Here is my best attempt to give you a panaramic view of a Norwood Brass Firemen concert that I attended on Aug. 9 in Alexandria Bay. Aside from the music, the town’s Scenic View Park Pavillion was a welcome respite for my family and myself just after we endured a three-hour rainstorm while camping at Wellsley Island State Park.

So who are the Norwood Brass Firemen? Simply put, it’s a nonprofit performing arts band, according to the group’s Facebook page. Some of you also might wonder, where on Earth is Norwood, and rightly so. Actually, it’s right in upstate New York’s North Country. The tiny village of around 1,600 residents is located in St. Lawrence County about 6 miles north of Potsdam. The village was home to my mother’s family for many, many years until modern times and circumstances spread us across the miles.

Early history of a town band in Norwood dates back to the late 1800s. It was in 1946, however, when the Norwood Fire Department offered to buy the band uniforms, music and a set of drums. The ensemble then was christened as the Norwood Fire Dept. Band and participated with the fire department in field days, parades and other events, according to a band scrapbook compiled by Darin LaGarry, the band’s current manager.

For me, the Brass Firemen are a part of my family’s history in the North Country. Darin’s scrapbook includes this photo posted below of the 1940s band with my great uncle, Murray Farmer, who’s fourth from left in the front row. My great aunt, Bette Farmer Weaver, told me that she led the band at one time.

This early 1970s shot was one of many my grandmother, Helen Farmer Kitney, took of the Firemen’s Band passing her house on Pleasant Street each year during Norwood’s Fourth of July parade. I visited from Rome to watch many of these while growing up.

By the 1980s, the band now known as the Norwood Brass Fireman was honored to play at the Regan White House and at the 1984 Winter Olympics in  Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.

Which brings me to the rainy Wednesday evening in August 2018 when my son Sean and I sat in Alexandria Bay’s Park pavilion to listen to the Brass Firemen’s lively mix of jazz and patriotic tunes. (My husband Jerry was cold from the rain and listened from our van parked nearby.) During intermission, I had the pleasure of visiting with Darin and fellow band member Paul Haggett. Darin didn’t know my grandparents per say but was friends with their next door neighbor while growing up. Paul said that his father and my grandfather were good friends for many years.

All in all, the evening was to me a warm, friendly connection to my family’s dearly missed loved ones.

The crowd shown above at the “Anything But a Boat Race” Rome Rotary Canalfest ’18 on Aug. 5 appears a little thinner than what I remember from the 2011 event, but there was good reason for that.

One, it was held here on Belamy Harbor in Rome late Sunday afternoon not long before the festival closed.

Two, and perhaps more significantly, it was very hot and extremely humid that day. How so, you might ask? Outdoor temperatures rose well in the 90s that afternoon with a heat index that hovered over 100 degrees. According to Accuweather, Utica/Rome area teetered on breaking a heat record for August 5 that had been in place since 1955. Pretty impressive, as well as very damp and sweaty.

Shown above on the left are my son Sean, 17, and husband Jerry waiting for the race to begin. I took three shots of this pose in hopes that Sean would try to look somewhat happy in at least one, but it wasn’t going to happen that sweltering afternoon.

The photo above on the right shows the race announcer following the action with a cheerful voice. I’m sorry that I don’t know who this man is, but he definitely deserved an E for Effort that heated day.

The boat race was comprised of three heats that day, no pun intended. Shown here is what I felt was one of more unique entrants, an upside-down truck cab utliized as a boat. The cab’s rowers were doing pretty well here, too, as they were just about to reach the orange buoy that served as the race’s turnaround point.

These feathered floaters shown above perhaps had it the best on the canal that day. As far as I know, ducks don’t worry about time or orange buoys. They just are.

It was a Zen moment right there on our Erie Canal, something very cool on a hot day,

What’s better than the Rome Rotary’s Canalfest on a Saturday afternoon? The same venue at night just before the fireworks!

After a pleasant, yet hot afternoon visit at the Canalfest on Aug. 4, my family and I eagerly returned for the evening’s fireworks at 9:30 p.m.By then, the air had cooled to a tolerable, yet still humid 75 degrees or so.

After setting up our seats by the canal on Harbor Way, my son Sean and I ventured across nearby Mill Street for a snack at the fest. This lit whip ride in motion greeted us upon entering the fete.

As you probably can see here, by eveningtime the fest was packed with people. It was obvious that the event’s popularity has only flourished since I was last able to attend in 2011 when it just was in its fourth year. Nonetheless, Sean and I braved the line at the concession stand in the left photo, returning to our canalside seats armed with a respective bag of popcorn and snowcone in ample time for the fireworks show.

