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The pull of tradition ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, Nov. 20, 2024 -- I think I'd better stop looking up old acquaintances on the internet. I mean, it's nice to see how folks I've known are doing, but .... well, not when they're dead.

A few weeks ago, I discovered an old work colleague from my days at the Elmira Star-Gazette -- a man named Richard Owen Price -- had passed away last year. Now, I've discovered that another work colleague named John O'Donnell, who I knew for the better part of a decade of working at the Watertown Daily Times up in Northern New York, had also died.

In the first case, Price was about my age. In the second case, O'Donnell was several years older. Both deaths left me shaken and shaking my head, wondering at the crap shoot that life becomes after we pass through seven decades on Earth.

I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose. I do, after all, publish obituaries -- have for more than twenty years -- and quite often the departed are younger than I am. But it's a trick of the mind -- of my mind, anyway -- to imagine former acquaintances to be exactly as they were back when we shared experiences.

In Dick Price's case, that was in the 1980s. In John O'Donnell's case, it was in the 1970s. Part of me is stuck back in those decades, just as part of me is still in the 1960s, marveling at The Beatles, and even the 1950s, hero-worshipping the Disney versions of one historical figure, Davy Crockett, and one from the world of fiction, namely Zorro.

I tend to see my life in decade chapters, which I suppose means I am a little too dependent on dates and numbers ... and on the past, which is, after all, but a memory. I will here dial down to recent happenings and to a subject where this recognition of the past being just that -- the past -- oddly enough applies: high school sports.

*****

The most successful of the sports teams in the county this autumn was the Schuyler Storm girls varsity swim squad. What was supposed to be a rebuilding year instead turned into an eighth straight Section IV, Class C title. The team is composed of athletes from both the Odessa-Montour and Watkins Glen High Schools -- an instance, among several over the past few years, where a merger of teams from the two districts has proven very successful.

That is not always the case, as witnessed by this year's Schuyler Storm football team, which won just two games, and one of those by forfeit. But this was a young team that was competitive in a couple of losing efforts, and which had a large contingent of players in the wings: a modified squad that this year had an amazing 50 players. Feeder programs like we have in football and swimming are huge pluses. So I think we can look for better times ahead on the gridiron.

The Watkins Glen girls varsity soccer team had a winning season, but faded at the end, injuries and ennui overtaking it after two Section IV, Class C championship years and a 12-1 start in this one. Up the hill, the O-M girls soccer team was, after injuries, reduced to a roster where nobody got a breather over a stretch of several games, and the season ended up a losing one.

I can only imagine what might have been if talented O-M soccer players like Leah Antes, Paisley Jeziorski and Evvie Zinger had played alongside Watkins' Skye Honrath, Ava Kelly, Rachel Vickio, Natalee Oliver and Olivia King. I never heard merger discussed involving Watkins Glen and O-M soccer teams, either on the boys' or girls' sides. But maybe it should have been.

Cross country proved a compelling story, what with O-M starting up such a program 23 years after it had been abandoned -- a renaissance prompted by an 8th grader, Lexi Strobel, who lobbied the School Board for it last year and lined up a couple of dozen participants. Meanwhile, down in Watkins Glen, a sophomore named Isaac Hendrickson earned a spot in the state Cross Country Championships. Watkins had no girls varsity squad, nor a full boys modified team.

I will venture to say here: Combining the cross country efforts at the two schools would have likely guaranteed full teams -- and quite good ones -- on both the varsity and modified levels

There: It's hard to escape that "merger" word. Look, merger has helped the swim program, and not just on the girls' side. The Storm boys won the sectional title last year after a long drought. And the merged baseball team won the section the year before last. Football, before this rebuilding year, experienced some successes, too, as has a joint wrestling program.

There are sports, though, where there is resistance by officialdom to merger -- in particular in basketball. Each school also fields its own teams in bowling, in volleyball (far from successful in recent years) and track (O-M has had successes recently, whereas Watkins has not), while Watkins is alone in having a tennis team (O-M's went belly-up through lack of interest) and in having a lacrosse squad.

I might be missing a sport or two, but the point I'm getting to is obvious: merger works. Yes, it reduces the number of starting berths for the student-athletes, but with diminishing enrollments over the years, and a reduction in interest by a younger generation often more intent on participating in a social media world than a competitive athletic one, that argument doesn't hold the weight it once did.

******

Interestingly, there will be no Watkins Glen vs. Odessa-Montour basketball games this year -- on either the boys' or girls' sides. There has been one such game apiece annually for the past decade, and before that two per year apiece when the two schools played in the same IAC division. Now, Watkins Glen has opted not to play O-M, a decision opposed by O-M. One reason appears to be that Watkins is now in Class B while O-M is in Class C, ostensibly affecting Watkins' search for sectional tournament seeding points.

A related and possibly causal issue: With merger has come increased camaraderie -- a situation where athletes of the two schools, once pitted against one another, have found a way to work together. Except ... well, to hear one coach tell it, the insistence in some quarters to maintain separate basketball programs has complicated the camaraderie. Contentious, figurative head knocking on the basketball court in Watkins vs. O-M games of the recent past has apparently left some ill will among hoop combatants in at least one other, shared sport.

That discord, the coach said, is the obvious consequence of mixing merged and non-merged sports in the two districts. Such an uneven sports system, he maintained, is inherently contradictory. By his thinking, expecting teamwork and enthusiastic shared purpose on the baseball diamond or the football field or on the wrestling mats while touting a "my school at all costs" mentality on the basketball court "makes no sense."

"You can't have it both ways," he said. "You can't have a big rivalry in one sport and a unified effort in the others."

*****

Yes, it's all a bit complicated, when you consider the number of sports involved -- some merged and some not -- over revolving seasons, in an era of changing culture and attitude.

What is the answer?

The traditionalists will maintain that just because they have lost some of the past -- like the O-M vs. Watkins Glen football Bucket Game, so important in decades past to each school's faithful -- doesn't mean they have to relinquish it all. Much in our lives, they say, is built on tradition, and willy-nilly letting it go erodes our confidence and leaves our lives just ... that ... much ... less.

But it's also hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube. By embracing merger in so many Watkins Glen/O-M realms -- baseball, football, swimming, wrestling and, to a degree the past two seasons, in softball -- we have seen demonstrated the positive power of change.

And in the wake of my discovery of the loss of Dick Price and John O'Donnell and an accompanying recognition that my memories are just that -- memories -- and have no factual, textual relation to the changing present, I should land firmly on the side of merger, merger and more merger.

Which, on balance, I do.

But I found myself enthusiastically covering two varsity volleyball matches this fall between Watkins Glen and O-M, and even attended a modified volleyball contest between the two this week. The scheduling of WG vs. OM in volleyball (or in in any sport, if they occur) still holds allure.

And yes, there is this: I really miss the football past. I miss the Bucket Game.

But it is, bottom line, a memory.

******

And earlier:

Under their guidance ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, Oct. 30, 2024 -- I was fortunate, in my formative years, to be blessed with an occasional mentor.

One was a high school teacher, one a college professor, and one the Sports Editor at a daily newspaper in Pontiac, Michigan.

In each case, I was taught something about writing or editing, or about presenting a balanced and fair accounting in my reporting.

All of those mentors are gone now.

And yet I stay. Understandable, considering all three were my seniors by a decade or more.

But it is not their history that I am providing here, but rather the concept of mentoring -- how it generally resides in a person of patience and caring, not to mention one in possession of a talent that he or she can pass along to a person similar in -- if not temperament -- at least interest

The high school teacher, Marilyn Bright, instilled in me a desire to convey my thoughts through written words that were both concise and attention worthy.

The college professor, Robert Gildart, taught me the old-school concepts of journalism -- the who, what, why, when, where and how -- with the need for balance and fairness thrown in.

The Sports Editor, Bruno Kearns, taught me how humility in pursuing and relating stories was far more important than thinking what I might achieve as a journalist was a goal well met without regard to the niceties of society. I was to leave arrogance and entitlement at the door when I walked into his newsroom.

There was a fourth influencer, though I hesitate to call him a mentor. He was more of a cheerleader, a man mere months older than me with whom I worked at the Elmira Star-Gazette. He loved to conduct in-house instructional seminars on the various aspects of newsgathering, his specialty being investigative journalism. His name was Richard Owen Price.

I had heard years ago that Dick had died, but was shocked late one night (more than four years ago) when an email arrived from him saying how he had discovered The Odessa File and loved it. I wrote back expressing my pleasure at his continued existence, and we exchanged information on novels each of us had written and which were available online.

One recent night, in attempting to update myself on his progress, I discovered a Facebook post displaying a card with the words "Celebrating the Life of Richard Owen Price." On it were the dates Feb. 24, 1948 - March 23, 2023, along with his photo.

Damn.

I couldn't find an obituary anywhere, but -- on the basis of that celebration card -- assume he has, like my elder mentors, passed on. At least unless, or until, he sends me another email.

****

It is because of those people, as much as anything or anybody, that I chose the course that led me to start The Odessa File almost 22 years ago. And it was the lessons they imparted and the confidence they inspired that has kept me following the news and sports of Schuyler County for so long ... with the added joy of honoring the best and brightest among us, both adult (through The Essentials) and student (through the Tribute Awards presented near the end of each school year).

I used to help operate a student honor program called the Top Drawer 24, and now oversee its offspring, the Tributes, which -- since I've finally settled on the same number -- I will now be calling the Tribute 24. The choice of honorees is committee driven, but help from The Odessa File readership is always welcome. If you have a student-athlete in mind from the Odessa-Montour or Watkins Glen School Districts who excels not only on the playing field, but in the classroom and in life, feel free to pass along the nomination to me.

I am also seeking suggestions for a suitable location where I might establish a physical testament to The Essentials. Their place of honor is, right now, strictly digital on this website. It would be nice to have plaques or lists (like the Athletic Hall of Fame in the Watkins Glen High School Field House) that adds some luster to their honor.

*****

And speaking of honors, the seasonal Odessa File All Sports All Star team will be announced as soon as the last of the fall sports concludes. While soccer and volleyball are done, there is still some football to be played, cross country to be run, and swimming to be swum. There will, as always, be an MVP, although you can expect the selection this time to be a bit, say, out of the traditional mainstream.

Stay tuned.

******

And earlier:

The attraction of water ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, Oct. 13, 2024 -- Bodies of water have always played a role in my life.

There is, of course, Seneca Lake. While I don't live along its shoreline, I have visited it time and time and time again. It dominates the geography, both cartographically and -- since its historical and visual impact is so far-reaching -- mentally. And, I suppose, emotionally.

We all feel a kinship to waters like that of Seneca. Each of us is, after all, composed largely of water. It's in more than our DNA. I suppose it's difficult to assess, this natural pull; but I believe it is there in all of us.

It is in me, anyway.

When I was growing up -- from the age of 8 to 18 -- my family lived alongside small Sodon Lake in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, about 20 miles north of Detroit. It was more of a pond -- only 5.9 acres of water surface. It was deep, though, for something so small-- 56 feet to the bottom.

My family had a raft out a few dozen feet from shore, held in place by a rope secured by a cement block on the lake floor. I used to see how far I could shimmy down that rope -- but was always stopped by intense pressure and cold. I loved it when I reached that limit, though; would pause a few moments, enjoying the dark and the silence.

Three or four properties to our east sat a large, modern home, which also had lake frontage. It belonged to a family named Nurme (Nur-mee). The father was a gregarious fellow named Eino, wife Lillian. We (my friends and I) often used his metal dock, complete with diving board and diving platform. We swam there, dove there, played ball tag there, and hoped to see Eino's youngest daughter, Debby, a lithe beauty a year behind me in school, but far ahead of me socially. The common phrase that applied in her case was "out of my league." Alas, she rarely graced us with her presence.

*****

A body of water was key to my very existence. It was Owasco Lake outside Auburn, New York, back in 1940. My mother, Eleanor Bennett, was on a raft there one afternoon talking to a woman named Ruth Haeffner when Ruth's brother Gus swam out to them and struck up a conversation with Eleanor. Gus was nine years Eleanor's senior -- a salesman in from the road to visit his hometown, Auburn, and bringing with him quite a reputation as a ladies' man.

His charm was not lost on Eleanor, and they started a relationship over months that included three weekends together when he was in town -- followed in short order by their marriage, a union that lasted until Gus's passing 54 years later. Along the way, they produced three children, Bob, Jim and yours truly.

Thank you, Owasco Lake.

******

Other bodies of water have played a role in my life, as well. There was Fish Lake at Camp Ohiyesa, located near Holly, Michigan in western Oakland County, not far from where I was raised -- which is to say north of Detroit, in Birmingham and then Bloomfield Hills. I recall Camp Ohiyesa in a general sense, but water activities were (and still are) part of it. Ohiyesa is in its 106th year of day and overnight summer operation, which means I was there somewhere along its 40th year or so.

Ohiyesa was a camp associated with the YMCA, with which my family was quite familiar. A YMCA facility more locally positioned -- in a building in Birmingham -- offered me an opportunity for extended swim lessons. I remember that building's pool well -- in particular a sweetness to the smell there. The instructors worked in particular on getting me to dive, a simple enough maneuver that intimidated me. I eventually got past the fear, and fully utilized that diving board, and on occasion the diving platform, at the Nurme dock on Sodon Lake.

*******

Then ... there was Lake 27 outside of Gaylord, Michigan -- which local lore said carried its name from the days when it hosted a logging camp. My parents bought and enlarged a cabin on the western shore of the lake -- a body of water considerably larger than Sodon Lake, and thus amenable to motor boats. We did some water skiing there, and paddle biking, and sailing in a Sunfish. I recall the day a young lass visiting relatives across the lake maneuvered her Sailfish past our cottage, spotted my tall and handsome brother Jim and then managed to capsize her craft -- prompting Jim to wade out and help her to shore and up to the cabin.

As she passed me, she saw a look of skepticism on my face -- her maneuver had been all too calculated -- and stuck out her tongue as she passed me near the cabin door. That set the tone for a contentious relationship between us until the day -- many months later -- when she and my brother broke up.

Lake 27 also boasted a church camp on the far shore. One day, one of its young officials -- I don't recall if he was a priest or not, but I think so -- was out boating when he drowned in the water not far from our place. Authorities kept everyone off the water while they dove looking for the body -- which they found in due time. I remember sitting on the shore, watching the authorities, thinking about the fragility of life and wondering how a man who had devoted himself to God could end up like that.

