Last Updated: Wednesday, May 16, 2012 8:55:40 PM
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
I know I talk a lot about this community’s sense of togetherness, but I often just can’t help myself. I have to revel in it, as I’m lucky to be in a position where I’m immersed in it every day, with every event I cover.
It’s nice to live in a place where people have your back.
It upsets me when people throw shade at this area, especially people who were raised here. I understand the need to leave home and explore. I just don’t u ...
Last Updated: Thursday, May 10, 2012 9:31:18 AM
Brings me right back
To the editor:
It was with great pleasure I read your wonderful library editorial. It evoked a time and place that I am sure many could relate to.
For years, every Friday night or Saturday morning, I was fortunate enough to be dropped at the Fort Plain Library to happily browse the shelves as my mom did the weekly grocery shopping at the Red and White Store. It was there I rode across the purple sage with Zane Gray and swooned, as only a dramatic 12 year old could do, over ...
Last Updated: Thursday, May 10, 2012 9:25:58 AM
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
Respect and love to all the mothers out there. And not just on Mother’s Day, but every day. I’ve heard people say “every day is mother’s day,” but I never really understood what that meant until I was old enough to realize that my mother isn’t just the person that raised me. She’s undeniably imbedded in every action I take and every word I speak.
My friend just had a baby about one week ago. Watching this as an adult, I was ...
Last Updated: Thursday, May 03, 2012 9:09:41 AM
An error in the library story
To the editor:
I read with interest your recent article about the Canajoharie Library’s funding initiative. Unfortunately, there was an error in the report. The library’s $100,000 funding ask amounts to 26 cents per $1,000 of assessed value — not $26 per $1,000 as the report stated.
On Tuesday, June 5, residents of the Canajoharie School District will have the opportunity to provide this needed funding to the library. The average home’s tru ...
Last Updated: Thursday, May 03, 2012 9:06:21 AM
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
The library is an incredibly important part of the community. It’s also an important part of my history. While I’m sure that many have made memories at their local library, and consider it an integral part of their history and growth, it also needs to remain in the view of the community as an important part of our future.
As I grew up, the library was a haven. I’ve found that it still is, even though the capacity at which I visit it has changed. T ...
Last Updated: Thursday, April 26, 2012 8:51:33 AM
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
I’ve heard a countless number of people, throughout my entire life, lamenting these modern times. Everybody has heard somebody wish for a return to “the good ol’ days” or a time when things were “simple”.
More than ever in my life — partially because of my job and partially just because my interest in the world grows as I do — I’ve been reading about current events, and also historical events, making connection ...
Last Updated: Thursday, April 19, 2012 8:42:51 AM
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
Well, I guess it had to happen sometime. After years of speculation regarding whether his death was a put-on or a carefully orchestrated plan, Tupac Shakur has officially risen from the dead. Or, so thought about 100,000 festivalgoers attending a late Saturday performance by famed West Coast rappers Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg at California’s Coachella festival this weekend. The crowd, I’ve read, was alternately thrilled and horrified to see slain rapper Tup ...
Last Updated: Thursday, April 12, 2012 9:25:38 AM
A new way of thinking
To the editor,
Like many of your readers, I fondly recall the Fort Plain of 30 years ago.
You could stop down to the Village Restaurant at the corner of Canal and River Streets and have a terrific breakfast for a couple of bucks, for dinner you could have one heck of a fried fish dinner at Capece’s Deli...topping it off with a cheesecake you wouldn’t forget.
You had a couple of meat markets to choose from, you could get your shoes and clothes at Dutcher ...
Last Updated: Thursday, April 12, 2012 9:20:48 AM
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
Well, I think I’ve finally done it. I’ve exhausted my list of things to talk about in editorials. I’ve spoken at length about numerous topics, or ideals, through the continually shifting perspective that aging, and just genuinely living life, provides, and here I am now — older, and maybe wiser — but with a blank slate nonetheless.
A blank slate, I think, can actually be an incredibly positive thing. It can be wildly frustrating too, b ...
Last Updated: Thursday, April 05, 2012 10:23:00 AM
An indelible mark
To the editor:
Into each of our lives come special people. One of them passed from among us on Thursday, March 22, 2012. His name was Henry Byler.
I knew Henry as a friend from when he and his family first moved to Stone Arabia. He was one of the gentlest people I have had the pleasure of knowing, despite lives cares. He remembered the good about us first as his many friends remember him. As a skilled leather worker, he left us with material mementoes. Henry was not among us ...
Last Updated: Thursday, April 05, 2012 10:19:39 AM
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
It’s only in the past few years that I’ve really started to examine the origins of American holidays. Everybody knows that the rabbit is synonymous with Easter, because there are bunnies literally everywhere for months leading up to the holiday. We pull the little candy eyes from the faces of cute chocolate bunnies before devouring their bodies (I eat them ears first). The mascot for the holiday is a giant bunny, sometimes even larger than us, with a he ...
Last Updated: Thursday, March 29, 2012 6:54:06 AM
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
As we speak, it’s estimated that 20,000 members of a doomsday cult are gathered, with more coming every moment, at the base of a mountain, Pic de Bugarach in France, with the hopes that when the earth supposedly ends this year, they will be saved by the alien race that inhabits the mountain.
How does one gain such knowledge about the plans of a mountain-dwelling alien race? Is there an alien message board I’m unaware of, or a frequency I’ve neglec ...
Last Updated: Thursday, March 22, 2012 6:52:02 AM
Awaiting response
To the editor:
About a month ago, I sent an email to Mr. Tonko asking him why we were causing ourselves so much trouble, like rising gas prices, just to stop Iran from getting nuclear power. What gives us, along with other countries, the right to tell another country what they can or can not have. After all, Israel has nuclear weapons. After waiting two weeks for an answer, I called his office and spoke to a young lady. I asked why I haven’t received a response.
