On May 9 we will wander to Forest Hills Queens to visit the neighborhood and the former Tennis Stadium which was the home of the US Open from 1915to the mid 1970s We will see the site of Helen Keller’s home, as well as the home of Branch Rickey of the Dodgers. Forest Hills is also the former home of Trygve Lie, the first Secretary General of the United Nations. Teddy Roosevelt visited Forest Hills and Robert Kennedy campaigned there. A most interesting piece of New York City
David Mace, Joe Spain
Month: April 2024 (Page 1 of 2)
DMA members and their spouses are taking exciting boat Cruise Around Manhattan on May 30th that will provide a relaxing and breathtaking way to enjoy dramatic sightseeing and iconic landmarks from the unique perspective the water. It’s the only sightseeing cruise that completely circles Manhattan including all 3 rivers. Along the way, DMA members will see approximately 130 landmarks including the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, United Nations, Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, Yankee Stadium, Spuyten Duyvil, the Cloisters, the newly constructed Hudson Yards neighborhood, One World Trade Center and revitalized Wall Street area, the newly gentrified Brooklyn and Queens waterfront, the Hoboken & Jersey City coastline, the Highline, Little Island and too many tugs, ferries and cruise ships to count all while going under 20 bridges including the Brooklyn Bridge and G.W. Bridge.
HIKING GREENWICH AUDUBON CENTER
GREENWICH, CT
10 AM MONDAY MAY 20, 2024
Greenwich Audubon Center is a 285 acre sanctuary which opened its doors in 1943 as Audubon’s first nature education center in the country. Located on land donated by Eleanor Clovis Reese and H Hall Clovis the center includes over 7 miles of trails through a rich diversity of hardwood forest, meadows, lakes, streams and vernal ponds. Also on the property are an expansive Nature Education Center, an old apple orchard and original New England homestead buildings.
We plan to meet in the main parking lot at 10 AM and hike for about two hours over varied terrain including one steep climb and several sections of rocky trail. We rate this as a hike of moderate plus difficulty. We hope to see migrating birds but our wildlife scorecard has not been good! As always, guests and spouses welcome but NO DOGS. If the weather is iffy, contact one of us to see if we are hiking.
Optional lunch after at Ole Mole at 1030 High Ridge Road in Stamford
The Center is located at 613 Riversville Road in Greenwich on the north side of the Merritt Parkway. Exit at Round Hill Road and use GPS to get you to the center.
CONTACTS: Dave McCollum 203-858-5688 and dgmccollum63@gmail.com and Robert Plunkett 203-246-2898 and rgplunkett1@gmail.com.
We looked up our report on our hike here in May of 2022 at which we had a total of 12 hikers. Today we had 19 who enjoyed a beautiful day hiking about 3 miles in about two hours. We are very happy that more DMAers are coming on the hikes! This hike is really a tale of two different types of trail. About half is relatively flat and the other half is pretty steeply up and down as the property drops over 160 feet from top to bottom. All hikers handled the terrain with minimal difficulty. Alas, your hike leaders missed one turn which required a short backtrack but there were only a few random comments about the goof. As we should have learned from past hikes, talking while navigating trails sometimes doesn’t work out well!
Eight hikers enjoyed a delicious Mexican lunch at Ole Mole on High Ridge Road in Stamford. All in all a wonderful day!
This concludes our hikes for the 2023-24 season. We had seven hikes averaging over 20 hikers and finally got to traverse the Walkway Over the Hudson in October. Thank you to all who participated! The next hike will be in September 2024.
Dave McCollum and Robert Plunkett
On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter.
Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”
At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous secretary of state, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans.
Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.
Coordinator: Alex Gibbons
My wife, Laura, and I moved to Rowayton a little over two and a half years ago from Healdsburg, California. We left Healdsburg, located in the Sonoma Country wine country, because the fires they were having there were beginning to look like annual events. We moved here to be closer to our only grandchild, grandson Sam, and his mother, Alison, who live in Chappaqua, NY. We have another daughter, Amy, who will soon be moving back to the States from Belgium with her husband, A J, who is retiring from the Air Force as an intelligence officer who was on loan to NATO.
I was born in Oakland, California in 1941 but grew up on a 12 acre property near Walnut Creek, CA on which we had 250 walnut trees. I graduated from the University of the Pacific, located in Stockton, CA in 1962 with a degree in international relations. It is at Pacific where I met Laura, my wonderful wife of 60 years.