It was a youthful mulling that has popped up in my mind from time to time since -- merely one of those questions with no good answer that can tend to plague me.

*******

While traveling the country in a motorhome back in 1979, my wife and I stopped along the shoreline in Oregon where a community of anglers and traveling campers had congregated in a sort of spontaneous community, enjoying the sunset over the Pacific Ocean and sharing whatever food they might have. The fishermen were generous with their catches, and we all ate exceedingly well. It was but an evening, but it has stayed with me in vivid technicolor all these years since.

********

There have been other experiences with wide expanses of water -- on trips to Abaco in the Bahamas and to Puerto Rico -- as well as visits to the beaches on the Gulf Coast in Venice and Sarasota, Florida. But one other body of water has always stood out: Lake Huron -- or specifically that portion of it that lies around Bois Blanc Island in Michigan's Straits of Mackinac.

I have traversed the miles across the Straits on a ferry boat from Cheboygan, Michigan to Bois Blanc many times over the years, marveling at the waves as they splashed against the boat and on occasion rose upward in a fine mist that covered me from head to toe -- always eliciting a smile from me, and sometimes a giggle. But it is the power of that water together with the natural beauty of the island -- predominantly forested -- and the memories of vacations there from boyhood to recent adulthood that imprint on my psyche the sense that I am, whenever there, in nature's loving embrace.

It is not always a gentle existence. With a limited island population and, accordingly, limited medical services, it all can turn on a person quickly -- and has, in the case of an occasional drowning, or ATV accident, or heart attack.

But the inherent danger is, really, part and parcel of life on, near or in the water -- humans lacking gills as they do.

I was always mindful, and for a while fearful, that such an existence could prove fatal -- but after getting over my fear of diving, and in the face of that death on Lake 27, I learned to accept that.

******

But of course water is not the only danger we face in this crazy world -- on this crazy orb traveling on a trajectory through space.

In the end, really, all of life -- whether on water or dry land -- is tenuous. And worrisome. And (I'm thinking of politics here) infuriating.

And quite wonderful. It is, day after day for me, an adventure, whether I am traveling, doing my job covering events in Schuyler County, or engaged in some other pursuit.

Now ... having just passed another of my many birthdays -- and feeling blessed to have lasted this long -- I wish for you the same: a long life, and hopefully a gratifyingly adventurous one.

******

And earlier:

In search of a legacy ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, Sept. 22, 2024 -- Beginnings. Endings.

Endings. Beginnings.

They can blend, like the parent who becomes child to his or her own offspring, becomes the dependent upon nearing the end -- as life, in its natural and demeaning way, comes full circle.

I have seen my fair share of endings: of marriages (one by divorce, one by death), of jobs, of friendships, of hopes and dreams.

In truth, though, I've been living a dream of sorts for quite a long time with this website. I couldn't have imagined its success when I started it back on Dec. 29, 2002.

Like all dreams, it will end. But when? Who knows? But the obvious fact is that it is a lot closer to the end than to the beginning, as am I.

And that's got me thinking lately: Where to, next? Do I continue on, as I have been for almost 22 years? Or do I try to sell the business and spend six months a year on my island? I miss the island -- Bois Blanc Island in Michigan's Straits of Mackinac. Ten miles long, five miles across. Eighty-five percent state-owned forest. But more importantly: memories there that are priceless to me, harkening back to my beginnings.

A lot of folks have asked if I've returned to the island lately, and the answer is no, not for five years. And that's after I had visited for some portion of twenty-five straight years. First there was the pandemic, when travel was limited and the island full-timers didn't want visitors who might bring COVID to them. And then there was cancer, which pretty much drained me for a long while. And then the cost of house repairs. And this time around, investment in a generator to keep the lights and heat on during winter outages.

Another factor: lack of a travel companion. I used to visit the island with my wife and kids, but she passed away, and they grew up with fully occupied lives that did not include the island. My brother and his wife filled the bill as vacation companions for years after my wife died, but age and health brought their annual trips north from Florida to an end.

But I want to go back; I feel the pull more strongly than ever. Next summer, I hope.

What's the attraction? The island has always had that effect; it is magical to me. But why does the pull seem so strong now, after five years of doing without a visit?

Part of that is the age factor -- nature's steady erosion of my stamina and my capacity to maintain a suitably high level of interest in keeping this website going. I feel like the island, as it always has, might help to regenerate those steps that I have lost.

But it goes beyond the reclamation, island-blessed, of a degree of energy. The island is part of me; I have spent about two years total there. It is, to my mind, part of my legacy. You could -- although I recognize the arrival years since of elderly age -- call me Island Boy.

But ... we are, all of us, made up of parts. In my case: Island Boy, Journalist, Storyteller, Father, Son, Husband and so on.

So ... the realization of my island legacy has got me wondering: When I have gone, what will I have left behind here, in Schuyler County, the place where I have spent most of my life?

After I've left the scene, will there still be an Odessa File? Or will it, like so much that appears on it, be a fleeting glimpse of local history, wafted away into the mist of lore as the years march on? Who will remember there was an Odessa File five years after I've gone, if it folds with my departure -- whenever that might be?

Or is there some way to secure its place in the pantheon of local lore -- some physical manifestation? A successor suitably committed to the task of photo journalism would be one way, but the effort to continually cover the news takes a certain level of ... I don't know ... maybe insanity. I have to think, though, that a large operation, a news group with suitable resources, could do a lot better with it than I have, at least financially. But is there such an organization out there? There haven't been any knocking at my door, if only to inquire.

Maybe another way to secure a legacy would be through The Essentials. That's a gallery on this website of outstanding Schuyler citizens, past and present, who have impacted our lives here in positive ways, sometimes in the public eye and sometimes behind the scenes. None of the 42 thus selected -- 21 men and 21 women -- are in the Schuyler County Hall of Fame, another group that in the past has honored area residents. There are four dozen people in the Hall of Fame -- 40 men and eight women -- but that organization has not surfaced for an induction in the past six years.

The Essentials started after that last Hall of Fame induction. I think it fulfills a need that the Hall hasn't met. But one thing that has bothered me about The Essentials is the lack of a physical manifestation (there are those words again) of the honor.

What is needed are plaques or certificates or some symbol that an honoree can actually hold in his or her hands -- and which could be on display in some suitably public location. (The framed Hall of Fame citations are on display on a hallway wall in the Schuyler County Office Building in Watkins Glen. Not exactly what I would have in mind.)

I'm thinking somewhere more public, but not a school or government building. Maybe a library. And as a friend suggested, maybe there could be a board of honor, like those on display in the Watkins Glen High School Field House for the school's Athletic Hall of Fame. In any event, I'll be thinking about it. Mulling.

In the meantime, I'm still here, with no imminent departure in mind. As with each of the 21 years I've completed at the helm of The Odessa File, I have committed (health permitting) to cover the athletic exploits of our student population and other community news through the school year. That's all I've ever dared commit to. One year at a time.

And it's worked out pretty well.

So, for now, I will hold at the status quo -- and with the hope that, as in the past, I might help to provide ... I don't know ... maybe some sense of community for the readers, for the residents of Schuyler County.

*****

And earlier:

Here we go again ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, Sept. 2, 2024 -- Having gotten a little lazy through the dog days of summer, I'm looking to turn it around -- reach deep for the energy I used to have -- to cover the 2024-25 high school sports season.

It starts this week -- with the first game of note the season opener, at home, for the two-time Section IV champion Watkins Glen High School girls varsity soccer team. That game, against Dryden, is on Wednesday evening, Sept. 4 at 7 p.m. on Alumni Field -- and of particular note is a bit of history waiting to happen.

The team's senior standout, Skye Honrath, scored 33 goals as a junior last season -- tying alum (and team assistant coach) Hannah Morse's WGHS single-season goal-scoring record. Honrath enters this season with a career total of 70 goals, just three short of Morse's school record 73. Assuming she surpasses that, the next mark might be the Schuyler County career record of 86 goals set by Odessa-Montour's Hannah Nolan. And a replication by Honrath of her junior year scoring prowess would put her in position to be the first 100-goal scorer in Schuyler County high school history.

But that is just one thread of a many-faceted story: the three-season high school sports campaign, opening with a fall lineup of soccer, football, volleyball, cross country and girls swimming.

Whereas I've always cheered our local sports participants come win or loss, it's always more fun for the fan and the players (not to mention the coaches) to experience some victories. In fact, the more the better.

In that vein, we can look toward the WGHS boys soccer team to build on last year's winning campaign under the guidance of a new coach, Brad Smith, whose son Liam is one of the team's standouts. And as always, it will be a pleasure to watch the Purpura brothers, Michael and Salvatore, exhibit their on-field skills.

The girls swim team -- a combination of WGHS and Odessa-Montour High School athletes -- has won seven straight Section IV, Class C titles. This might be considered a rebuilding year, what with a half-dozen 7th graders among the team's 22 swimmers, and just three seniors: O-M's Cara Reynolds and Riley Brooks, and WGHS's Kendra Fish. But the squad also has Emily Melveney and Aubrey Klemann, both of them, like Fish, successful at last year's sectional tournament.

Cross country is a question mark, with WGHS short on numbers, and O-M restarting a long-dormant program at the urging and effort of 8th grader Lexi Strobel, who ran alone last season and has since recruited a couple of dozen students -- boys and girls -- for team competition.

Football returns minus some key 2024 graduates, so Coach Trevor Holland looks at inexperience as the team's chief challenge. The Storm -- a combined squad of WGHS and O-M athletes -- has a roster of 26 players as it approaches the season opener on Sept. 14 at O-M against Newark Valley.

And volleyball, which has experienced a drought as far as winning seasons go at both schools, has nonetheless attracted a large turnout of hopefuls down at WGHS. How they and the O-M team fare remains to be seen -- but any turnout of a significant nature can be argued as success of a kind itself. Any athletic activity is a welcome counterpoint to today's fascination with handheld computers.

*****

I will have completed 22 years of Odessa File publication come Dec. 29th. I started my sports coverage at that point at O-M, and the following fall (2003) I started at WGHS. That's a lot of seasons -- a lot of games, a lot of stories, a lot of photos. But I should still have something left in the tank. I am, after all, young when compared to Donald Trump, Joe Biden and a few U.S. Senators.

So I've rested up, added a couple of photo lenses to my arsenal, and turn my attention once again to the young student athetes among us. Along the way, I plan to present (as in the past) seasonal All-Star teams, seasonal MVPs, and ultimately Tribute Awards to two-dozen of those student athletes near year's end.

Since the Top Drawer 24 program that I helped initiate back in 2006 (and which is now overseen by WENY) has dropped the "24" from its title (it honored 44 kids last time, and 64 once before that), I'm reclaiming the number.

Call it a rebranding.

In late May, look for "The 24: Our Tribute Award Honorees."

*******

And earlier:

The signs awaiting Olivia Coffey and Molly Bruggeman at the airport. From left, Molly's boyfriend Matt Sharkey, Olivia's husband Michael Blomquist, Maggie Coffey, Cal Coffey and Chris Sharkey.

Home from the Games ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, Aug. 16, 2024 -- The banner at the northwest corner of LaFayette Park in Watkins Glen, near the 4th Street and Decatur Street intersection, reflects the pride the community feels toward Olympian Olivia Coffey of Burdett, a former Watkins Glen High School student.

"Watkins Glen Strong," it proclaims in large letters. And then this: "We support you Olivia, and are so proud of you." Her picture adorns the left side of the banner, with the lettering: "Olivia Coffey. U.S. Rowing Women's Eight."

*******

She was, when I first met her, a gangly freshman at WGHS, the center on a basketball team that would reach a Section IV final before falling to Candor on a Megan Shay jump shot with a few seconds left to play. It was my first year covering WGHS sports, and I had trouble at first differentiating one player from another -- except for the center, Olivia Coffey, because she was the tallest on the squad.

It was more than that, though. I saw, in that still-developing frame of hers, potential greatness. A gregariousness, yes, but a determination unusual in one so young. I thought that the basketball team was destined for a state title with her in the fold. But she didn't want to stay, as it turned out. She wanted to go to prep school, and despite lobbying by me and others, she went -- a sure sign of an independent spirit who knew what she wanted and what she needed.

Yes, that was back in the days when all of this was in front of her.

And my guess is that she felt it, recognized it and raced toward it.

*******

The night Livy -- who I've encountered on and off in the ensuing two decades -- arrived home from the Paris Olympics, I was invited to be there, at the Elmira Corning Regional Airport. She was flying in on Delta from Detroit -- a roundabout way from Paris. She flew from Paris to Atlanta to Detroit and Elmira, arriving around 11 p.m. She was tired -- had slept on the plane -- but gladly agreed to talk to the media, which consisted of me and a WETM sports reporter.

I think the airport welcoming committee helped wake her up. On hand were her husband Michael, her parents Maggie and Cal, and Chris Sharkey and her son Matt. The Sharkeys are family friends who were, more to the point, waiting for Livy's travel companion, Eights teammate Molly Bruggeman, who Livy introduced to Matt last winter, and who was now moving in with Matt in Corning.

It was a party atmosphere, with other people arriving to greet other incoming passengers and observing the Coffeys and Sharkeys from a respectful distance. Said one to me: "I didn't know we'd have Olympians here!" Yes, that word is carrying an extra measure of good will after the overall visual and spiritual success of the Paris Games.

Livy's teammate Molly reached the waiting area first, and was greeted with a big hug from her boyfriend, not to mention greeted by signs Matt and his mother and Livy's husband had prepared welcoming the two young women back. Their signs were fairly rudimentary ones, all easily outstripped by a large, professional looking one unfurled by Livy's mother. It was on a thick plastic-like surface, complete with Livy's picture and the words "Women's Rowing," and beneath that "We Love Liv! with "Love" not a word, but a picture of a heart.

Maggie Coffey laughed when she unrolled it. "It's from after the Tokyo Games," she said, referring to the previous Olympics. "It was made then by one of Livy's sisters."

Finally, along came Livy toward the party, looking a little surprised at the cameras present, but delighted to be back in the family fold, back together with her husband and parents.

