03.10.2023 Columns Column: Changes to baseball? Do not get me started We are living in truly dark times. Our institutions and traditions, handed down in America through the generations, are now under assault and seem unsteady, not able to withstand...
02.14.2023 Columns Column: On Valentine’s Day, love’s labor’s won Billie Holiday, in one of her more poignant lyrics, wrote that “love will make you drink and gamble, make you stay out all night long.” Which leads me to...
05.29.2022 Columns Column: Dignity, respect on hallowed ground at Calverton National Cemetery Rich Hilts enlisted in the U.S. Army right after graduating from high school in upstate Rome. His first day of basic training was Sept. 11, 2001. “We didn’t believe...
04.01.2022 Columns Column: Truth and consequences on April 1 Today, April 1, many of you will join me in the liar’s club. Hey, there’s a big dog — wait — is that a coyote in the backyard? What?...
02.14.2022 Columns Column: Ten years ago, after Super Bowl XLVI, my life changed Ten years ago this month, the morning after Super Bowl XLVI (Giants 21 — Patriots 17) I gave up drinking. People asked why. That is, some people asked, and...
09.09.2021 News Remembering 9/11: ‘At a loss for words’ at ground zero He has many memories of those September days 20 years ago, but one is especially haunting. It’s of sounds he heard while searching for bodies on the massive hills...
02.07.2021 Columns Column: February contains some surprises The smallest in the family, but unique among its siblings for much more than size. And the only shape-shifter, changeling and magician, which every now and then becomes larger,...
03.27.2020 COVID-19 Shelter Island nurse tells her story from the front lines of the pandemic Kelly Surerus is working 13-hour days, five days a week with some extra days thrown in. She gets the first boat before dawn from South Ferry to go to...