The curmudgeon knew how to live
Donnelly's has the best soft ice cream
I noticed a few weeks ago that Mark Freeman, who used to write a weekly column for the Post-Star called the North Country Curmudgeon, died at 96.
He lived in Greenwich with his wife, Anne, and tweaked the paper’s largely conservative readers with his largely liberal opinions for 17 years or so. He started writing for the papers in the 1960s with a bridge column called “Hudson River Bridge.”
I liked a lot of things about his column but mostly the tone, which was cranky but rarely angry. His critiques of local politics or people could be scathing but felt more like the challenges to do better of a longtime high school English teacher, which he was, than insults.
Here are a few excerpts from columns of his:
June 2002: “The drug you're hooked on that helps al-Qaida terrorists is — gasoline. Money that goes to Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries for petroleum finds its way very quickly to Osama bin Laden.”
September 2002, as President George W. Bush prepared to invade Iraq: “President Bush is rapidly dragging this country into what will turn out to be the dumbest and most dangerous war we have ever engaged in.”
September 2006: “I got pretty sick of the 9/11 celebrations last weekend. I suspect many of you did, too, but you don't want to say so and be called unpatriotic, or worse. I'm a patriot. I enlisted in the military in wartime. I fly the flag, but not at night or in rain. I even voted in the primaries, which most ‘patriots’ neglect to do. I bitterly resent having to say these things before I can criticize the present administration.”
November 2006: “I don't get iPods, or those BlackBerry devices, or cell phones that take pictures. This toy has ‘Bluetooth technology.’ What the Sam Hill is that? Don't tell me; I don't want to know. Believe it or not, you don't need this stuff, whether you're 13 or a 35-year-old suffering from arrested development. Get out in the fresh air. Go skiing, Shovel snow. Dig in the garden, in season. Get a job. Get a life.”
And from the same November 2006 column: “Scientology is crap, and Tom Cruise is full of it.”
Columns are a perishable medium, and their expiration date usually comes quickly. But Mark’s expostulations still refresh 20 years later.
Mark left the area in 2007, when Anne developed an ailment they believed would benefit from a move to Georgia, where one of their three daughters lived. Anne died in 2011.
I talked to Mark on the phone a few times but met him in person only once or twice. He seemed to me, from a distance, to be living well, pleased with himself and his family, his hobbies and his work and his home — meeting life’s biggest challenge: to be content.
Legacy of Trails
I’m not sure what all the ingredients will be of longtime Queensbury Supervisor John Strough’s local legacy, but I am sure his dedication to the creation and maintenance of local nature trails will be high on the list. What a cornucopia of trails the town has!
“My first trail was the Rush Pond trail — people said we’d never get it done,” Strough said on Friday of the work he and others began about 20 years ago. “It took 10 years.”
“Then we did Halfway Brook trail. People said the city will never agree to it.”
Key to the trail-building success was a state law that offered liability protection to landowners who allowed rights of way through their property for public trails, he said.
“Each one ended up being a good story,” he said of the trails he has helped build. “But getting there was sometimes not so good.”
Bella and I and Ringo have a lot of time available these days and have spent much of it walking through the woods in Queensbury. Hudson Pointe Nature Preserve, with its high bluff overlooking the river, is my personal favorite.
Strough is working on a grand connector trail now that will somehow get from Peggy Ann Road, at the trailhead for Halfway Brook Trail, over to Richardson Street; from there, down to the Feeder Canal trail, which leads to the Champlain Canalway Trail in Fort Edward and then12 miles to Fort Ann.
Northward bound
We took a road trip Friday to Donnelly’s Soft Ice Cream on Route 86 about 5 miles north of Saranac Lake. It seems indulgent to drive a little more than two hours for an ice cream cone, but Donnelly’s cones are especially flavorful, and the drive is lovely.
We stopped in Lake Placid on the way up so Ringo could take a dip in Mirror Lake. As he was moving through the cool, clear water, so was a loon — an unexpected sight right near a public beach. But Mirror Lake, where motorboats are banned, has a tranquil feeling even when the village is busy.
We stopped in Saranac Lake to use the public restrooms located in Berkeley Square in the center of the village, then proceeded north on Route 86 to Donnelly’s.
We arrived a few minutes after Donnelly’s opened at 11 a.m., good timing because the little stand attracts so many customers, the line often winds across the parking lot.
Each day features a flavor twisted with vanilla, and strawberry is the flavor on Fridays. The legend is that Donnelly’s has a very old ice cream-making machine, which is why the cones taste so good. I’m not sure. The current machine looks like different from the one I recall 50 years ago, when my family lived out near Paul Smiths and Donnelly’s was on the route from the village to our house. That machine made a racket, while the current one does not.
Perhaps the flavor is enhanced by the amazing view across the road of Whiteface and other high peaks in the distance.
Regardless, it’s worth the trip.
Public bathrooms
Although Glens Falls does not have public bathrooms downtown, and it should, it does have them in the field house in Crandall Park, I realized recently. I’m not sure what the hours are for the field house, but it was open on a recent afternoon.
Fall?
I’ve always considered woolly bears the herald of fall, and we spotted our second one of the season recently, making its slow way across the gravel of the Feeder Canal trail.
I thoroughly enjoyed the Curmudgeon's column and a 2 hour drive through the Adirondacks for an exceptional soft ice cream or custard cone makes perfect sense.
I remember Mark Freeman’s column fondly and enjoyed his obituary recently. He was a most interesting person. He would’ve loved the Democratic convention. He should’ve held on just a bit longer. Still, 96 is well done.