*******

Olivia Coffey, always the pro and despite her fatigue, acceded to an on-camera interview, during which she said her team's fifth-place finish was not what she had hoped for or anticipated, but that the team had tried hard. She brightened at mention of the Paris Closing Ceremony, an event the previous day. She hadn't had a chance to experience the one after the Tokyo Olympics -- many of the athletes leaving Tokyo upon completion of their competitions because of the pandemic. This time ... well, it was great.

"One of the rowers was a flag bearer, which was really cool," she said. "The other one was Katie Ledecky," renowned distance swimmer who has won nine gold medals across four Olympics for the United States, including two at the Paris Games (along with a silver and a bronze). Livy said she spent time "hanging out" at the Closing Ceremony with Ledecky (who, parenthetically, has announced she isn't done yet -- intends to swim in the 2028 Los Angeles Games). Livy described Ledecky like this: "She couldn't have been nicer. She's a wonderful person."

That, she said, "was an incredible way to cap off the entire event."

******

Olivia Coffey's journey has been marked by excellence. She left basketball behind -- but she still likes an occasional pickup game with some of the girls with whom she teamed at WGHS those years ago -- and took up ice hockey in prep school. Her interest in rowing had been sparked in high school -- a natural offshoot. Her father produces sculls, and was himself a silver medalist in pairs in the 1976 Olympics at Montreal. (That silver could become a gold, what with the International Olympic Committee president advocating for a "reallocation" of Montreal medals to atone for the golds won by East Germans there under a state-sponsored doping program. That would mean gold for Calvin Coffey and his pairs-teammate Michael Staines. "I've been told that," Cal said at the airport, before his daughter's arrival.)

Olivia Coffey was an All-American in rowing while attending Harvard University, and later earned an MBA from the University of Cambridge. She earned world championships in rowing on three occasions, qualified as an alternate at the 2016 Rio Games, and then earned a seat in the Eights at both Tokyo and Paris. She works for One Equity Partners out of New York City, an alternative asset management firm where she spends time when not at home in Burdett. One Equity has been very supportive -- granting her time off for her latest Olympic training and Paris excursion. "The firm couldn't have been more supportive," she has said.

Now, with Paris behind her, she said it was "back to work. I'll be working, exercising, working, exercising. It's pretty basic."

And with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics on the horizon, has she set her sights on yet another Games experience? "I'm just gonna enjoy this one," she said amid the airport celebration. "If there's anything this Olympics gave me, it's confidence in my ability. So if I wanted to come back, I could. But life could also go another way. So I'm not gonna make a decision now."

Photos in text:

Top: Chris Sharkey and son Matt, who greeted not only Olivia Coffey, but also Matt's girlfriend Molly Bruggeman -- like Coffey a member of the Women's Eight team.

Bottom: Olivia Coffey, left, and teammate Molly Bruggeman upon their arrival at the Elmira Corning Regional Airport.

********

And earlier:

Some of the gulls at Watkins Glen's Clute Park. The lunch stand is on the right.

The lunch thief ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, July 28, 2024 -- This is a story of how some french fries I bought never reached my mouth -- how a lunch outing was ruined by an obviously hungry thief.

Here's how it went down:

It was a recent bright day at Watkins Glen's Clute Park, with a cooling breeze off of Seneca Lake countering the increasing heat of the sun.

I was there to cover an outing by wrestling camp participants who were offered a trip to the park beach for some informal competition instead of the more formal surroundings of the Watkins Glen High School Field House gym.

Here, three-minute bouts were conducted in a sandy area next to a volleyball court, two competitive areas marked in circular fashion with roping. Some of the 55 kids in the camp, while waiting for a couple of late arrivals, asked the camp director, Dan Batchelder, if they could swim while waiting. "Sure," he said, "as long as you're back when I give the instructions."

They returned in time, and after Batchelder outlined the rules -- simple compared to wrestling's usual regimen, where battles can carry on for the better part of a quarter hour -- the camp members squared off, two in that circle and two in the other, and the battles, often of very short duration, based on easily accrued points, were under way.

After snapping several photos there, I adjourned to the park's old pavilion, where -- I had been apprised -- young Summer Rec kids were making slime worms under the direction of a representative from the Science and Discovery Center. I took a few pictures there, said hello to some of the Rec workers -- high school graduates like Sasha Honrath, Lillian Betts, Alyson Gibson and Hannah Morse, all of whom I have covered in the past in various sports activities -- and adjourned outside, taking in the park's swim activity and noticing a "private" sign outside the nearby Seneca Lake Events Center -- a sign I was told referred to an upcoming wedding reception there. I then checked back at the wrestling venue before heading toward the parking lot and my car.

That's when my visit went off the rails.

I decided, as my stomach rumbled, that I could use some lunch, and there in my path was the park's eatery -- a small, square stand with all sorts of signs offering food and drink of various kinds. I blanched at the price when I found a cheeseburger listed, but sometimes hunger wins over logic, and so I ordered one, along with french fries and a large diet coke. But when the young woman at the register told me the diet drink was $7, I changed it to a small drink, those $7 capable of buying a week-long supply of the same drink at the store.

And then I waited as a couple of female customers stepped up to place their orders. The sun was intensifying at that point, but there was no shaded seating within what I gauged to be hearing distance, so I stood nearby, increasingly uncomfortable in the direct sunlight, awaiting the call to pick up my order. Finally, the young woman at the register called out "Sir, your fries," and I traversed the few steps to the window as she handed me a small paper plate overflowing with them. As I took possession, a couple of the fries tumbled from the plate to my hand, and I recoiled at the intense heat of them. I then turned to the nearest picnic table -- mere feet away -- and set the plate down, thinking I would let the fries cool a little before eating them.

Almost immediately the girl called out again. "Sir, your burger," she said, and I turned to retrace my steps and claim my paper-wrapped prize. As it was handed to me, and I reminded the girl that I still had a drink coming, one of the female customers awaiting her order called out: "No! Get away." I saw her motioning her arms toward my table, and turning I saw a gull -- one of many that had congregated on the lawn nearby without me noticing -- with a couple of my fries in its greedy little beak, lifting off from the dining surface. Another gull had landed on the table edge, and others were flapping their wings nearby, two or three of them lifting off the ground, hovering like helicopters, poised to strike.

"Damn," I said, as I instinctively rushed the table, shooing the gulls. My fries had been knocked clear of the small plate, and I started to set down my burger to retrieve them. But spotting a hovering gull that was eyeing the scene and seemingly moving closer, I held on to the burger while I grabbed the plate, shoveled the fries (still hot) back onto it, and looked behind me for a garbage can -- spotting it at the far corner of the food stand.

"I'm throwing them out," I said to the woman who had first called out. She was still helping, waving her arms to dissuade the gulls.

I wasn't about to eat fries that had been invaded, even briefly, by a bird carrying god-knows-what disease -- nor did I want to further encourage this bunch of feathered hooligans by leaving any food within their rapid reach. (Thoughts of Alfred Hitchcock's movie "The Birds" had me fleetingly thinking they might not back away even if I was seated, eating.)

The woman continued to help, swiping from the table the last few fries remaining there, and followed me to the garbage receptacle, dumping them in. I figured if a gull wanted them bad enough, it would have to dive into the receptacle's black hole, from which escape might be futile. Alas, none did.

Unnerved by the turn of events, and not quite sure what else to do, I departed the area, heading for my car, and heard the helpful woman telling the register girl that gulls had just attacked my food. "Whaaat?" was the last word I heard before I was out of range. I wasn't about to wait to see what reaction, if any, the food stand personnel might further exhibit. I certainly didn't expect them to replace my fries, since they didn't control the elements outside their little building.

But that got me thinking: Who does? Is there someone out there, among humankind, who is responsible for reeling in unruly gulls?

A short time later, I related the incident to a couple of women I encountered at my next stop, and one said --without providing detail -- that she had witnessed aggressive gulls when she was with friends just days earlier at Clute.

So, I thought. Apparently my unnerving lunch might not have been a one-off -- an isolated, one-time-only example of nervy, annoying, airborne creatures.

And I wondered again: Just whose responsibility are they?

Alas, I don't have the answer.

The only thing I know -- or at least suspect -- is that I will order food in such an atmosphere again only when ... well, when pigs fly alongside the gulls.

A final thought or two: While my advice to the Clute eatery would be to lower its prices and provide a larger, sturdier plate that can adequately hold its ample helping of fries, I have to say those fries looked pretty damn good.

I just hope that future customers, whenever they order fries there, actually get a chance to enjoy them.

******

And earlier:

In praise of Sophie ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, July 12, 2024 -- I first saw her through my camera lens.

It was during her freshman year -- the 2004-05 school year -- at Watkins Glen High School, in the Field House during a Color Wars assembly, a gathering that heightened school spirit, pitting the enthusiasm of each class against the other.

I was snapping photos of some of the kids in the bleachers, and stopped swiveling my camera when I came to her face -- a young lady looking directly at me and smiling knowingly. I didn't have a clue as to what she might know, although later -- after I became acquainted with her through her athletic exploits (and, yes, many more photos) -- I found that she simply knew how to live life well, and would show me, through her academics, athletics and joie de vivre, how it could be done.

That Field House assembly was my introduction to Sophie Peters, who later inserted Fitzsimmons and a hyphen in her name to reflect both sides of her family. Her parents are Marie Fitzsimmons, a retired Watkins Glen High School teacher, and Kirk Peters, a retired veterinarian.

A list of her high school accomplishments, while impressive, was but one aspect of Sophie, who -- I can't believe I have to say this, but it is the painful truth -- died recently from complications following childbirth. Her life's balance sheet, her bottom-line account, is less tangible than achievement lists, more in the realm of the ethereal. She was as kind and thoughtful off the playing fields as she was determined and driven and successful on them.

Those traits led me to present her with the third annual Susan B. Haeffner Sportsmanship Award in 2007 -- an honor in memory of my late wife and predicated on such attributes as fairness in life and in competition; on success, yes, but more importantly on the innate possession of a core of kindness.

Sophie, a standout in soccer, basketball and track, was also a member of the Top Drawer 24 in its first three years of existence. That was an honor program sponsored by this website for 15 years, each year honoring two dozen students who excelled in athletics, academics and citizenship. I wrote of Sophie on the occasion of her selection in her junior year as follows:

"Sophie is about as focused and determined an athlete as I've ever encountered. She was the standout on this year's Watkins Glen girls soccer team, one of the two best players on the girls basketball team, and an exceptional track athlete with a penchant throughout the year to run, run, and run some more. When felled by illness in the fall, she came back weakened but intent on taking up where she had left off -- leading her soccer team offensively despite her condition. I've yet to hear her complain about anything -- as she continues on a course that includes outstanding academics, an inherent sweetness, and yet a toughness that seems indomitable."

And of her senior year Top Drawer selection, I wrote:

"Sophie has continued to excel in three sports in her senior year at Watkins Glen -- as an IAC All-Star in soccer and basketball, and as a standout distance runner on the track team. She is at the top of her class academically, maintaining a focus and determination undiminished by the condition known as senioritis. Both sweet in person and tough in competition, she has earned a spot on this team for three straight years. This year also marked a year of significant travel for her -- to South Africa as one of the four students selected to represent the school at a Model UN Conference, and to Europe on a soccer tour."

She finished atop her class -- was the valedictorian in the Class of 2008. She went on to SUNY Geneseo (Magna Cum Laude) and to the University of Maryland-Baltimore for a Master's degree in Social Work. After that came the Peace Corps (including a couple of years in Uganda as a Literacy Specialist), and various jobs designed to help society -- most recently as a Program Analyst for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Baltimore, where she lived with her husband Anton and son Desmond.

******

Word of Sophie's passing at the age of 34 came to me through a phone call from a friend. I reacted with shock, and later with deep heaving sobs. I imagine others reacted the same; in any event, that was the effect she had on me. There was always something so engaging about her -- something so honest. What you saw was what you got -- which in her case was kindness, wisdom, quiet self-assurance, and an open, caring personality. I can think of no other student I have covered who left such an indelible impression.

And I, like anyone else who knew her well, cared in return.

The finest words, and final ones here, come from her mother, Marie, who posted the following on Facebook:

"Our beautiful Sophie Marie has passed from this world. She leaves her husband Anton Schneider, two and a half year old son Desmond Schneider, and infant daughter Josie Schneider. Sophie delivered her healthy and gorgeous daughter before terrible post delivery complications occurred. You can imagine what a joyous, gentle and fun mama Sophie was. You can imagine her deep love for Anton and her tender, thoughtful way. You saw for yourselves the incredible love she shared with her brothers Jores and Jared and their devotion to each other's families. You know how Kirk and I loved and admired her and how much she taught us. You know how Sophie grew up with the school and the veterinary hospital as extensions of our home. You know how she loved her youth and how our family, school, and community shaped her life. You know she loved our Clan with all her heart. And you know she always knew she would join the Peace Corps. She fell in love with Anton after graduating from college when they both volunteered in Detroit City Schools with City Year. Imagine finding a man who saw the world as she did and adventuring the world with a focused, quiet, and unwavering devotion to humanity. Imagine their life together in Uganda and then in Baltimore. Oh the beauty. You know how she quietly insisted that every person be seen. That every woman have autonomy over her body. That every person be treated with respect and dignity. That human kindness be our mantra. I will post an article she wrote for Peace Corps. I will read it every day for the rest of my life. Thank you for loving our girl. Thank you for holding us in your hearts."

*******

Photo in text: Sophie Fitzsimmons-Peters in a photo from her high school days. This picture ran with a story published by The Odessa File in 2011 naming her to an All-Decade Team (2001-2011) of outstanding Schuyler County student-athletes.

*******

And earlier:

Livy, chaos, and the beauty of a photographic moment

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, July 9, 2024 -- First, a little catch-up.

--I heard a few days ago fron Maggie Coffey, mother of Olympic rower Olivia Coffey, reminding me of Livy's upcoming competition in The Women's Eight boat at the Paris Olympics. She wrote:

"Happy 4th of July to you! Hope this finds you well and getting some time to kick back.

"Our friend Livy leaves tomorrow for Italy for a few weeks of training and then on to Paris in search of gold."