She sai ...
Last Updated: Thursday, March 22, 2012 6:49:00 AM
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
So, did we just skip right through spring like a piece of shale on a melting pond and jump straight to summer? Just a couple weeks ago I was out taking pictures of the freshly snow-covered trees and parks of the local area, trudging through tundra just to take advantage of my one shot at photographing the cold, untouched majesty of the season that never was, and now I’m wearing a short sleeved shirt and sweating at board meetings.
What’s up, Mother Natu ...
Last Updated: Thursday, March 15, 2012 7:00:14 AM
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
Another holiday approaches. And not just any ol’ holiday, but one I’m pretty sure a significant portion of people don’t understand the origin or meaning of. But hey, we celebrate anyway. Not that I’m one to talk or judge, because it wasn’t until a couple years ago when I took it upon myself to research St. Patrick’s Day that I found out why it exists.
If you asked me as a teenager, I could tell you that St. Patrick’s Day fa ...
Last Updated: Thursday, March 08, 2012 7:12:18 AM
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
I recently read an article about celebrities who are notoriously rude interview subjects. It outlined some horrible interviews down to the last excruciating detail. It was quite a fascinating read, and while I suppose some of it was most likely biased, as everybody has a bad day and that probably tainted some of the interview experiences, it still got me thinking that I must be the luckiest interviewer in the world.
In all the years I’ve worked for this newsp ...
Last Updated: Thursday, March 01, 2012 6:58:20 AM
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
The price of gas — the price of everything, really — is rising. I assume you’ve noticed. It’s expensive to do just about anything right now, especially during these winter months when outdoor destinations are out of the question for many. Going to the movies, purchasing snacks at the concession stand, can easily set a family back $100 today, not including gas. Considering that these options are expensive even for one person now, I started thi ...
Last Updated: Thursday, February 23, 2012 7:00:59 AM
Going the extra mile
To the editor:
On January 27, we were driving on the New York State Thruway, in a horrific rain storm, from Rochester, NY, to Hartford, CT, when the arm and windshield wiper blew totally off the driver’s side of our car, reducing visibility to near zero. Rains pelting the windshield and eighteen-wheelers tearing by, required us to get to the nearest Ford dealership as soon as possible. We exited at Herkimer, only to learn from calling Ford’s 1-800 number that th ...
Last Updated: Thursday, February 23, 2012 6:56:54 AM
By Joshua Thomas
C-S-E Editor
Hydrofracking has been on everybody’s minds lately. It’s been on my radar for quite some time, but I didn’t understand that this was something that could impact my life or my community. I do wish that I took my mother’s advice and wrote about this issue a year or two ago when she repeatedly requested a hydro-fracking focused editorial, and told me it was an upcoming hot button issue.
I told her I didn’t think it was something we&rsquo ...
Last Updated: Thursday, February 16, 2012 6:43:50 AM
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
Who was it that found it acceptable to give Chris Brown money to perform at the Grammy Awards Sunday? And not once, but twice. And I use the word “perform” loosely in this instance.
I know that a big part of show business is earning money, and creating buzz at any cost, but who would, in their right mind, support (and even promote) such a negligible human being? He’s had years to prove that he’s not the terrible person he made himself out to ...
Last Updated: Thursday, February 09, 2012 6:38:23 AM
Help protect the bobcats
To the editor:
The Department of Environmental Conservation is planing to extend, by two months, the trapping and hunting season of the bobcat. They are taking comments from the public on this matter until Feb. 16 when they will make their decision. I sent the following letter to the NYSDEC:
Please do not extend the trapping, hunting season, another two months on the bobcats. They are just starting to make a comeback. They only live in secluded areas and keep to themsel ...
Last Updated: Thursday, February 09, 2012 6:36:05 AM
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
Recently, I had the honor of creating the promotional material, album and single art for an extraordinarily talented, Utica-based musician/singer/songwriter, Anthony Bianco. The art I created was for his solo musical project, Waails. The most recent Waails album, Paradise I — the cover for which I shot locally — was released Tuesday, so I thought it was an appropriate time to talk about the album cover and its creation.
If you’re from the area, yo ...
Last Updated: Thursday, February 02, 2012 6:52:12 AM
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
Super Bowl Sunday approaches, and I grow increasingly excited. I anticipate this event every single year, counting down the days, planning everything out from the sauce on the wings to the company, every last snack in place. That I look forward to it so much every year is a testament to what an exciting day it is, since I know not one little thing about football.
I admit it — I don’t get football. It’s not that I don’t enjoy it, because I do ...
Last Updated: Thursday, January 26, 2012 7:06:26 AM
Not the place for opinions
To the editor:
As a 30-plus year reader of the Courier-Standard-Enterprise newspaper (including subscriptions for my time away at college), I have been sadly surprised in the recent months and even years by the “articles” authored by Robert E. Smith.
I have read disparaging and quite frankly inaccurate comments (i.e., his opinion) about various topics in the community, including last week’s edition and perhaps the most slanderous yet — his opi ...
Last Updated: Thursday, January 26, 2012 7:03:27 AM
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
Even though it’s hardly felt like winter yet, we’re officially in the midst of it. I talk about winter a lot, complaining about how I’m done with snow, and how I could live without ever seeing it again, but really, I bet I’d miss it were it to disappear completely (not considering the fact that should snow never fall again, the reason would likely mean we had bigger problems to consider).
I talk sometimes with a friend from Florida, and unti ...
