNEY’/gunther February 4, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) You do not have to be a painter to appreciate line, form and color. They are part of the staff of life — not staples like grain — but humankind does not live by bread alone. “Line,” for example, […]
‘MOONLIGHT’/Gunther January 28, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) Amidst the world’s troubles, a reassuring sight on a train: A busy mom, returning with a three-year-old from a trip to Gotham, him jabbering away, calling for “Mommy, Mommy” as she checked her smart phone. He tugged at her jacket, […]
January 21, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) It is Paris, 48 rue de la … “Madeleine?” “Paix?” The street name does not matter. No. 48 does, that appartement not far from the street artists, who are ubiquitous. Umbrella left on the door handle for walks that take you […]
January 14, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) My grandmother in Spring Valley, N.Y., was a wonderful apple pie maker. In September particularly, she and my grandfather would take a country drive on meandering roads to Pomona where the Concklins offered a new crop of apples so fresh that […]
LAKE ANTRIM/gunther January 7, 2019 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) The tree stands alone, but there is enough evidence in the fog that others are in the background. It is sturdy, seemingly well-rooted, still with leaves and in a field of pleasing color. Of optimism, this photograph. […]
j ‘December 31, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III The painting shows an old colonial house, still occupied and happily, I suggest. There is cozy warmth from the fireplace, as you can see from the smoke. The windows are dark, so it is daylight. Set in a green field and under a blue […]
December 24, 2018 Each Christmas, for a few decades now, my son, teacher Arthur H. Gunther IV, has taken my former newspaper column and now online space to offer a holiday story. Here it is for 2018. By Arthur H. Gunther IV It had kind of consumed him, this quest to […]
December 17, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) There’s this tunnel thing because we all go through them at least once mentally, physically, romantically. Countries do, too. So does anything organized, such as religion. Ah, but is the journey welcome? Might have no choice about […]
‘Light at Hopper House’ December 10, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) Our ancestors, living in caves, then huts, then small cabins, all without much benefit of light — there were no Andersen double-glazed, energy-efficient windows then — must have grabbed, mentally, emotionally, at any sliver of brilliant shining […]
December 3, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) Before there were smartphone screens to stare into, children looked out the window, their eyes portals for real but mostly imaginary scenes. Cars passing, dogs chasing squirrels, a neighbor mowing. Raindrops, snow flakes, the falling sun, a full moon. […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III the columnrule.com (also on Facebook) One of the non-dynamics of “progress” is that as new technology replaces the old, tried and true habits honed by trial, error, ingenuity, make-do and survival are sometimes cast aside, even lost. For example, in this age of omnipresent air conditioning, […]
Credit: Christie’s November 19, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) Relativity isn’t confined to Einstein. It applies in the art world, too. Most recent example: the Christie’s auction sale last week of “Chop Suey,” the Edward Hopper 1929 painting, which hit a record at $91,875,000. The famed American realist […]
November 11, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) When, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, 100 years ago, the guns of August 1914 were finally silenced, 40 million casualties could still be heard, their plaintive cries ignored as the path to the next […]
Nov. 5, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) Tuesday, Nov. 6, will be the women’s election. Females give birth to men (and women) who go on to be powerful politicians. That gender endures the pain of creation to produce us all. Given the almost karmic force of […]
October 29, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) Quietly done, not-fussed-about, get-it-finished moments strike deep chords in the reflections of older life, or so it appears in a Halloween memory. More than a few seasons ago in Tallman, N.Y., then a little hamlet of fruit orchards, an equally small church offered […]
October 22, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrulecom (also on Facebook) Some seasons ago, quite a few really, the no. 6 red naugahyde-covered twirling stool at Tiny’s Spring Valley, N.Y., diner offered a fine view of the glass donut and sliced-cake case, which, of course, was a most tempting time, even for […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com Some of the older homes I walked into as a youngster had one- or two-bulb ceiling fixtures in the middle of the room, operated by a long pull chain that hit any tall fellow in the head. These lights, the fashion of the time when electricity first came to […]
THEY ‘SUNG’ FOR US April 13, 2009 There is no workplace rhythm – this necessary, life-sustaining tempo, this melody, this song – without the interplay of people. Bosses, the ordinary grunts, specialists, the guys and gals who do the job, or who do the job better than others, the slackers, the prima donnas, […]
October 1, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) Friendship recalled can be like the whiff of old wood that reminds you of your grandfather’s garage, or you come across a country farm stand and you remember apple-buying at the Concklin place, or you simply have a flash of memory […]
View Toward Gotham from the old Tappan Zee (Gunther) By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@yahoo.com The mighty Hudson River in New York, not a western route to Asia through the Northwest Passage as Hendrick Hudson hoped it would be in 1609, but to the great port of Albany, is now relatively beautiful, as the […]