Olivia, of Burdett and New York City, was an alternate at the Rio Olympics, and then in the Eights at the Tokyo games. The Olympics run this year from July 24-Aug. 11, with the Opening Ceremony on July 26. The Women's Eight heats begin on Monday, July 29th.

*****

Peggy Scott, who oversees the annual Watkins Glen High School Alumni Association banquet at the Watkins Glen Community Center, asked if I could publish a photo (right) she sent me that came from this year's banquet.

The two women in the photo, she said, "were our most senior representatives, from the class of 1946: Vera Franzese (on the left) and Mary Bartholomew. I thought it would be a wonderful tribute to two outstanding members of our Schuyler County community."

******

And I received a nice note from one of the kayaking adventurers I wrote about in the column below this one - a column outlining their journey up Seneca Lake from Watkins Glen to Geneva. The note from Patrick Reardon read:

"What a great article you wrote about the Kayak trip and our stay in Watkins Glen. All went well on our trip along the eastern shore of Seneca Lake. It was great meeting you and I hope to come to Watkins Glen and see you again."

*****

Odessa streets and sidewalks have been torn up this summer for installation of long-overdue new water lines. The state DOT is due in this week to install new sidewalks along Main Street, where water-line work has left dirt walkways (including in front of my house). When it's all done -- the line replacements and a Phase 2 project involving construction of a new water treatment plant -- we'll find out what effect all of this (along with unrelated, rising operational costs) will mean to our monthly water bills.

For those thinking we might escape unscathed in that regard, think again. I'm assured water rates will go up, adding to the cost of paying off that 30-year bond we needed for installation last year of the sewege treatment facility on the west end of town.

Not that I'm complaining. Since I no longer leach water out to the subsurface of my yard, my cellar -- historically wet (and often significantly so) -- is dry, dry, dry. And my water pressure, now that an old, small water line has been replaced, is appreciably increased -- making for a pretty enjoyable shower.

*******

The sewage and water projects aside, the village faces some personnel challenges, what with the decision by Mayor Gerry Messmer not to seek re-election next March, and with the upcoming retirements of DPW Chief Steve Siptrott and Village Clerk Pam Kelly. The latter position appears to be filled with a probationary appointment.

And there is more -- like the upcoming fire district that will lead to removal of the Fire Department from the village as a budgetary item; struggles with the village mainstreaming into the Climate Smart movement that Montour Falls has embraced; and negotiations with the Dutton S. Peterson Library over its future plans, which may or may not involve a property swap with the village (the library for the current DPW property on First Street) --which could, according to Messmer, lead to usage of the current library site as a village and town historical museum.

Good heavens. My head is swimming with this kaleidoscope of road work and other village matters -- which is why (I suppose) that I turned my mind to the seemingly placid past in the midst of it all. I wrote the following in reaction:

*******

Photos rock.

Or perhaps it's more like this: photographs have the stability, the staying power, of a rock -- the tenuous nature of paper and digitalia aside.

Case in point:

I was doing some summer house cleaning recently when I came upon an 8-by-10 black-and-white photo of a group of youngsters posing in three rows, the front row seated, the kids in the middle row standing behind them, and the back row standing on a stage immediately behind the rest.

I hadn't seen the photo in some years, but knew instantly that it was snapped at Vaughan Elementary School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan back in the late 1950s, when I was in the fifth grade. This was my class.

I focused immediately on Mrs. Terry, my all-time favorite teacher (I never knew her first name, other than Mrs.), standing on the right edge, just behind Dee Dee Pipp. Dee Dee was -- at that time -- the girl who all of us boys in that picture adored. Oddly, the status of princess she owned back in the fifth grade didn't carry through to the junior high and high school years. She was supplanted by other girls who (to put it bluntly) developed curvier curves along the way. (Yes, males can be short-sighted like that.)

Standing on the stage, on the far right and immediately next to Mrs. Terry, was Brian Marshall. We were pretty good friends, since he lived near me and we shared similar interests. Board games, sports, girls and so on. Brian changed in the succeeding teen years, adopting an attitude that more aligned him with what we called "the greasers" -- long-haired and slightly rebellious in nature. So we grew apart.

And yet, his death hit me hard, and still resonates. He was drafted into the Army during the Vietnam War, and died his first day in that hellhole -- the victim of an incoming mortar.

Yes, Mrs. Terry -- a sweet lady who encouraged my academics (I can hear her slightly growly voice even now) -- and Dee Dee Pipp (who still reigns in my mind, her hold on us back then was so complete), and my old, long departed friend Brian Marshall still exist for me as they did in the moment of that photo -- longtime fixtures in my history and memory.

Interestingly, I can identify -- without a moment's thought -- a heavy majority of the 25 people captured there.

The easiest to ID is, of course, me -- seated far left and looking like I had a bit of the devil in me, that devil just itching to get out. Next to me was Bill Patterson, the best athlete among us. That guy could kick the hell out of the ball in kick-ball, a game resembling baseball but without the bats and gloves.

Next to him: Tommy Raupp, and then Stan Todd, and then one of my all-time favorite people, Cheryl Smith -- an exceptional downhill skier who was funny as hell and whip smart. She was a girl I secretly longed to date in our high school years, but didn't; I was disinclined to upend our friendship, and she was inclined to date more impressive individuals. I did date her sister Vicki, though, a girl a year behind us. That ended badly, but Cheryl and I remained friends, although we lost touch after high school.

That's one of life's regrettable drawbacks, the loss through neglect of people we care about.

*******

Ah, photographs.

They have long been a key part of this website -- simply because it is (despite its dependence on modern technology) in the traditional format of newspapers, which also depended on the impact of pictures.

Personally, I have various photos around the house from the years when the Haeffners were a traditional family -- father (me), mother (my late wife Susan), and sons (Bill, Jonathan and David).

And in my computers are thousands of action photos from recent years, snapped during sports contests at local schools -- a compendium of moments capturing the heroics of area teens. I've published a lot of them on this website -- thousands across 21 and a half years.

I hope that some of them have been downloaded and printed by those young heroes, and that in future years they will be unearthed by their various subjects -- who will, like me with the photo of Mrs. Terry's class -- appreciate each of the captured moments for their familiarity and, hopefully, personal remarkability.

In the meantime, I'll try to keep snapping more of them. Point, shoot ... voila.

*******

And earlier:

The 12 kayakers pose on the Seneca Lake shore before departing on the trek north.

A dauntless dozen ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, June 27, 2024 -- Color me envious of them. Or if not quite that, then admiring.

I'm talking about a dozen people out of the hundreds of thousands of visitors we get in Schuyler County each summer -- 12 rather intrepid souls, not carried here by bus, but using Watkins Glen as a starting point for a strenuous journey ... by kayak.

They shoved off at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, June 25th, from the southeast corner of Seneca Lake, from the beach where kayaks abound when the wind isn't howling as it had been the day before, on Monday the 24th.

Most of the 12, seven men and five women, have reached an increasingly elderly point of their lives. But that wasn't stopping them; they seemed instead very anxious to undertake their planned trip -- a journey across four days and three nights paddling north on Seneca from Watkins Glen to Geneva, all 38 miles of it.

Before they left, there was a period of preparation that included taking their cars up to Geneva, coming back in a couple of vehicles, and then moving one of them up to the first overnight stop, at Smith Park (with subsequent overnights planned at campgrounds in Lodi and Sampson State Park). So in the two hours before takeoff, there were two members of the group left behind in Watkins to keep an eye on the dozen craft the group would be using, along with the equipment packed into each kayak's nooks and crannies.

During that wait, just north of their takeoff point, a kayak rental firm had just sent off a group of adults and kids on a trek up the eastern shore to Hector Falls after giving the renters a quick lesson in the do's and don't's of the sport. A worker with the rental outfit said the kayaks they use "are really nice, but not like those." And she pointed down the beach a few yards south (pictured at right), where the dozen long, sleek and comparatively expensive kayaks of the four-day-three-night group were lined up, waiting.

They were waiting for the convergence on that beach of their 12 adventurers, 12 people with little in common other than their love of kayaking -- their love of the water, and perhaps of the challenge before them.

Two of the kayaks bore this name: Aquanauts.

"Good name," I said to one of the 12, a woman from New Jersey who had been left behind to keep an eye on the boats. "Is that what you guys are? Aquanauts?"

She smiled. "I suppose so," she said. "Although maybe it's more like Aquanuts."

*******

The dozen had gathered at the urging of their leader, a man named Don who was carrying on after the initial such effort the previous year run by a friend, back when seven people made the trek -- not from Watkins to Geneva, but rather from Seneca Falls down Cayuga Lake to Ithaca. This year's dozen were recruited by word of mouth and an on-line call for participants. None of the 12 knew more than two or three other members of the group; and one man, a photographer from Connecticut, said he knew none of them.

They had arrived the day before in Watkins by car from various locales. Some live in New York, but there were also the woman from Jersey, the man from Connecticut, a couple of women from Maryland, and one man from Denver -- although his roots were in Auburn, New York, where he was born and raised before joining the Navy at 17 and serving 10 years. He had made his living since in the technology industry, including a stint at Silicon Valley in California.

As noted before, the 12, who stayed Monday night at the Clute Park campground, are no spring chickens, which made the considerable effort facing them that much more impressive. One is a college professor, but most were retired -- one had been an engineer, another a teacher, another a horticulturist -- and all carried the gray hair that comes with age.

They spent their first evening -- Monday evening -- dining at the Lakeside Bistro on the western side of the lake (pictured at right), courtesy of a representative of the Erie Canal Heritage Foundation. All 12, along with their hostess and yours truly, were seated at a table in front of a window that looked out toward Seneca Lake -- toward their destination the next morning.

Each was asked to introduce himself or herself, and did so using just their first names and their home towns. In fact, not once did I hear a last name uttered. Somehow, that seemed right; this was not about who they were, but rather what they were -- which is to say cut from the same almost mystical cloth, a cloth composed of a dash of daring, an ageless determination, and a love of a sport steeped in nature. I dare say that they, in turn, did not know my last name, which somehow wrapped me in the warmth of this gathering.

With the table -- actually a group of them pushed together -- being so long, it was impossible to get to know someone at the far end. But after desserts, we all adjourned to the Bistro's deck and there intermingled.

The leader, Don, explained to me there that serious kayakers are a rare -- which is to say not particularly large -- fraternity. Accordingly, while this dauntless dozen were, for the most part, new to one another, "It's a pretty sure thing that each of us knows someone who knows one of us."

The journey north on Seneca, he said, would really be a warmup -- a test -- for future endeavors that envision a larger group not just traveling to Geneva, but from there by canal to Cayuga Lake and a further trek south to Ithaca: a combination of last year's and this year's journeys.

Or, as Don wrote in an email to the Erie Canal Heritage Foundation representative:

While we aren't an official group yet, we are calling it Connecting the Finger Lakes Expedition. It was created by Paul Comstock, who grew up in Geneva and sits on the Erie Canal Experience Council. Because I have guided the entire length of the canal system, he recruited me to help with his vision of an expedition for experienced kayakers that goes from Watkins Glen to Ithaca by way of Geneva and the Cayuga-Seneca canal. We are still in the exploration stage. Last year, we paddled from Seneca Falls to Ithaca down Cayuga Lake. This year we are paddling from Watkins Glen to Geneva. Hopefully, next year, we can tie the whole thing together, connecting the Finger Lakes to the canal system. So far, we pulled people in from Texas, Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, and of course, New York. We're hoping to make it an annual event. We're all about increasing the profile of the Finger Lakes as a paddling destination and increasing paddling tourism.

We have ideas for other trips for less experienced kayakers, as well. My favorite idea is called Kayaks and Chardonnay. A couple mornings of easy kayaking with afternoon winery tasting visits! And don't forget about the Paddlefest on June 29 in Geneva (at which some of the dauntless dozen planned to help in on-shore capacities after their arrival there). If it goes well, we may not only repeat it, but try to bring one to Watkins Glen and/or Ithaca in the future. It features local kayak rental business paired with volunteers to get newbies on the water.

******

Kayakers such as these love their craft. Some have more than one kayak, including the leader, Don, who said he has eight. "I got rid of five, which is why I only said eight," he explained rather drily. The one he was using for this journey was quite long -- one of the two aforementioned Aquanaut models.

And each of the kayakers was particular in his or her choice of equipment, including paddles. Most had wide scooped paddles, for instance, but two or three preferred a lightweight wooden paddle that was much narrower and wouldn't seem to have the same effect as the scooped variety -- but the paddle portion being longer, it had the same rowing surface, or perhaps a bit more, and so was just as effective.

The kayaks, ranging from roughly 16 to about 20 feet, generally possessed small storage compartments that these adventurers had packed tightly with whatever needs they anticipated over four days and three nights -- from clothing to food to ... well ... to whatever they had learned was needed on previous sojourns.

"You learn to pack light," said the woman from New Jersey. "You really learn as you go."

How many such trips had she taken?

"Oh, I've lost count," she said.

*******

With the arrival of the bulk of the kayaking group from its driving trip to and from Geneva to rerarrange the cars, attention was focused on packing and repacking their supplies and on ingesting some food -- from power bars to sandwiches.

While awaiting the arrival of their leader, Don, they gathered in twos and threes to talk, with three of the five women marching out into the shallow water to cool off, for it was late morning with a sun that was rapidly heating the atmosphere. And they all donned life jackets, applied sunscreen, and, in a couple of cases, sprayed themselves to dissuade any bugs they would encounter out on the water.

Finally, with the return of Don, they all gathered for a group photo, the lake and far western shore in the background, and then started moving their kayaks from the beach, two and sometimes three of them lifting each craft to the water, with each kayaker in turn climbing aboard and gently paddling out a few yards, waiting fot their partners to keep pace.

"I'll catch up," called the Connecticut photographer, who had tied into a sandwich after most of the others had consumed their food. "Don't worry; I'm coming!"

The others hovered off-shore, barely moving, waiting, until he had boarded his craft and started paddling.

"Will we see you up the lake?" he called out to me as I watched from shore.

And I answered; "No. Too busy."

He nodded and replied back: "Okay. Good to meet you."

I waved, and said softly, in thanks, admiration and, I suppose, in prayer:

"Likewise. And fare thee well."

******

Photos in text: From top: Several of the group's kayaks awaiting the trip; the group at dinner the night before (Photo by Brian Wilcox); each kayak was full of supplies.