And man oh man, what a fireworks show it was! I’ve watched a lot of fireworks presentations over the years (and it’s been a lot of years, too), but this year’s Canalfest show ranked as the best in my recent memory. It was long, it was loud, and it filled the cloudless sky with streaks and twinkling stars of brilliant colors. Wow!

Upon leaving the large municipal parking lot at Harbor Way, I glimpsed for the first time the former General Cable water tower now lit in a flashing array of rainbow colors to boast the name of my favorite city. For me, there’s no place like Rome.

On Saturday, August 4, my family and I whiled away part of the afternoon at the Rome Rotary’s Canalfest. The three-day event takes place on each year during the first weekend of August at Belamy Harbor Park. My first shot here showing the canal’s peaceful, brown waters was taken from a window inside the park’s old boathouse. The boathouse that day was filled with entry displays of the Canalfest’s flower and photograph competitions.

Another Saturday afternoon highlight this year was a visit from the Utica Zoomobile. As an avowed animal lover, I’ve previously persued the Utica Zoo the but never before encountered the Zoomobile on one of its community visits throughout the Mohawk Valley. The zoo worker in the green shirt pictured here spent much of the afternoon with a three-foot snake casually draped around his neck while pleasantly conversing with passers-by. Doesn’t everyone?

Also representing the Utica Zoo that day was Bob the tortoise, a clear favorite with Canalfest revelers. True to form, Bob didn’t appear in a hurry to do anything, even eating. He crawled along the ground very slowly, pausing to consume particularly appitizing blades of grass. For this, Bob would strech his open mouth to the grass, chomp down, and then quickly retract his head. All in all, it was very interesting to watch, but then again, we weren’t in a hurry to leave Bob’s shady spot, either. A humid 95-degree heat index hung over Rome that afternoon.

I asked my daughter Emily and son Sean to pose in front of the Rome Police’s mobile crime lab because I considered it a great photo opportunity. After all, how often do law-abiding citizens like us encounter a parked mobile crime lab that’s the size of a bus. Having the name of my hometown’s police force in large letters was an added bonus to me.

This large cruise boat parked on the canal that day also made for a good photo. However, I have to be honest and say that I have no idea what the boat was or where it originated. That’s Rome’s Mill Street Bridge in the background.

Stayed tuned for more Canalfest photos in future blogs.

While on vacation last week in New York’s Thousand Islands, my family happened upon the tourist town of Clayton on the St. Lawrence River in Jefferson County. We drove there at our son Sean’s bequest because he  was curious after seeing so many tourist advertisements for the town.

Clayton looked like a nice enough town, but we didn’t stay very long. It was late afternoon and everyone in our family already was worn out from touring Boldt Castle on Heart Island. That’s my husband Jerry and myself gratefuly sitting a on bench in Clayton.

Also, our appitites were beckoning us to depart at this point for a diner outside of town on state Route 12 that Jerry wanted to try. It was OK, but evidently, I’ve watched too many programs with Gordon Ramsay because I kept imagining how the Bristish chef would react to the greasy breading that kept slipping off my fried fish that day. It wouldn’t have been nice.

So long for now, Clayton. Perhaps we will return again.

If you guessed the photos here were taken on the shore of Lake Delta, you are correct. In fact, I took these from our lakeside campsite last week at Delta Lake State Park.

The first two photos here were taken around 6:10 a.m. on August 7, 2018, depictiing, of course, a beautiful sunrise on the lake, The bottom photo was taken on the same day around 8 p.m.

For me, the title of this blog evokes memories of the song, “Sunrise, Sunset,” from the 1960s Broadway musical, “Fiddler on the Roof.” In the musical, a father laments how the little girl he once carried is now a young women who soon will wed. The song notes how the years have flowed so swiftly. In a way, this song applies to Lake Delta and myself. On its shores, I was the little girl my father once carried. Later, my own children, now grown, were carried here.

Yes, the years have indeed gone swifty, but my love for this lake has only grown.

Dear Readers,

Since I am on vacation this week, I will share a blog about my childhood memories of Lake Delta that I posted in August 2015. I will return here next week with stories about new memories at Lake Delta and other places that I’m visiting this week.

