IRISH DANCING – 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. Adults learn Irish Set and Line Dances. Fun, no experience needed. Cooperstown Center, 2832 Co. Hwy. 11, Cooperstown. E-mail kodonnell@stny.rr.com
By LIBBY CUDMORE • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com
ON HYDE BAY – Jon Maney wants Hyde Hall to be more than just a house museum – (although, what a house!)
He wants it to be a destination for music and arts.
“We’ve done a lot of classical music, but we need more contemporary music,” said the National Landmark’s executive director. “George Clarke loved jazz, so we want to start having a whole range of music from different eras.”
On Oct. 6, the Musicians of Ma’alwyck, an Albany-based band that’s become the museum’s house band, will debut Max Caplan’s “The Hyde Sextet,” a work scored for flute, harp and string quartet and inspired by the ghost of Hyde Hall.
Caplan, is the composer of the suffrage-themed opera “Aleda,” which premiered in June 2018.
“It’s a really spooky piece that’s in the spirit of the season,” said Maney.
By LIBBY CUDMORE • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com
COOPERSTOWN – There are plenty of places in Otsego County to get drive-thru food.
But the Blue Mingo is the only place to get boat-thru food.
“On busy nights, we’ll come and serve you on your boat!” said owner Michael Moffat. “We have a lot of people who come and order while they’re out on the lake – we know they’ll bring the silverware back.”
Now in its 25th year, what started as a humble hot dog stand is now destination dining for baseball stars, opera fans and anyone who wants to enjoy a meal overlooking Otsego Lake.
PHOTO EXCURSION – 6-8 p.m. Walk through The Farmers’ Museum with photographer Kevin Gray and learn tips on composition, lighting and camera techniques, and return home with your own beautiful pictures of Otsego Lake and the museum’s historic village at sunset. Bring lenses, camera battery, tripod (if you have one). Cost, $17/non-member. Fenimore Art Museum & Farmers’ Museum, Cooperstown. 607-547-1400 or visit www.fenimoreartmuseum.org
FIREWORKS – 9 p.m. Fireworks over Otsego Lake. Free. Lake Front Park, Cooperstown.
OLDEST PARADE – 11 a.m. The second oldest parade in the country kicks off again, with a full day of festivities to follow, including a concert and fireworks at dusk. Springfield Center Community Center, 129 Co Rd 29A, Springfield Center.
NO FIREWORKS – An item that appeared here for a few minutes was incorrect: Fireworks are planned Friday, July 5, at Brookwood Gardens, not tomorrow.
CONCERT – 3 p.m. Town of Springfield Appreciation Concert will offer an overview of The Glimmerglass Opera’s 2019 season. Proceeds will benefit the Springfield 4th of July Committee. Alice Busch Opera Theater, 7300 NY-80, Cooperstown. Info, 315-858-0304 or visit www.glimmerglass.org
There was a new Bubba on Otsego Lake this afternoon: “Bubba” the Tug Boat, that is, which Lakefront Hotel proprietor Paula Wickoff purchased from Seattle’s harbor last fall and was delivered to the docks at Cooperstown on Thanksgiving Weekend. Ice-breaking is a spring ritual, to avoid damage to the docks at the Lakefront or Landland Shores; last year, however, the ice was particularly thick, and Paula spent hours on end in an icy, unheated cabin. Today, “we never cut this much ice in one day,” Wickoff – waving in photo at left – said by phone from Bubba’s cozily heated cabin. “I couldn’t be more pleased.” In the background is steel-hulled “Blue,” manned by Joe Lepetich and Brian Murphy, which “cut through the ice like steak,” Wikoff said. “Bubba” then broke the ice into smaller harmless pieces. (Jim Kevlin/AllOTSEGO.com)
By JENNIFER HILL
Parasites. That doesn’t sound good.
But SUNY Oneonta biology professor Florian Reyda says having a variety and plentiful parasites “is a sign of a healthy ecosystem, of biodiversity.”
By that measure, Otsego Lake is quite healthy. Especially now that Margaret Doolin, a student in SUNY’s master of science biology program and one of Reyda’s advisees, had discovered a parasitic
By JIM KEVLIN
COOPERSTOWN – You may have noticed a tug boat, “Bubba,” parked in the snow between the Lakefront Hotel & Restaurant and the lighthouse. There’s a story behind it.
Last April, as her family – beginning with grandfather Alfred Engelmann – has done for 63 years, Lakefront proprietor Paula Wikoff headed out in a 30-foot steel cutter – let’s call it “Blue” – to chop up Otsego Lake’s ice pack before it could break up and damage docks along Cooperstown’s lakeshore.
The ice floe “can be a mile wide. It can be two miles, coming at us,” she explained.
Usually, a warm Southwind is ‘blowing by then, pushing the ice away from the shore. Last year was another story, she recalled with a shiver, “there was a Northwest wind, 30 miles per hour, that never stopped.”
SUNY Oneonta undergrads Rachel Zeino and Jeanmarie Russell completed the seasonal swap of non-wake-zone buoys for winter spar buoys yesterday at Springfield Landing. They completed the task in snow sleet, rain and hail, Paul Lord, who leads the Biological Field Station diver team, reports. This was the last no-wake zone buoy on Otsego Lake this year: The buoy off Lakefront Park in Cooperstown was removed earlier in the day by BFS volunteer diver Pat McCormack and SUNY Oneonta grad student Sarah Coney. (Paul Lord photos)
RICHFIELD SPRINGS – Frank Joseph Kranitz, 92, World War II veteran and owner of the Lake-n-Pines Motel on Otsego Lake for many years, passed away peacefully on Monday evening, Nov. 12, 2018, at the Saint Johnsville Rehabilitation Center in Montgomery County.
He was born on Oct. 12, 1926, in Woodside, Queens, son of the late Joseph and Mary Tones Kranitz. Frank was raised in Queens where he graduated high school.
After graduation, he answered the call of his country by enlisting in the Army during World War II.