******

Half of the group preparing for the journey from Watkins Glen to Geneva.

Three of the dozen kayakers make their way out onto Seneca's waters.

*****

And earlier:

Still we march on ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, June 18, 2024 -- I received an unexpected Father's Day note from a woman named Barb O'Callaghan -- known to none of you, I'm sure, but important in the annals of Haeffner family lore.

Barb was a sorority sister of my late wife, Susan, back in the early 1970s at SUNY Cortland. The sorority was Arethusa, also known as Sigma Gamma Phi, based in an old, impressive home along a busy, tree-laden street in Cortland.

Susan talked often of O'Callaghan, as she referred to her, and we managed to get together with Barb once or twice early in our marriage. Alas, life took us over, and the Susan Bauman Haeffner-Barbara O'Callaghan connection faded into history. And, come November 1st, 2004, so did Susan, the victim of a pulmonary embolism while undergoing radiation treatment for a rare sarcoma that had formed tumors around her spine, leaving her future very much in the hands of God -- who chose to lift her out of here before she went through a grueling, spiraling and painful demise.

I heard from O'Callaghan about nine and a half years ago -- a decade after Susan's passing ... in fact, oddly enough, on Nov. 1, 2014, exactly 10 years to the day after Susan left us. Barb, trying to track down her old friend, happened instead to find she had died. I in turn directed Barb to an account of the unusual funeral week that followed Susan's passing. (Click here.)

I'm sure the fact that Susan had died hit O'Callaghan hard, and she notified other Arethusa sisters, a handful of whom eventually showed up at my door the next year, wanting to visit Susan's gravesite. And after that, they treated me to a meal in Cortland, and we toasted Susan, known fondly by her sorority sisters as "Trees." (I can't recall why, though it might have had to do with her long legs.)

Anyway, the last time O'Callaghan and I connected by email, until now, was 2016. Then, out of the blue, I received the following message from her on Sunday.

"HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

"I'm sure that each of your sons -- Jonathan, David and William -- expressed their love and gratitude to you today, each in their own way.

"You've been on my mind a lot since early February when I first received a pre-registration form from SUNY Cortland for the Alumni JULY reunion. Of course, our Class of 1974 will be celebrating our 50 years as Cortland graduates. I was thinking, gosh darn, Sue should be here with us to reunite and recall the 'good old days.' I can tell you that her name is always mentioned among the sorority sisters of Arethusa -- especially Ann Shelorke and Sue Belevich -- whom you met in 2015. They, and several other Arethusa sisters from that 'infamous' class of '74, will be coming to celebrate this summer. Many carry with them their own personal stories of tragedy in their lives -- one lost a son to an incurable brain tumor at age 33 -- another lost a son who was a high school senior at the time to suicide -- some have lost "connection" with their children for whatever reason -- and still we march on with time. I like to think that whenever we now meet -- it's like we are back in the kitchen of Arethusa -- sitting around the huge countertop table and sharing our hopes and dreams and disappointments. Some sister was always there to lend an ear and a hand and show support when it was needed most. I like to think that we carry on those same traditions, in our own ways, as adults.

"So, I hope that all is well your way!

"Please know that "Sue B. Trees" will be remembered at our gathering. O'Callaghan will make sure of that!

"Barbara"

That note was both uplifting in its kindness and a bit depressing, for it brought the loss of Susan bubbling to the surface yet again. It is something we all share, you and I -- we either lose someone or something we love, or we ourselves are the loss, leaving our loved ones before we or they are ready.

But O'Callaghan is right. "Still we march on with time." Doing the best we can. In my case, that is being father, grandfather, and occasionally (though not, I think, often enough) friend.

And in that marching maybe we -- if lucky (as I have been) -- provide a service of some kind that has a positive effect on the society in which we live. I like to think that The Odessa File -- which Susan, in her closing days, urged me to keep producing -- serves not only my need to be productive in the wake of loss, but the need of those who have, over the years, suffered their own losses and have, in the midst of life's peaks and valleys, found their way to the website for the information, the connection, that it provides.

So ... thanks to all of you who do visit, and to Susan for her eternal encouragement, and to O'Callaghan for what she meant to Susan and for helping to keep Susan's memory alive beyond the parameters of family.

*****

And speaking of The Odessa File, I have often wondered what other journalistic publications might have preceded it in Schuyler County. We are all familiar with the Watkins Review & Express and with the Hi-Lites, and the Elmira Star-Gazette had a bureau here decades ago. But what about before that?

I was fascinated to learn -- upon stumbling upon a book titled "A Bibliography of Newspapers in Fourteen New York Counties" -- that there were quite a few predecessor newspapers. The Schuyler County section of the book goes on for a dozen pages, in fact.

I won't try to list all of the newspapers it touches upon, other than to say it provides quite a bit of dry detail on each.

There was, for instance, the Burdett Home Record back in 1899, running until at least 1903, calling itself "A Wholesome Family Newspaper." And the Burdett Local Visitor was even earlier, running from 1867-70. And moving farther back in time, we find The Democratic Citizen operated in Havana (now Montour Falls) in 1840, and in Jefferson (now Watkins Glen) two years later. It folded in 1850.

Yes, there were a lot of 19th century and early 20th century newspapers around here, like the Free Press in Montour Falls, the Havana Enterprise, the Havana Journal, The Havana Republican, The Jeffersonian, The Old School Democrat, The Oracle Advertiser, the Schuyler County Chronicle, The Schuyler County Press, The Watkins Daily Record ... and on and on.

Journalism has been, since the county's inception and even before, a key element of Schuyler County society. And it still is, although the times have changed and the mode of information delivery has, at least in some cases, been radically altered.

I've always thought, and continue to think, that a free press is key to a strong democracy -- to a strong local society, for that matter. Despite its faults, and despite the attacks upon its very existence, journalism matters.

And so I continue.

*****

And earlier:

Out of the mist of lore ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, May 31, 2024 -- Amid all of the sturm und drang coming out of the political world, I was heartened this week with news of a different sort -- that the statistical records of Negro League ballplayers, long obscured by the dust of history, are coming front and center with their inclusion within the records of Major League Baseball, which excluded blacks for decades until the arrival in Brooklyn of Jackie Robinson. MLB recognized the Negro Leagues as major leagues four years ago. This newly integrated database is a direct result.

Basic facts like the lifetime batting average of the great Josh Gibson (.372), which even I, as a longtime fan of the game, didn't know, brings not only the Negro Leagues athletic accomplishments to light, but reminds us of the loss the American sports fan suffered because of divisive racism. Most American sports fans simply never saw the teams of those segregated leagues.

The announcement by MLB also brought to mind an encounter I had with one of those great black ballplayers: a third baseman named Ray Dandridge who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown back in 1987 -- the same year that Catfish Hunter and Billy Williams were inducted. The occasional induction of a Negro Leaguer was, until recently, the chief bow MLB and the Hall of Fame made in the direction of those long-ago, storied leagues.

I had my moment with Dandridge at Doubleday Field, the day after his induction. The New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves were preparing to play the annual Hall of Fame game on the field of that small stadium, located in the heart of Cooperstown. Dandridge was standing off to the side of the first-base line, observing the various Yankees and Braves warming up and being interviewed by media.

This is what I wrote some time later, looking back to that sunny summer day. The account is available elsewhere on this website, but hard to find. So I unearthed it for your perusal. It seems timely.

He was a little old man, bald and with an interesting face: subtle age lines, gray mustache, pronounced bags under the eyes ... and a look in those eyes that bespoke world-weariness.
But as interesting as it was, it was also an obscure face -- at least there, on that day, when compared to all the famous faces at hand.

I suppose it was that obscurity, that anonymity -- a byproduct of a career in which he played in the shadows -- that was keeping members of the press from approaching him. They were nearby -- mere yards away -- but paying him no heed, attending instead to more recognizable figures of baseball past and present.

This was the Hall of Fame induction weekend of 1987 -- my first such weekend, an experience for which I had prepared by obtaining credentials that got me close to the dais during Sunday's induction ceremony behind the Hall, and out on the diamond at Doubleday Field on the Monday afternoon of the annual Hall of Fame game. The credentials were obtained through a newspaper at which I worked, but I was not in Cooperstown to write any stories; I was there as a lifelong fan of the game.

Both days were gorgeous, I remember -- clear and with uncommonly bright sunlight. They were a perfect pair of days for celebrating our national pastime -- for enjoying the cadences of ceremonial pomp on the one hand, and the cadences of a ballgame on the other.

Reporters and photographers were taking advantage of the pleasant Monday weather, wandering about the Doubleday field, interviewing and taking pictures of members of the New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves -- combatants a half-hour later in the Hall of Fame game. The two teams had arrived by bus a short time earlier, and were now alternately doing calisthenics, playing catch and talking to the press.

There were other interviews going on, too -- with Hall of Famers who had taken in the annual induction ceremony the day before and stayed to watch the Monday contest. On the field near home plate were the likes of Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Robin Roberts, Lefty Gomez and two new Hall members: Jim "Catfish" Hunter and Billy Williams.

A third man had been enshrined on Sunday, as well, but was attracting no such attention. It was he who had caught my eye: the little old man with the interesting, but less-than-famous, face.

His name was Ray Dandridge.

Unlike the other Hall members, Dandridge -- a long-forgotten hitting star and standout third baseman of the old Negro Leagues -- was seemingly of no importance to the press now that the ceremony enshrining him had passed. No photographers were taking his picture, and no reporters were asking him questions. He was standing alone in front of the Doubleday first-base dugout, his arms at his side and his face impassive, his eyes darting here and there across the green of the field, across the sea of activity.

At first I felt a little sorry for him. How must he feel, I thought, being inducted one day and overlooked the next? But practicality soon nudged sympathy aside.

Here was a perfect opportunity for me to meet one of the greats -- to actually have an exchange that might go beyond the shouted queries and rote answers taking place elsewhere on the field. So I sidled up to him and spoke his name.

"Mr. Dandridge."

"Ray" just didn't seem right. I could call Hunter "Cat" and Williams "Billy," but Dandridge at 73 years of age carried a mystique about him -- a dignity upon his bandy legs and behind his slow, wheezing pace.

He looked around, as if trying to locate the source of the words.

"Mr. Dandridge," I said again.

He found me to his right, turned and looked up. He listed at 5 feet, 7 inches, but age and gravity had taken him lower, making my 5-9 seem tall.

"Hmmmm?" he asked.

"I just wanted to say that I enjoyed your speech yesterday," I said.

He had given a rambling but heartfelt talk at the induction ceremony. Speeches were not his strong suit, but sincerity evidently was, and that had been appealing. That, and the joy he had exhibited.

"Hmmmm?" he said once again. "You did?" He paused, pursing his lips, before continuing in a slow, singsong fashion. "Well, I don't know why. I didn't do nothing but speak a few words. An awful lot of people said it was good, though … so I guess it must've been."

He looked out at the field again, thinking, then back up at me.

"What did you like about it?" he asked.

I hadn't expected that, and smiled.

"I like to see people who are happy," I said.

Ray Dandridge had been very happy on induction day, and rightfully so.

Consigned by baseball's color barrier to the Negro National League, the Mexican League and the Cuban Winter League throughout the 1930s and '40s, he had played late in his career in the American Association -- on a New York Giants farm club in Minneapolis -- hoping for the call to the big leagues after Jackie Robinson had smashed the barrier and Larry Doby, Satchel Paige and a teammate named Willie Mays had been promoted.

But the call never came, despite a level of play for Minneapolis that earned Dandridge league MVP honors in 1950. No, the call never came, and so he never got to play to the large crowds in major league ballparks -- never received the attention that his achievements should have earned.

Two decades and hundreds of games -- many lost in the mist of lore that shrouds Negro League ball -- finally eroded the talents of one of the best third basemen ever to play the game. He packed it in before the '50s had reached their midpoint -- after four seasons with Minneapolis and one final year in the Pacific Coast League. He later scouted briefly for the San Francisco Giants, worked as both a recreation center supervisor and a bartender in Newark, New Jersey, and retired in 1983.

He settled in Florida, enjoying the warmth and living the quiet life.

Then the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee got around to electing him -- 15 years after Dandridge had been listed as one of the top five Negro League performers for Hall consideration. In those 15 years, 10 of his Negro League contemporaries -- which means several who weren't on that first list -- had been inducted.

That had prompted Dandridge, in his induction speech, to say: "I just have one question: What took you so long?"

Now, standing near that dugout at Doubleday Field, he smiled in turn at my answer.

"Oh, my, yes," he said. "I'm happy. That's for sure. The Hall of Fame is a great honor."

He looked out at the field once again, in the direction of the third-base area, a realm he had known so well -- on so many diamonds -- so many years before.

"It's just that …" he said, and stopped. Several seconds passed, and I thought he was through talking.

Then he sighed. The words came out softly, and I wasn't sure -- still am not sure -- whether he was addressing me or gently mouthing a private thought.

"I just wish everyone could have seen me in my prime," he said. "I just wish … everyone could have seen me play."

(Ray Dandridge died on February 12, 1994 in Palm Bay, Florida.)

*****

And earlier:

Some news worth cheering

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, May 11, 2024 -- I have backed away from writing any column recently, trying instead to fight off the angst that seems to be permeating the air.

I'm talking about the dissatisfaction being voiced with officialdom in two recent cases -- meaning in the Village of Odessa and the County of Schuyler.

In the first case, elements of the affected population are less than thrilled with the charge, every other month, of $278 to help pay off the 30-year bond on the sewage treatment facility installed in Odessa last year for Main Street businesses and residences, along with a few side-street inhabitants.

If you're on a fixed income -- say Social Security -- the dismay is fully understandable. So I've not wished to dismiss such financial concerns; they are quite real.

But my own sticker shock at the arrival of the first $278 bill was mitigated by the knowledge that the sewage treatment system has seemed a step up from the old septic system with which I operated for years. My septic tank was, in fact, pulverized as part of the construction last summer. That seemed symbolic, as in "no going back."

A bonus is that with the water that used to spread out to the leech field in my yard now but a memory, my basement -- which for years depended on a sump pump to keep it from flooding -- has been bone dry this year, even in periods of heavy rainfall.

