Over 20 years ago I would take my son, Charles, and four of his friends, two who were my godsons, down to New York City, via Metro North from the Croton-Harmon train station. I told their parents of where we would go shopping, where we would eat ( a  China Buffet in Croton- Harmon) and then I and the kids only did what I had told their parents what we would do. The only leeway they had was what they could eat at the buffet. We had a great time. Some of the kids knew about the 27th street discount stores. They would come out of the stores with big black plastic bags full of clothes. We would lug the bags back to the Grand Central Station for our round trip back to Croton-Harmon. We ate at the buffet and I drove all five back to Highland. The kids had only done what I told  the parents we would do. The parents trusted me.

President Donald Trump, we learned, took all 320 million Americans on a Covid 19 trip. We should have been able to trust him. He kept the Covid 19 a secret from us. We should have known about this virus and what it could do to us back in February. He then gave hints about it and nothing about how dangerous it was. He had been told how dangerous it was. Over 190,000 dead Americans were witness of how perilous the virus was. Those poor people.

His negligence with our lives was monstrous. He could have saved a lot of our lives, and didn’t. I do not trust him with the lives of all my family members, and for your own protection, I hope you do not trust him now. His mask less political events should answer any question you have.

Five New Paltz wrestlers became doctors

The New Paltz High School wrestling team during the 35-year span when it was coached by Kemble Matter and Frank Ciliberto produced five doctors. One of them, Dr. Steve Weinman, is well known locally. The others are Phil Eulie, Fouad Boulos, Pete Rock, and Kyle Bramley.

I believe that the coaches had this success because its training curriculum was as tough as those who were pre-med students. At Ursinus College, which I attended, it had a successful pre-med program. My pre-med friends would disappear into the college stacks on a Saturday morning and be seen at breakfast, lunch, and dinner and then be back in the stacks until the library closed. The main freshman pre-med book’s reading schedule read like this, do not read, third paragraph of page 41; do not read second paragraph of page 68, do not read 4th paragraph of page 89, etc, etc, etc, and the last sentence of the reading curriculum said, read everything else, which meant learn everything else. Then there were the labs. The easiest day of the semester was the night before the finals. Students would go out for dinner, because they were ready for the finals.

New Paltz wrestlers trained to defeat opposing wrestlers in the third period. During their high school season after a hard practice they would go home, have a light meal and then run five miles at the high school track. Their wrestling practices were exhausting, as were the late night runs. If they could handle this, psychologically they could handle pre-med. 

Matter and Ciliberto seemed to win more league titles than any other coaches at New Paltz High School and at the MHAL. Other teams hated New Paltz because under these coaches New Paltz always won, and usually won big.

Global Warming is going crazy with Hurricane Sally

The names of hurricanes and storms is up  to the letter S. It reflects on record high temperatures. We have had a record 19 storms this year.  Sally could be the second hurricane this year to hit New Orleans, Louisiana. Louisiana has never been hit with two Category hurricanes in a year.

Another measure of record temperatures is the record heat on the west coast in the states of California, Oregon and Washington and the record fires in these states.

The world’s temperature is two degrees warmer than it was five years ago. That is a big change. And the future looks worse.
Last winter we had a winter without a winter.  Our heating bills may be lower again this winter, but the warmer waters in the northeast may be an indication that we will be hit with a category hurricane like Irene and Sandy.