LIFE SKETCHES by TERRY BERKSON In search of pigeons just like Marlon Brando’s birds The other night I watched a rerun of “On the Waterfront,” starring Marlin Brando. I had forgotten that the character he played was named Terry, like me. When I was about 13 and saw the movie for the first time, I was so impressed with Brando that I had to own pigeons, like the character he played. His coop was on a flat roof. Mine had…
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life sketches - Page 4
LETTER from TERRY BERKSON Otsego Lawman, Cunningham, Served Otsego County With ‘Sleuth-Like’ Attention John L. Cunningham became a New York State Trooper in 1917. He was among the 232 selected men who made up the first wave of the newly formed organization that would serve to uphold the law in rural areas under the leadership of Major George Fletcher Chandler. Up until that time Cunningham, who was originally from Glens Falls, worked as a shirt cutter for 18 years. No…
LETTER from TERRY BERKSON For Want Of A Rack… I had it all planned. We’d fly to Florida on a Saturday, settle into the motel and then head for the flea market where, if lucky, I’d find a used bike to ride for the rest of our vacation. “What are you going to do when it’s time to go home?” my wife, Alice, asked. “I don’t care,” I said, “as long as I have use of a bike while we’re…
LETTER from TERRY BERKSON Lady With Horse I heard about Lady Ostapeck about 20 years ago at my friend Buddy Crist’s house on Angel Hill outside of Schuyler Lake. There was a picture hanging on his living room wall. It was of a man dressed in a Tolstoy-like shirt standing in the doorway of a weathered cabin. When I took a closer look I realized it was Buddy, appearing very authentic in clothes I never saw him wear before. “Who…
LETTER from TERRY BERKSON The Jumping Chicken Of Otsego County Got a call the other day from my friend Charlie in Brooklyn. He said that he was thinking of getting a couple of chickens to keep in his apartment so that he could get really fresh eggs. I got on my high horse and asked, “What do you know about raising chickens?” “I’m good with birds,” Charlie countered. “Remember how I taught my parrot to stand on his head for…
LETTER from TERRY BERKSON Talk About Coop d’Etats! Early this spring, my reigning rooster, Geezbrook, who fathered almost all of this year’s egg-laying rookies, was challenged and defeated by one of his sons. When I arrived on the scene, the old man was cowering in a corner with his back facing his attacker. I scooted them out into the yard and they went at it again, Geezbrook seeming to have new heart against his son, who got down like an…
LETTER from TERRY BERKSON ‘Bootlegging Hermits’ Life Rich As Renaissance Man’s One cold and leafless November morning about 40 years ago, I was deer hunting on Panther Mountain outside of Richfield Springs with my friend Paul O’Connor. After a long climb, we came into an area that was covered with hardwood trees that stood in gentle depressions and on top of small hummocks. The rolling terrain repeated itself over and over in a nondescript fashion so that it was easy…
LIFE SKETCHES With A Slice Of The Shovel Recently, a friend brought some spruce saplings up to the farm for planting. Luckily, my son was up for the weekend to lend a hand with the digging. We placed some near the house and then headed for the woods, which are thin on evergreens. No sooner did I open a hole for the first seedling than I was back to the spring of 1966, in the forest near Rothenberg, Germany, where…