And then there is the Kristine "Sparky" Gardner matter. Good lord, where to start with that situation? Take a popular leader among the veterans population, dismiss her without explanation (or, for that matter, without notifying members of the Schuyler County Legislature) from her job as Veterans Service Agency director, and you have -- as one fellow journalist put it -- "a PR nightmare" for Schuyler County government.

Yes, I caught wind of her "resignation" -- she chose that over a firing -- rather quickly, and I was present that night at a meeting of the Council of Governments where a dozen or so Sparky supporters were expressing their dismay, only to be left without an explanation, personnel issues by necessity being out of bounds for discussion.

And I was present a couple of weeks later when about four-dozen supporters met at the old Odessa Municipal Building to talk over the matter. They ended up mixing it up verbally with two legislators who showed up -- Phil Barnes and David Reed. The presence of those two men resulted in some stark anger from the crowd, the resulting discussion not exactly offering Sparky backers any hope that she might be reinstated. (Reed stirred the pot by alluding to Gardner administrative deficiencies.) Sparky was there, too, which seemed a little awkward, but she was upbeat, noting that she had a job interview lined up in Bath the following day.

So ... what's next? Well, now we head into a Legislature meeting Monday evening, May 13, at 6:30 p.m., with the possibility of a turnout of veterans to further express their displeasure. Will they show up? Time will tell.

In any event, all that anger and angst from sewage bills and the Sparky matter had me wondering if there wasn't some good news out there. And lo and behold, there was.

*******

Tuesday, May 7, was the day the dam broke, and by Thursday the good news was flowing freely.

The Tuesday event was a ceremony honoring three Watkins Glen High School students -- juniors Naja Radoja and Abi White and sophomore Wendy Coleman, the first-, second- and third-place finishers, respectively, in an art contest run by a 6th Judicial District committee. They were judged the top three artists for the entire 10-county district, their work part of an outreach program in which high school contestants visually answered the question: "What does equal justice mean to you?" They each received a cash prize, and prints of their entries will be displayed in court houses around the district. The ceremony attracted a lot of Schuyler dignitaries, and the air in the room (the Schuyler County courtroom) seemed tinged with pride -- and with the joy that art, well done, can evoke.

Then came Thursday.

Though it seems bureaucratic in nature, and therefore a little opaque, the New York Department of State's traveling show touting the benefits of its Downtown Revitalization Initiative and NY Forward economic development programs seems to bring nothing but positivity to the table. That show was in full evidence Thursday at the Seneca Lake Event Center at Clute Park in Watkins Glen with all sorts of officials from around the Southern Tier there to learn what they could about the application process and the rewards of both programs. Obviously, the more communities that benefit, the better.

The same day, the Odessa-Montour School District unveiled its renovated pool, which visually seemed like an upgrade from night (it used to be dingy dark in that room) to day (it's now very well lit). The pump room below is now full of new equipment and controls, and devoid of what looked like molding wall-gunk in its pre-renovation period. The pool will be used for classes, adult swims and, possibly, competition, although its small size (four lanes and no diving facility) limits it for such a purpose. Yes, some might argue the cost of the pool and its need, but the bottom line is this: it looks great and just feels like good news.

But out in front of them all -- and celebrated with a Grand Opening on that same Thursday -- is the Justice Center of the Southern Tier, a facility to aid crime victims and their families through times of need, guiding them through the physical, emotional and financial shoals that result from victimization. The Center was the brainchild of Schuyler County District Attorney Joe Fazzary, whose vision -- driven by personal childhood trauma and aided by various agencies like the Office of Victim Services and Pathways -- has resulted in something that might well serve as a template for other such facilities around the state and region.

One hopes so. It's an encouraging concept.

And a far cry from angst over a government dismissal and sewage bills.

*******

And earlier:

The age of innocence ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, April 24, 2024 -- I returned Monday from a short trip down to Takoma Park, Maryland -- just outside of Washington, D.C. -- to visit my youngest son and his family, which meant a chance to play with my two granddaughters: Marley, 7 1/2, and Noa, 4 1/2. The "1/2" is very important to children; they are insistent on including it when anyone asks their age.

It was a great weekend, including attendance at a book fair in Kensington, Maryland -- an annual event (well, not during the pandemic) in which scores of authors hawk their books. There was also live music, and a food court, and a magic show, and interviews on a stage with writers and musicians run by my son's father-in-law, Steve Piacente, a former newsman and one of the day's many authors.

Anyway, I got back to Schuyler County and found waiting for me a notice from the county's Real Property Tax Service reassessing my property -- raising its value up quite a bit, though thankfully only raising my taxes a moderate amount. In fact, the whole county has undergone a reassessment -- one of the issues at a meeting last week of the Schuyler County Council of Governments, explained to that body's various officials by Real Property Tax Service Director Kelly Anderson.

Property values have jumped significantly nationwide in the past handful of years, she said. That jump has led to a wide divergence between market value and assessed value. Anderson told the Council -- where various leaders such as mayors, supervisors and county officials can network and keep each other up-to-date on ongoing developments in Schuyler -- that the reassessment was designed to "get those (divergent) numbers into alignment; to make it as fair and equitable as possible." In the doing, some $400 million is being added to the value of the Schuyler community, she said.

The meeting itself was remarkable for another reason. While all of the supervisors and Anderson and SCOPED's executive director, Judy McKinney Cherry, offered updates on various subjects, about a dozen observers (including a TV newsman) lined the walls of the small conference room where the meeting was held, in the Human Services Complex in Montour Falls. The meeting organizers, in securing use of the small room, clearly hadn't expected spectators, Council meetings not as a rule requiring much space. As it was, the cramped quarters lacked a certain comfort, which is to say it was hot in there.

The reason for the extra turnout was the dismissal earlier that same day of Schuyler County Veterans Service Agency Director Kristine "Sparky" Gardner, a couple of weeks before her year-long provisional term expired. The figurative axe was wielded by County Administrator Shawn Rosno, presumably directed by County Legislature Chair Carl Blowers.

The spectators at the Council of Governments meeting waited patiently while the Council worked its way through its agenda -- for a period of well over an hour. Then the Council chair, Town of Catharine Supervisor Rick Lewis -- a leader among area veterans -- turned the matter over to the subject of Gardner, sparking some brief, impassioned speeches from the spectators (mostly veterans) on her behalf. But both Rosno and Blowers, seated together, said nothing about the "why" of the dismissal, maintaining that they can't -- a fact reinforced by Reading Town Supervisor Stephen Miller.

"It's the law," Miller said.

Or as Blowers put it when I asked him for a comment on the Gardner situation as I intercepted him in the parking lot upon his approach to the Human Services Complex before the meeting: "You know I can't talk about that."

"And you know I had to ask," I responded.

The whole matter has been the subject of social media speculation and outrage, not to mention phone calls to members of the County Legislature from unhappy constituents. Those calls have undoubtedly been difficult to handle, since the legislators (other than Blowers) were themselves blindsided. According to reliable sources, they knew nothing of the dismissal until after it happened -- though at least a couple said, very carefully, that they didn't, in retrospect, necessarily disagree with the action itself.

******

My second day back from my Maryland visit, the county -- without an indication of who, exactly, might have authored it -- sent along a statement regarding the Gardner case, but not (of course) including any indication of why the dismissal went down.

I printed the statement on the Forum Page, but couldn't help reacting internally, recoiling -- thinking that since I found the whole dismissal chapter so distasteful, I'd rather be back with my grandchildren, back in their Takoma Park home, where innocence reigns and any disputes are short-lived sibling shouting matches easily soothed by loving parents -- settlements tinged with compassion.

Where there are no politics, no obscured agendas, no long-lasting ill will, no judgmental career-impacting actions -- none of the necessary real-life mazes with which government officials struggle every day.

Yes, give me the world of 7 1/2 and 4 1/2 year olds, not the adult world -- not the county government world of administration and budgets and decisions bound, by their very nature, to anger the masses.

Give me the world of parental arbitration, and the common sense of the young among us.

Ah, simplicity. Ah, transparency. Ah, respect.

And, yes ... as naive as it sounds ... ah, love.

We all could use a dose of it.

******

And earlier:

A dying breed ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, April 6, 2024 -- On this, the day following my elder brother Bob's 82nd birthday (I feel old by association), I am continuing my fight against my second cold -- or flu, or cold/flu -- of the season, one that has dragged on for a week now. I didn't know my nose could expel so much into so many facial tissues.

It has been a time of extra naps and a reduction of in-person news coverage. For the first time in my memory, I passed up the chance to photograph local athletes at a home track meet when Odessa-Montour hosted Southern Cayuga earlier this week on a cold, windy and wet day that Coach Skip Strobel said was "one of the worst weather days" he had experienced at a meet.

Since I was hacking and nose-blowing and feeling generally lousy, I didn't make the short trek to O-M -- an absence no doubt noticed by an athlete or two who are accustomed to me attending such events with regularity.

Sorry, guys, but I didn't want to make my situation any worse.

*****

The lingering malady has also left me some extra time to think, usually curled up as I've been under a blanket in my favorite easy chair -- either watching sports (Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers et al) or dozing. It is in that latter state that Pap keeps coming to mind.

That's Brian Pappalardo, a man with whom I worked back in the 1980s at the Elmira Star-Gazette, an institution he served for more than 30 years. He died a couple of weeks ago -- March 24th, to be exact, at the age of 64..

Pap (pictured at right) was about 20 when I arrived at the newspaper, but he was already a veteran, having been recruited to work in the S-G Sports Department while he was still in high school. I joined the Star-Gazette in 1980, and stayed for eight years, working the last few with Pap in the Sports Department. He was a constantly friendly fellow -- any displeasure registering on his face with a half-smile and a roll of his eyes.

He could usually win over anyone with that calm demeanor and equally calm phone presence. It served him well in the deadline world we inhabited, trying to include on our pages the results -- in story and box-score form -- of high school contests across a seven-county area. It was a period of coverage upheaval, what with female sports taking strides forward under Title IX regulations. We at the paper were slow on the uptake, but soon embraced girls sports and, in the doing, unearthed a whole new world of area sports stars.

I almost never hung out with Pap socially back in those days, but I always felt close to him. He was that warm an individual; people gravitated to him, to his sunny nature. We worked together in sports for three or four years before I left the paper in the late 1980s, and I rarely encountered him until almost 20 years had passed, when he invited me to Star-Gazette alumni gatherings he was organizing regularly -- I think monthly, as a rule -- down at Wegmans near Elmira, in its cafe.

Those were a treat -- a place to reconnect not only with Pap, but with folks like Garth Wade and Ray Fingers and Bob Jamieson and Peg Ridosh and a few others who had devoted their careers to journalism but had left as the Star-Gazette downsized and, ultimately, closed its doors down on Baldwin Street in Elmira. It has continued publishing, but few people remain on its payroll.

There, at Wegmans, we caught up on each other's lives, talked about our shared history at the newspaper, and commented on current events.

Alas, the gatherings ended with the arrival of the pandemic. Just before it struck, we lamented the passing of former S-G Sports Editor Al Mallette (a longtime force who had nicknamed the late, great Ernie Davis The Elmira Express), and after the COVID lockdown started, we lost Garth. By the time the all-clear came, things had changed. There were no more such gatherings as Pap entered a prolonged period of ill health that hospitalized him for an extended period..

The last time I saw him was in the hospital, a year or more ago, just as he was nearing a long-awaited release. He had suffered all sorts of affronts, led by pulmonary issues and various surgeries, kidney failure, infections, intubation, and the like. He seemed eager to return to his writing -- a freelancer for various companies, including Ziff Law, which advertised on this website. We carried some of Pap's writings here, but none after early 2021, when his health turned.

******

I look back to the 1980s and my lengthy stint at the Star-Gazette, and shake my head at all those souls we have lost: editors like Rick Tuttle, who ascended to Publisher not long before cancer claimed him, and Jon Gastineau, who as Regional Editor served as an early ally and made me his assistant; and writers like Bill Morgan, Larry Wilson, Peg Gallagher, the aformentioned Garth Wade, and more.

The same goes for the Watertown Daily Times, where I worked throughout the 1970s before moving to the Southern Tier. Many journalists with whom I worked in Watertown have passed on. And those who haven't passed have, almost to a man and woman, retired.

I shake my head.

Where did the time go?

Where did all my colleagues go?

I miss them. I miss Pap. Hell, I miss the journalism of old, when a newsroom like the Star-Gazette's was a beehive, constantly buzzing. It was full of reporters and editors and photographers -- all gathering and processing the news for delivery to the masses.

But no more.

We journalists of old are, alas -- like the slowly disappearing local, daily newspaper -- a dying breed.

********

And earlier:

Next stop: Paris, France ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, March 24, 2024 -- One of the joys of running this website is watching kids excel in sports -- at the high school level, mostly, and in some cases at the collegiate level and beyond.

I look at Tori Brewster, recently a standout Odessa-Montour High School athlete setting marks at Houghton University in track and field, which was her high school specialty. And I look at Grace Vondracek, whose softball career I have followed since she was a shy eighth grader at O-M. She was a standout pitcher in those days, but what caught my eye more was her lefty-hitting prowess, which carried her to a .700 batting average a couple of years in high school, and to .600-plus during her stay at Corning Community College, where her performances twice earned her Division III National Player of the Year honors.

Now, Grace -- a confident young woman far removed from that shy eighth grader -- is among the leaders nationally in batting as her Caldwell University (Division II) softball team has built a 12-8 record. Grace is, as of this writing, batting .582, with 39 hits in 67 at-bats, including eight doubles and three triples, and has driven in 14 runs. Add to that her nine walks, and she has a .636 on-base percentage.

More remarkable: she has gone 18-for21 in her last six games, driving in five runs, as her batting average has jumped from .456 to that heady .582. She was fourth in the nation in batting through March 21st at .550, but has gone 6-for-6 since then to close in on the top spot. Updated national hitting stats were not immediately available.

And now, on the heels of that news, comes Olivia Coffey's successful attempt to earn a rowing spot -- yet again -- on the U.S. Olympic Rowing Team at the Paris Olympics, which will run from July 27-August 4. Coffey, raised in Watkins Glen and now a resident of Burdett, was an alternate on the U.S. team at the Rio Olympics, and then a member of the eights crew at the Olympics in Tokyo. Now, at 35 years of age, the three-time world champion (in fours, quads and eights) has excelled once more, earning one of 12 spots available at an Olympic Selection Camp just concluded in Sarasota, Fla. Of those 12 rowers selected, four will race in a fours sweep boat, and eight in the eight-person craft.