“IN THE FALL,” painting by AHG By Arthur H. Gunther IIII thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) Autumn arrives as a state of mind, prompted by the foliage change to wonderful hues, or by memories of fall’s past that tug at your senses and nudge you to “do it again.” The light is different, incrementally as the […]
September 10, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) If I were a woman and it was Nov. 6, 2018, I would vote as if it were as important as childbirth, a fulfilling career, a great relationship or just being happy with whatever lifestyle was desirable. Those wishes aside, this […]
September 3, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) “Ghost lights” are the incandescents traditionally left on in darkened theaters, perhaps for safety though the superstition is more romantic, that the lit bulbs are for the ghosts surely in every theatrical house. There isn’t an actor worth her/his […]
August 27, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also on Facebook) Whether a teacher would have made the schwachkopf write “I will think before I tweet” 100 times on the blackboard; whether a mother might have put soap in his mouth for his anti-humanity words; whether a woman would have kneed him […]
August 20, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com (also appears on Facebook) A small room in Brooklyn, an old, cheap-to-rent apartment not far from the docks where a seaman could find work but today so expensive a neighborhood that one year’s pay in 1918 would not cover a week’s fancy dining; in […]
August 13, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com Fluorescent lights never fit cafes where a small corner table has a lady sitting without fidget, staring a bit into space, her hands holding tight a hot cup of tea. A moment of reflection? Simply a shopping break? Waiting for someone? Has a romance […]
August 6, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III ahgunther@hotmail.com Impoliteness and incivility are what they are 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. And this is from someone who has been a […]
July 30, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com A “human” story, of which there have been too little in this age of orchestrated hate, prejudice, judgment and punishment. … I have not shed a tear in my hometown of Spring Valley, N.Y., in many decades, but Tuesday last the drought […]
July 23, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com In the 1939 political comedy/drama, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” the naive but principled Jefferson Smith (James Stewart) is supposed to be a do-no-harm bumpkin replacement for a deceased U.S. senator from an unnamed western state who will not interfere with wheeling and dealing. […]
July 16, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com I talk too much, can be overly gregarious, especially when there is a seemingly captive audience. That’s rude, isn’t it? Yet most of us do not listen, at least not fully, so while doing so is defensive and protective, it can be a put-off as well. […]
July 9, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com A recent painting, “Abstract on a Red Wall,” came about because what I had on the canvas was not working — there was nothing there that told a story or suggested one. The colors could not stand on their own. The form, the line, had no […]
July 2, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com Of all that was so sorrowfully missing from the presidency on the line-of-duty deaths of five newspapermen and women in Maryland last week, the saddest was a moment of silence. Had the non-president, even before he again flew off to his Bedminster, N.J., golf […]
June 25, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com;ahgunther@yahoo.com In my childhood village of Spring Valley, not far from New York City but at the time country enough to be “upstate,” there was a protective rhythm. My father had grown up there. My grandfather arrived as a young man, and […]
June 18, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com This imperfect experiment called America, conceived in great, precipice-style argument by the Framers, not fully realized as to intent and potential, nevertheless has endured. Winston Churchill, the half-American: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Therefore, citizens, […]
June 11, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com ahgunther@yahoo.com There is, in depression, a numbness, the nerve endings dulled by a sinisterly administered anesthetic. There is a cloud about you, as if you are in a daze. Little excites you, and if you have the energy to get up, it is […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com BETHESDA, Md. — Sometimes you have to leave home to go home again. That was the case on my last day, four days later, in this ever-expanding D.C. suburb. Government must water even the weeds here, so rapidly rise the office buildings, homes and retail space. A bit too […]
May 28, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com There’s an analogy between “English” muffins and the present government of the United States, once known as “of, by and for the people’ and now an oligarchy. In Englishman Samuel Bath Thomas’ later 1800s’ days and for most of the 20th century, the yeast-derived muffin was […]
May 20, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com One snowy evening a long time ago, with the temperature not so low that a walker would freeze and not so high that there would be rainy ice, and with the flakes delicate and inviting, I took a lengthy walk in Hillcrest, N.Y., just to chill […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com Blauvelt to West Nyack, N.Y. — Along the Western Highway, simply named centuries ago because so few roads existed that there was no need to use developers’ favored children’s monikers, a three-mile walk to the great hullabaloo of suburban growth that is a major shopping center brought […]