In honor of my imminent vacation starting at Lake Delta, here a few shots of my favorite lake that were taken during the time I was growing up (also known to my children as The Dark Ages). The photo above was taken at the Lake Delta Boat Club during the Summer of 1968, (I told you it was The Dark Ages.) That’s my father sitting on the dock, waiting for my mother to snap the shutter of our Kodak Instamatic. He looks like he’s tolerating it. Mom was standing on the cement steps that lead between the Boat Club’s upper picnic area and the lake shore to take the shot. That’s me poking my head out of the water in the photo. I was 8 years old and loved the water. I used to stay in the lake so long that my fingers and toes would become withered. In bed at night after a day of swimming, I would sometimes still feel like I was floating in the water. It was a beautiful feeling. However, it wasn’t nice a feeling when lake water was stopped up in one of my ear canals. In an effort to release it, I’d try sticking my finger in my ear, but that didn’t work.Usually my mother’s suggestion of opening and closing my jaw several times in a row did the trick. Feeling that warm trickle of water leave my outer ear was always a relief. The photo below shows my father and me cruising Lake Delta in our motorboat during the Summer of 1970. This time Mom stood on the Boat Club’s dock to get the photo. We were out on the lake after eating a picnic dinner and the sun was starting to set. I still love hearing the gentle putt-putt of a idling outboard boat motor and the smell of its burning fuel as it always takes me back to those days. When the motor is put into gear and the boat pulls onto the lake, it creates a series of lulling waves on the shore. I look forward to hearing this once again next week as I return to camp on the shores of Lake Delta.

Dear Readers,

Since I am on vacation this week, here is a “Now and Then” blog that I wrote in the summer of 2016. I will return here next week with new stories about my recent travels through New York State.

When thinking of a topic for today’s blog, this photo flashed into my mind. During my summer vacations as a youth, I spent a lot of time reading. I even did it on an entirely voluntary basis.

My grandmother took the above photo in July 1972, the summer I was going on 13. It was during one of my week-long stays with my mother’s parents in Norwood that was based around the village’s annual Fourth of July celebration. Obviously, the holiday excitment was over here, so I had to find other ways to entertain myself. Fortunately, my Grandma Kitney always kept a large stash of magazines around the house Keep in mind that this was long before the internet and Kindle readers, so my choices were limited. Here I am reading an issue of “McCall’s” magazine featuring a youthful-looking Gloria Steinem on the cover. I am also sitting directly next to the window with the house’s lone air conditioner. I may have been young, but I was no fool.

By the way, I must have weighed 115 lbs. dripping wet here at 5′ 5-1/2″. My legs look like toothpicks. It kills me to see how skinny I used to be without even trying.

This photo was taken during the summer of 1974 when I was going on 15. I am sitting in my mother’s aunt and uncle’s motorboat while it was moored to the dock of their camp at Piseco Lake. Another uncle’s plaid shirt is hanging from the dashboard. Large contingents of my mother’s family used to descend upon my aunt and uncle’s cabin every summer. My Aunt Betty kept a good supply of magazines in the cabin, so I was happy.

A couple of years later, I took a creative writing course in high school after I decidked that I wanted to be a writer. I remember my teacher telling us that the best way to learn how to write was to read a lot. That was no problem for me!

As you read this, I am at the start of a nine-day camping across New York State. It starts with four nights at Lake Delta, followed by three nights at Wellsley Island State Park in the Thousand Island region, and concluded with two nights at Chenango Valley State Park near Binghamton.

Also the course of our travels, my family and I will load up on Freihofer’s bread and chocolate chip cookies, Price Chopper bagels and Italian bread, lots of Saranac soda and whatever else looks good. If I’m really lucky, I’ll find some flavored Saratoga water along the way. That isn’t as easy for me to find as the rest.

The picture above was taken in my kitchen in Pennsylvania two year ago after spending a week with my son at Boy Scout camp in Ithaca. Fortunately, I suspect that the outcome of my current vacation in New York won’t look much different than it two years ago.

On Friday morning, my family and I will embark on a road trip to Rome, camping for four nights at Delta Lake State Park. As what has become as much of a ritual for me in Rome as a visit to Herb Phillipson’s, I would be absolutely bereft without consuming a halfmoon cookie while in the Copper City.

I’ve already written here about how much I love halfmoons and how much I miss them when I’m in Pennsylvania. Instead, the Keystone State’s southcentral portion specializes in a confection known as whoopie pies, which is really two halfmoons bottoms stuck together into sort of a frosting sandwich. Alas, it is not the same. To me, halfmoons offer just the right balance of cookie and frosting in one bite. Whoopie pies comprise double the amount of cookie and not enough frosting for my taste. Pardon the pun, but it’s not enough for me to whoopie about.

So get ready, Dippin Donuts and/or Hemstraught’s, I’ll be in town this weekend!