Her proud parents, Maggie and Cal -- who reside on a Watkins-area hillside -- explained that while 35 might sound old for an Olympian, that is when many rowers are at their best. "It's a cardiovascular sport," said Maggie. Those who keep training "just build up" their stamina -- including another woman just selected to row in Paris: 41-year-old Meghan Musnicki of Naples, New York. This will be Musnicki's fourth Olympics, including gold-medal efforts in 2012 and 2016.

Hers was the only name mentioned in the press after the Selection Camp; the names of the others were to be announced after "administrative review." But I got word of Olivia Coffey's selection from her parents, and then from Olivia herself as she drove north on Sunday from Sarasota. We connected while she was in South Carolina, just after she had stopped for lunch. Her ETA back home in Schuyler County was about midnight, she said.

Livy, who has -- before her Olympic training started in earnest -- split her time between a private equity job in New York City and time in Burdett, said she was informed of her selection on Friday; that she was called into a room for a one-on-one meeting about it, far better than how it used to be, when the names of the selectees were announced at a gathering of all of the competitors. That, she said, could be "devastating."

"I'm pretty happy," she said -- especially considering how far she has come in a fairly short time. After the usual depression that afflicts Olympians after they have competed in the Games -- "You go from momentum and enthusiasm to a stop, and ask yourself 'What do I do now? What am I good at?' she said about her post-Tokyo period -- she kept in basic shape by working out in a gym, by playing basketball with old friends, and by bicycling on the Catharine Valley Trail. She decided last summer that she wanted to try for her third Olympics berth, and informed her bosses at the equity firm of her intention; and "they were very supportive."

Her training began in Princeton, New Jersey -- where most of the U.S. Rowing Team trains -- in early October, and progressed from there, until she was invited to the Selection Camp, where a field of 18 rowers was whittled to the final 12. "There are a lot of amazing people who didn't make it," said Livy, who wasn't fully confident starting out that she could. "I thought it would be a stretch" considering the condensed timeline -- a period in which "I needed to ramp up" quickly.

Now she has a week off before traveling back to Princeton to train with the team. She said she wasn't sure when she would learn whether she was rowing in the fours or eights. Whichever it is, she will between now and the Olympics be traveling to Luzerne, Switzerland with the team as they test their mettle at a World Cup. The squad will then return to Princeton for more training before heading to Paris.

Livy said she has been to Paris before, but not in competition -- although one of her three World Championships came in France in 2015, so "it was good luck to me that one time I raced there."

And beyond Paris -- is there a chance she might aim toward the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028?

"No way," she said, but then paused.

"Of course, I said the same about Paris."

Photo in text: Olivia Coffey

*******

And earlier:

Thoughts turn to spring ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, March 10, 2024 -- Having weathered the emotions that always hit me on March 6 and 7 -- the birthdays of my late wife and late mother -- I turn toward what promises to be an entertainingly musical week, and toward the start of spring sports.

The sun has been playing peek-a-boo -- it was hiding behind gray clouds today -- but the unseasonable warmth and the approach of those sports and school musical programs buoys the spirit a bit.

The sports kick off this week with high school teams practicing (weather permitting) on the various playing fields at the Watkins Glen and Odessa-Montour high schools. We'll be looking at those teams -- at their roster numbers and potential -- as the practices lead to season openers.

Hopefully, there will be greater participation than last year. A shortfall of personnel in 2023 was mostly at O-M -- where there was no tennis team, no boys golf team, and a dropoff in softball that led to a merger with the WGHS softball squad (a maneuver repeated this year). While I have no specific O-M spring sports numbers, Athletic Manager Greg Gavich has provided an overview that shows things improved from the last go-round.

Gavich said the sports turnout is "healthy. We will field a full roster for both boys and girls golf. Varsity softball remains combined. We have dropped tennis. Track teams are both full rosters. Trap shooting in double digits." And all those who played baseball last year -- with the exception of a couple of graduates, including key pitcher-catcher Daniel Lewis -- are back in pursuit of a sectional title repeat.

Watkins, meanwhile, provided some preliminary numbers, with the understanding that they could change.

There, at WGHS, the combined (WG/OM) baseball team has five Watkins varsity participants, up from just two last year. Athletic Director Rod Weeden also cited 5 JV and 12 Modified sign-ups, and said the numbers could be changing -- for instance if "coaches bring some kids up."

The softball team -- also combined -- has 13 girls signed up at WGHS for varsity play, with three more coming down the hill from O-M. That is one less from O-M than last year, when the squad was a whisker away from qualifying for sectionals. While a couple of players from last year's roster have opted not to return, the squad is gaining talent from last year's modified ranks. Coach Ralph Diliberto says he has confidence that the squad will be improved this season.

The WGHS tennis team has lots of participants, as it did last year. Weeden's preliminary numbers include 15 varsity players and 12 modified. The contrast with O-M -- which failed the past couple of years to field a team, and now has dropped the sport -- is stark.

Lacrosse -- played only at Watkins -- was showing 13 varsity signups and 5 at the modified level. AD Weeden said that the school "will try to matriculate" those modified players, adding: "I would expect we will have 15 Varsity only."

The boys and girls golf teams will have four players on each squad at Watkins, while the boys track team figures on 17 varsity and four modified athletes. The Watkins girls track team remains rather thin, with seven on the varsity and no modified competitors.

Clay Target Shooting remains a very popular combined sport, with O-M, as Gavich said, in double digits, and Watkins showing 20 boys and five girls who will be testing their shooting skills out at the Millport Hunting & Fishing Club above Montour Falls.

******

Musically, there's the annual Artists-In-Residence concert at WGHS on March 13 in the school's auditorium at 6:30 p.m. It will be preceded by assemblies there during the day -- in both cases, assemblies and concert, featuring the musical talents of grade 5-12 students led by professional musicians teaching them the finer points of performance.

This program has been going on for about three decades, started by now-retired Middle School teacher Jim Murphy and famed cellist Hank Roberts of Ithaca. For the past few years, the professionals have included instrumentalist Katie McShane and singer-fiddler Rosie Newton. The program was revived two years ago after a pandemic-forced absence.

And after that treat, we turn to the weekend, March 15-17, when Odessa-Montour High School students will present the Broadway musical "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" in the school's Fetter-Brown Auditorium. The play, under the leadership of veteran director Holly Campbell, will be performed at 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. on Sunday.

******

Belated congratulations to Amanda Smith-Socaris, who for years ran Seneca Physical Therapy in Watkins Glen, on receiving the Max Neal award from the Chamber of Commerce at it 75th Anniversary Gala on March 2nd at the Harbor Hotel. The honor goes annually to someone who has provided long and meritorious service to the Chamber and to the community.

The gala was an impressive affair, filling the hotel ballroom and offering dinner, dancing, raffles, live and silent auctions, and gaming tables -- not to mention a lot of people, including government and business leaders, in often stunning attire. Well done, Chamber.

Congratulations, too, to the two high school sophomores honored by The Odessa File as Co-MVPs for the winter high school sports season. Madison Tuttle (WGHS) earned it for racewalking, and Lucas Hoffman (O-M) for wrestling. Both excelled throughout the season and at their respective state tournaments.

And an extra shout-out to Maddie for placing sixth among racewalkers at the New Balance Indoor Nationals in Boston -- in the process earning All-America status.

Photo: Max Neal, left and Amanda Smith-Socaris at the Chamber Gala. (Provided)

*******

And earlier:

A point of positivity ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, Feb. 24, 2024 -- Welcome to writer's block. Or perhaps more accurately, to this writer's inability to create a cohesive essay.

Oh, I wrote a column that I thought about publishing, but it meandered. Actually, it started out pretty well, but sometimes a good start leads either nowhere, or to a sort of pontificating nonsense.

Here's how that column I wrote started:

Five words stood out for me while I was vegetating by watching TV the other day.

It had been a hard week of work, and my tired old body -- and mind -- needed a respite. So I ventured into the various premium services available on my smart television, finding first the pilot episode of a series I had forgotten but now recalled liking when it first aired 15 years ago.

It's called Royal Pains, and follows the ups and downs of a talented surgeon basically blackballed in the world of hospitals before hooking on as a "concierge physician" in a community, the Hamptons, occupied by the financial elite.

As his world, in the initial scenes, collapses around him, he offers what is not exactly philosophically deep, but struck me in the moment as so spot-on as to leave me nodding.

"Man plans; God laughs," he said.

I think, amidst my nodding, that I answered with a less than cerebral "whoa!"

The other word came from a viewing of the movie "The Holdovers," in a discussion involving the lead character, a prep school teacher named Paul Hunham, and his headmaster, Dr. Hardy Woodrup. The word "hidebound" was used to describe the teacher.

To be specific, it went like this:

Dr. Woodrup: Paul, at your core you're an excellent teacher, but your approach to the students is rather ... traditional.

Paul Hunham: The school was founded in 1797. I thought tradition was our stock in trade.

Dr. Woodrup: Then let's call it hidebound. You know, unwavering, resistant to --

Paul Hunham: Yes, yes, yes -- I know what "hidebound" means.

******

Not bad. Breezy, with a direction apparently in mind. Alas, after writing those words, I started going around in circles. Yes, pontificating.

It all had something to do with God's sense of humor, and my failure to ever use the word "hidebound" in my writing before -- even though some might say it could be applied to me.

I wanted to incorporate "God laughs" -- somehow equate it with the challenges I faced in starting this website all those years ago. I wanted to point out that this website, while part of the modern internet age, was (and is) based on traditional journalism practices dating back decades. (Thus, I suppose, hidebound.)

I tried to spin a narrative about the challenges we all face (in this telling they were a product of God's peculiar humor), with the conclusion that if we dig deep and meet (and outlast) those challenges, "we can prevail, and in the end do something positive for ourselves and for our fellow beings."

Wow. Talk about trying to go deep. I mean, it's really a lot simpler than I was making it. Basically, I wanted to say the world would be a better place if we all did positive things for one another. (Are you listening, Congress?)

That's it. Now, if I can just shake this writer's block.

******

And speaking of positivity:

A small committee has gathered here to oversee a new project -- a look at a couple of dozen people who excelled in high school in Schuyler County and have gone on to success in the world, whether on a business or medical or religious or other path. We're looking for young men and women who graduated in 2000 or later and have made their mark in a noteworthy, positive way.

For lack of a formal name, call it "24 in '24." Or maybe "24 Who Matter."

To start, we are looking for names of those people. Some have occurred to us without much effort; others might elude us without your input. Once we have the names, we will research or contact them to see what they are doing, where they are going, and present summaries -- perhaps stories -- of their thoughts and accomplishments.

Beyond that ... well, we'll see where it leads.

Any nominees?

******

And earlier:

That personal touch ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, Feb. 3, 2024 -- One of the hallmarks of our online fixation is the presence of "influencers."

They are social media creatures who have large followings and, by their example, ostensibly influence the behavior of those who apparently aspire to be like them.

I guess that's fine and good, but I adhere to the old-fashioned method of influence. I was mentored and inspired by people with whom I interacted one-on-one. They were influencers on a small scale, perhaps, but their effect has lasted for decades. (I doubt the modern influencer's influence is quite so long-lasting.)

Who were these people? Well, a couple of them were classroom instructors who challenged me out of my cocoon of smug entitlement.

The first was Marilyn Bright, an English teacher at Bloomfield Hills High School in Michigan, an institution from which I graduated in 1966. She was a young teacher at the time -- just under 30 years of age -- and thus easy for many students to relate to.

She punctuated her lessons with humor, but could be serious when needed, especially one-on-one, which is how she approached me about my attitude in my junior year. She didn't approach me negatively, but with a smile and an assurance that what I was doing in her class -- which wasn't much -- was far below my potential.

"Potential is the key," she said softly after asking me to stay after class was dismissed. She would write me a pass to my next class when she was finished, she said. And so I stood, rooted in front of her desk as she sat there, looking up at me through her horn-rimmed glasses, her slender body leaning back, relaxed, studying me.

"You have it," she said, "but you aren't using it."

I don't recall what else, specifically, she said over the next few minutes, but I remember her closing,

"There's nothing sadder, really, then wasted potential," she declared softly, adding:

"Please ... don't ... disappoint me."

I took it to heart, and applied myself to my sentence construction and my creative writing, and ended up excelling in that class and in English during my senior year.

During that final year, I stopped by her class at the end of a school day.

"I just wanted to express my thanks," I said to her as she went around the room, picking up discarded pieces of paper and a broken pencil some student had left behind on a desk.

She stopped for a moment, smiled at me and shook her head.

"None needed," she said.

I learned years later, as the century turned, that Marilyn Bright had only lived to 53 -- had died of cancer on Aug. 12, 1991 in Detroit.

"She leaves a legacy of devoted students who have not forgotter her," said her obituary in the weekly Birmingham (Mich.) Eccentric newspaper.

"She had a unique gift for critiquing work in a non-judgmental way that left you feeling encouraged, even enthused about your work," one of her former students was quoted as saying in that obituary.

Amen to that. And amen to the personal touch of a true influencer.

******

The other instructor was Robert Gildart, a former journalist who was a professor of creative writing at Albion College when I attended that school from 1967 through 1970.

One of his classes was Journalism, which included -- in the second semester -- an active role in the school newspaper.

He and I started in a shaky manner, my tendency toward humor offending him. That came when he was discussing headline writing on the first day of class, explaining that short words were needed atop stories where longer synonyms wouldn't fit. One such example was "fisherman." He asked if anyone knew the preferred headline word, which was the shorter "angler."

But I couldn't resist, and raised my hand.

"Yes?" he said.

"Hooker," I responded, sending the class to laughter. Mr. Gildart smiled and nodded, but at the end of class he stopped me.

"Don't ever do that again," he said, adding that his class was one to be taken seriously.

At the end of the semester, he gave me a C, even though my test and project grades were higher, and I got the message. He was in charge.

And much to his surprise, I signed up for the second semester -- and treated the subject with the seriousness (the reverence, really) that he (and now I) embraced. And I worked as sports editor on the school newspaper, and got a job as an intern that next summer at the Pontiac Press north of Detroit ... and eventuallly became a full-time journalist, in Watertown, New York, then at the Elmira Star-Gazette, then at USA Today, and after a break of several years, at the Corning Leader.