May 7, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com In the tucked-away room, in the original attic, was a very tall radiator and a very small rocking chair where the ghost, quite friendly, dwelled much of the time, looking out the long window or seeing through herself in the mirror high above […]
“1956, Pink and Gray” May 1, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumrule.com Art — painting — is like life: abstract, realistic or symbolic, captured fragments of what could be a full conversation or perhaps just the wisps of one. Sometimes you want the dialog, and sometimes the mystery. Why someone morphs his/her own earthly […]
April 23, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com The decency that was Barbara Bush, the late first lady, is in sharp contrast to the White House norm these days. That has to be said whether you are the tearful liberal Democrat or the Tea Party fellow or gal swallowing an ultra-conservative energy drink. This […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com If true readers were the only people newspapers and Internet information providers had to be concerned about, there would be little reason for this essay. They are hooked on the news, educated and brought up and matured to understand the value of a free press in a free society, […]
April 9, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com Spring has not yet sprung in this part of the Northeast, a bit north geographically of New York City but with a history and flavor set distinctly apart. There may be daffodils in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, especially in the wonderful Botanical Gardens, but they do not […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com It may seem hilarious and even back-woodsy, but there was a moment, a long one, when at 2 a.m. in a diner, say Hogan’s in West Nyack, N.Y., when you instinctively pulled up your feet as the floor guy came by, splashing Clorox and water at the terrazzo floor. […]
March 26, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com The “Barn Playhouse” at the original, small Rockland Community College campus in Viola, N.Y., was left over from the self-sufficiency days of the county Almshouse, the home for the aged and the poor and the near-infirm. In 1966, it had become the center for theatre arts […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com Why does war often begin with a parade and end with one? At the first, youthful excitement, naiveté, 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 […]
March 5, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com When someone is asked, “What is your biggest regret?,” perhaps most would recall one particular moment, though for others it surely depends on what year, month, even day (or night) you are referencing. For example, in the great, immature, developing years of childhood, teenage time too, […]
February 26, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com In a world often gray, you wish for a spot of color, because that is always there, you know, even in fog or overcast. It’s all in the eye, literally, as color is reflected or light is emitted. But that is too technical for emotion, […]
February 19, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com It is said that Lincoln frequently jotted words, phrases, sentences on paper scraps that were thrown in a desk drawer. When he neared writing a speech, he took the jottings and assembled his word thoughts as stitched quilt patches, with the whole the message. That he […]
‘Anthony’s Nose,’ Bear Mountain’s brother February12, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumrule.com Bear Mountain, N.Y. — I once overheard, in this verdant wonderland of forestation, an earnest fellow say to his four year old: “They call Bear Mountain that because it is bare on top.” Well, it is bare, but that’s not the reason […]
February 5, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com Enduring the flu is a cleansing experience, literally and beyond. It is also lucky triumph over what has been a killer this most unusual season as the preventive vaccine has often not worked. It did not for me. But maybe it was not the flu, though […]
January 29, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com I don’t suppose people use keys to lock bathroom doors anymore, but in downtown Nyack, N.Y., one very old mortise set was stirred to life for perhaps the first time in more than 100 years. As a volunteer at the Edward Hopper House, the birthplace in […]
By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com Small diners in my part of the world in lower New York State a few decades back were known for tasty, homemade food served by owners and their staff who seemed like family, especially for the regular customers. They were homes away from home. And they could be small theater […]
January 15, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com It is tea time in America, whether that is your favored beverage or not. The Irish, the English know that troubled moments are best navigated with a spot of the brew, and now is our need. So, metaphorically, let us sit a spell. It need not […]
Great-grandfather’s old stove January 8, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com It is one degree in Blauvelt, N.Y., as I write this piece, unusual cold these days in this part of the Northeast not far from New York City but reminiscent of old winters. In that time, though, cars did not start easily, coal […]
January 1, 2018 By Arthur H. Gunther III thecolumnrule.com In these days of online buying, in these days of the disappeared downtown bakery, we don’t stand on long lines anymore except maybe at Motor Vehicles … and the tax office at my local town hall. Hundreds of property owners were there in the mad dash […]
Some years ago, when I was a newspaperman at the original Journal-News in Nyack, N.Y., I gave my usual weekly column slot to my son at winter holiday time. He always pens a fictional piece. Here is his writing for 2017. By Arthur H. Gunther IV She had outlived him by four years. At least […]