And eventually I began, on Dec. 29, 2002, to operate this website -- this online newspaper.

I kept in touch with Mr. Gildart for a few years, and he was absolutely delighted that one of his students had entered the field he so loved. And he expressed a certain pride not only in me, but in himself for having mentored such a difficult student in the right direction.

He lived to 81, passing away on Feb. 20, 1996 at a hospital in Jackson, Michigan, just down the road from Albion, to the east.

I learned of his death a few days later while working at the Corning Leader, and accordingly wrote an article -- tinged with love and sadness -- in his honor.

******

If the knowledge and inspiration imparted by an "influencer" constitutes more than just a passing fancy, then he or she is truly deserving of that descriptor.

Marilyn Bright and Bob Gildart have lived with me across the years, long after their passing. You can thank them as much as anybody -- maybe more than anybody -- for reading these words today.

They live on in The Odessa File's very existence.

On your behalf, on on mine ... let this be a thanks for their wisdom and guidance.

******

I found what follows in one of my old files after Ariana Marmora was recently named a Schuyler County Assistant District Attorney. It was written in 2007, upon Ariana's selection to the Top Drawer 24 team of county scholar-athletes. That was a program operated for 15 years here in Schuyler by Craig Cheplick, Kathy Crans and me in an attempt to annually honor those students who excelled on more than the playing fields. The item in question read:

"Ariana Marmora is a member of the Top Drawer team not just for athletic prowess -- although she was a captain this year of the Watkins Glen varsity track squad -- and not just for her grades, although she is a High Honor student. And she makes it not just for her kindness, although she possesses that in abundance. On top of all of those attributes, what stands out this year is her activism, as president of the Student Council, as student spokesperson in sessions with administrators, and as a voice for the underdog -- in her efforts to establish, and obtain official sanction for, the school's Gay and Straight Alliance."

It is nice to see one of those outstanding Top Drawer honorees making her mark -- and especially in Schuyler County.

******

And earlier:

This, that & a remembrance

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, Jan. 15, 2024 -- The Detroit Lions won a playoff game Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams -- the first playoff win for the Lions since January of 1992 -- and only its second since the team won the NFL championship back in 1957.

I'm so old, I remember that championship. Somehow my family ended up with a football signed by the team. I'm guessing it came from the Lions' medical trainer, a gentleman named Doc Thompson who lived on our small lake north of Detroit. (Yes, I grew up a Lions fan, and have never quite outgrown it.)

The last I saw of that ball, it was deflated and the signatures were faded. That was a long time ago. It probably got discarded in one of my parents' post-retirement moves.

Anyway, I shared the Motor City's joy at the victory Sunday -- as I cheered the job that the Green Bay Packers did in dismantling the Dallas Cowboys the same day. I don't know what it is about those Cowboys that has me cheering against them. I used to love the team when Roger Staubach was the quarterback.

But now ... not at all.

Of course, having lived in New York State for many years now, if push comes to shove -- if it comes down to the Lions or the Buffalo Bills -- well, then:

Go, Bills.

*****

The proposed expansion of the Padua Ridge sand and gravel mine -- from 14.33 to 75.38 acres -- is likely to create a wave of discussion and debate, the area sitting as it does next to the Watkins Glen State Park. For a detailed account, I would direct readers to an article by environmental writer Peter Mantius here. The DEC notice of the project application -- very detailed -- can be found at DEC bulletin.

With a virtual public hearing set for Feb. 12 and an in-person one at the Seneca Lake Events Center at Clute Park on Feb. 13, anyone interested should study the particulars.

*****

This should prove to be an interesting week of local sports, highlighted by a meeting of the Watkins Glen High School and Odessa-Montour High School girls basketball teams at WGHS Tuesday night, and a meeting of the boys squads from the two schools Wednesday night at O-M.

With various sports at the two schools having merged -- football, girls and boys swimming, baseball and, at least for now, softball -- the old traditional and once anticipated intracounty showdowns have become few and far between.

*****

I've been reeling a bit the past week, a reaction to the passing of Richard Bauman in his Elmira home at the age of 73.

Rick or Richard -- some called him Dick -- was a brother-in-law of mine, one of four boys in the Oakley Bauman clan. The family homestead was up on Coykendall Road, above Watkins Glen. Rick and his siblings -- Steve, Patrick, Bill and my late wife Susan -- were graduates of Watkins Glen High School.

It was a difficult family in which to marry, each member possessing a strong personality and a self-assurance at odds with my usual self-doubt. But marry I did, love being love, after all.

Richard was a challenge. Just about anybody who knew him would tell you that. He seemed to glory in saying the shocking, or sometimes the offensive. He loved the resulting reactions, the interchanges, the word salad. In our exchanges -- and I count many over the years -- our politics clashed, his conservatism to my liberal tendencies, and he was always ready to let me know he was the better photographer. "No argument," I would tell him, laughing, for it was true.

He could also be charming, and funny -- and loved to be involved in worthy pursuits, like helping out with the Hidden Valley camping program.

For years, Rick owned and operated a hobby shop on Main Street in Odessa. He specialized in radio-controlled aircraft.

It was at that store where we printed the pages of a book we created back in 2001 called "The Glory Girls," a detailed account about the Odessa-Montour High School girls varsity basketball team's rise to the New York State Class D title.

Yes, Rick and I were co-authors. I did most of the research and interviews and writing, but Rick was the one most responsible for the book. I had intended a photo notebook for the girls on the team, but he envisioned something larger, and led me, through his insistence, to the finished product: photos, interviews, game-by-game statistics, etc. We had it bound by a publishing company in Ithaca, and sold a bunch of copies -- but managed to lose money on the whole deal.

Despite that financial misstep, even now I treasure the fact that we produced it. And I think Rick did, too.

Anyway ... the book is among the legacies of a man who seemed, in some ways, a little bit bigger than life. Rest in peace, Richard.

******

And earlier:

Those basketball tourneys

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, Jan. 8, 2024 -- Another month, another illness.

This time it seems to be a winter cold, or what a friend familiar with the history of the locale calls The Field House Flu.

That's where I was for four days near the end of December, two days before I felt the stirrings of illness moving in.

Not that I'm condemning the events I was covering there at Watkins Glen High School -- a pair of annual basketball tournaments, one for the girls and one for the boys.

The girls tourney, the Melissa B. Wilson Memorial in honor of a young lady who played basketball at WGHS in the 1990s before losing her life in auto accident in 1996, saw the Watkins Glen varsity and JV win titles.

The home team was not as fortunate in the boys tournament, the varsity winning the consolation contest, and the JV losing twice.

But as entertaining as the basketball was, the highlight, to my mind, came with the induction of a half-dozen figures -- four athletes and two coaches -- into the WGHS Athletic Hall of Fame.

Among them were some old friends, in fact all of them with the exception of Coach Jeff Smythe -- who was at Watkins back in the 1970s, while I was still in Watertown and years away from The Odessa File.

But among the inductees was Coach John Fazzary, with whom I had late-night conversations after his basketball team's games across many years; Matt Gill and Patrick Hazlitt, both exceptional runners who I covered extensively in their WGHS days and liked tremendously; and Lexi Castellaneta, year in and year out a state-level diver who turned me into a fan from her first season on the springboard.

And there was Courtney Warren-Manning, who hailed from the first group of WGHS athletes I covered, back in 2003. Her forte was swimming, but she was an excellent basketball player, too. And on hand to see her inducted were other basketball players from that era: Molly Oates, Olivia Coffey, Jennifer Conklin (also a swimmer and a Hall of Famer) and Michelle Thorpe Lynch.

I was particularly beholden to those girls and their teammates and coaches back in the winter of 2004, after I lost my wife to cancer and found myself in an economic bind, this website not having fully connected with advertisers yet. They threw a spaghetti dinner for me, and gave me $2,000 realized at that event.

Some things a person never forgets, not if he or she has an ounce of gratitude. I have plenty, and consider all those young women lifelong friends. It was a special treat to see them together again.

******

Not everything was positive from the tournaments, of course. There was the resulting flu, which I should have anticipated by wearing a mask. Of course, almost nobody does, anymore.

There was also the matter of fatigue -- in my case enhanced by the need to return home each day after tournament play to write the necessary stories and process the necessary photos and fight what, in this case, were necessary late hours. At my age, when midnight comes I tend to like to lie down -- not always possible at that time of night with this job.

Back in the old days -- which is to say when Craig Cheplick was the AD and ran the tournaments -- the games (two JV and two varsity each day) were invariably run at 12, 2, 4 and 6 p.m., which left enough time between games for such things as 3-point contests, overtime or, in this case, Hall of Fame inductions.

In this year's tourneys the time frame from game to game was shorter. In the girls' tourney, the times were 3, 4:30, 6 and 7:30 p.m. When things would run late, that meant a late night for everyone: fans, players and me. The second night, things at the Field House didn't break up until 10 p.m. For me, midnight and beyond would come fast and furious.

The boys tournament that followed was better, with start times of 1, 2:30, 4 and 5:30 p.m. -- but an extra hour earlier would have been even better. Personally, I was living on fumes when it came to putting the reports together late at night. Any help toward starting -- and finishing -- earlier would have been welcome.

*******

Now, having said all of that, I must add that the whole four-day production was pretty impressive in terms of attendance, energy in the gym, and the quality of play -- especially in the boys tournament, which saw some close games.

I'd even venture to say that I'm looking forward to next year's version, with the hope that organizers embrace the 12, 2, 4 and 6 schedule.

Now ... on to the rest of the winter seasons of basketball, wrestling, swimming, bowling and track.

I look forward to them.

*******

And earlier:

Visiting some old friends ...

By Charlie Haeffner

Odessa, New York, Dec. 25, 2023 -- I have been spending some evenings of late in the company of a beautiful woman. She was originally named Zeebee Kwayzenhs, her tribal (Ojibwe) name for River Girl, for she was born on the banks of a river -- a tributary of the St. Lawrence -- up north of here.

But the name didn't stick. She became known as Lillianna, a name given her in a vision from the spirit world. It means "purity," she was told, and would serve as a badge of honor as she represented her people.

Yes, I have been spending evenings with Lillianna -- revisiting her, really, something I had not done for twenty years. For some reason, I was compelled to do so starting the other day.

Lillianna is the title character of a novel I wrote those two decades past called The Maiden of Mackinac. It was finished shortly after I started The Odessa File. A hundred copies were printed by me, spiral-bound, and I sold or gave away almost all of them.

And then I put the novel -- my few remaining copies of it -- on a shelf, rejecting any fleeting idea to revisit it -- to see if I thought, in retrospect, whether it was any good. I pretty much thought it wasn't -- although I had a few fans of the effort, including a retired teacher who marveled that I had created in its pages a new Native American mythology.

But her husband, while also admiring the work, wished that I had structured it differently, in the manner of, say, a Lee Child or John Grisham novel. Another man said he was bored by it, although I intuitively thought he hadn't really read it -- was simply not a fan of either history or Native Americana. My response to either was a defensive one: "I wrote it the way I wanted."

It's funny how the years can pass and you can leave behind something that at one time meant so much to you. In the case of The Maiden, I spent many a night for more than a year writing and editing it -- a long time to spend, figuratively, with Lillianna.

I eventually finished it, and printed it, and sold it and gave it away, and set it on the shelf. Then, a few years ago, my sons -- as a birthday present to me -- had the novel made available on Kindle, through Amazon.com. But even that didn't draw me back to the story, to a reading which, from the distance of years, might or might not have entertained or pleased me.

So ... since I tend not to hold my writing in any particular esteem, I never took the time to read the book again -- until now. I simply picked it up from a shelf in my library the other day and started reading -- and from the first page to the last, I was not so much pleased as engrossed and fairly amazed that I had produced something so full-bodied and -- to my eye -- well written.

I loved the mystery at the heart of the plot -- the search by a writer for the truth behind the legend of a 700-year-old Ojibwe woman, this Lillianna. And I loved the characters -- the charming Maiden and her friends, a small man-like creature named Tobias, biologically a tajahenus, the last of his species; and a giant talking turtle named Kingsley. Beyond that, I was impressed with the obvious research I undertook that went into understanding the movement of the Ojibwe people from the east to a more welcoming midwest.

I had shown the novel in its early state to a family friend, who complained that I had a character in there who employed a sort of hypnosis in a manner not keeping with known methods. And she conveyed the complaint to a mutual acquaintance, who in turn questioned it himself. In both cases I had to laugh, for the novel is a fantasy -- containing not only the tajahenus, the turtle and the 700-year-old woman, but ghosts and wraiths and reincarnation.

When I explained that to the mutual acquaintance -- who had not bothered to actually read the book -- he shook his head and asked what I might have been smoking when I wrote it.

A more satisfying response was one I heard about during a visit to Bois Blanc Island -- a neighboring land mass near Mackinac Island. I heard that two women on Bois Blanc who had read the book were vowing to visit Mackinac in search of the cave in which the tajahenus, Tobias, was living in the island's wooded interior. That is where I had left him on my pages. Whether the women followed through with the visit, I don't know; but the idea that they thought his presence might be possible was, I thought, a compliment to the convincing nature of what were, after all, just my words.

The point, I guess, is that in rereading the novel -- in once again visiting its characters -- I decided that the lukewarm reaction I received in a handful of cases was not the benchmark by which I should have judged my work.

In producing any art, the person creating it should pay attention to his or her own internal compass.

And that, I guess, is a high-minded way of saying this: Hey, I like the book, even if I was the one who wrote it. And I'm fairly amazed that I did so.

Not to mention that I'm glad that I took the time to revisit Lillianna and the others -- friends of mine, all.

But beyond that, they are, in a sense, my children, for they sprang forth on those late nights long ago from my own fevered imagination.

Imagine that.

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Note: The author of The Maiden of Mackinac also wrote Island Nights and The Islander, Books 1 & 2 of the White Woods Chronicles, along with Cabins in the Mist. All three were inspired by the author's many visits to Bois Blanc Island in Michigan's Straits of Mackinac. He also co-wrote The Glory Girls about the Odessa-Montour High School girls varsity basketball team's 2001 state championship.

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