After receiving my MBA from the University of California, Berkeley in 1967 we moved to Chicago where I began my career in venture capital at The First National Bank of Chicago. We moved back to California in 1972 when I joined Bank of America’s venture capital subsidiary. From there I became a partner at WestVen which was co-founded by Weiss, Peck& Greer and BankAmerica Corporation. I joined Hambrecht & Quist in 1981 where I and three partners ran its venture capital operation. In 1985, one of my H&Q partners, Grant Inman, and I co- founded Inman & Bowman which we successfully ran until 1998. After retiring, I made a number of private investments and participated in a number of volunteer activities including the Board of Regents at the University of the Pacific and board member of the Healdsburg Education Foundation.
Over the years, I have enjoyed golf in many places around the world, but I don’t play much any more. Being an avid golfer and a good golfer are two separate things, and I would describe my golf game as “30 years of beginning golf.” My wife and I started taking bridge lessons at the DCA shortly after moving here and are enjoying bridge very much. However, it is beginning to have that feeling of ” 30 years of beginning bridge.” We also enjoy travel, and reading is another of our common interests .
“China’s economy has been booming for decades now. Keyu Jin, an economist who was born in China and educated in the United States, brings her fluency in Eastern and Western cultures together to offer an explanation of how China became such a successful economic story. This book is a guide to the Chinese economy as it has shifted from being based primarily on state-owned enterprise to being based on entrepreneurship and participation in the global economy”–
Wednesday, April 17, 2024, at 6:30 p.m.
The DMA will present an evening of jazz music with five members of the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra at the Annex Building of St. Luke’s church in Darien. Prior to the concert we will provide wine, beverages and delicious hors d’oeuvres prepared by the well-known caterer, Carolyn Eddie. The music will begin at 7:30 p.m. These talented members of the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra are looking forward to entertaining our members and guests with great selections of Jazz music. The cost is $35 per person for this delightful evening, and checks should be made out to DMA.
We have a maximum capacity of 100 people, but still have some openings, so please bring a check and sign up at the meeting, or contact Bob McGroarty at rgmcg@me.com. Jerry Crowley and Chet Cobb have kindly volunteered to help out for the evening.
Ed Kweskin was born and raised in Stamford. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 with a B.A. and then earned a Juris Doctor degree from George Washington University Law School. After practicing law two years with Community Legal Services, Inc., in Philadelphia, Ed and his wife Helen moved to Rowayton. He began practicing law in Stamford with Wofsey, Rosen, Kweskin & Kuriansky, and there he has remained as a partner for over 50 years. Ed is a past president of the Stamford-Darien Bar Association. In 2016, Connecticut Legal Services and the Connecticut Bar Association honored him with their Pro Bono Awards.
Ed served seventeen years as a Commissioner in Rowayton, including ten years as Commission Chairman. Additionally, Ed is a past president of the Bell Island Improvement Association, Temple Sinai in Stamford, and the University of Pennsylvania Alumni Club of Fairfield County. He is currently a member of the Silvermine Golf Club and the Rowayton Yacht Club.
Ed and Helen have lived on Bell Island since 1977. They have two children who grew up in Rowayton. Ed and Helen enjoy traveling, especially to see their three young grandchildren who live in Geneva, Switzerland. Their three other grandchildren live in nearby Armonk, NY.
HIKING MIANUS RIVER PARK
STAMFORD, CT
APRIL 22, 2024
10:00 AM
Mianus River Park is a 391 acre nature preserve on the
Stamford/Greenwich border. The park, one of a series of green areas in the Mianus River Watershed, features a two mile stretch of the beautiful Mianus River, forest lands, vernal pools, glacial outcroppings, varied wildlife and rolling hills. The trails are good but feature the usual rocks and roots and some elevation change but anything steep is in short spurts.
We rate this hike of about 3.5 miles as easy to moderate and it should take us about 2 hours to complete. Dogs on a leash are welcome (there are many dog walkers here!) and, of course, bring a spouse or friend to enjoy this hike.
There will be an optional lunch after the hike at Zody’s 19th Hole Restaurant at the E Gaynor Brennan Golf Course near the Park and Stamford Hospital.
DIRECTIONS:
We will meet at the Merriebrook Road entrance to the Park in Stamford. Both Waze and Google Maps respond to “Mianus River Park”. There is parking on the right before the bridge over the river. Do not park on the roads in the area which are marked and patrolled.
Write Up:
A cloudless sky, 54 degree temperature and Earth Day to boot made for a memorable 2 hour hike through the spectacular Mianus River Park! A total of 21 DMAers, spouses and two dogs spent the first half hour walking upstream along the river which was full and moving rapidly. Two of the party retraced that section back to parking but the rest continued on over the inland portion of the trail, which is hillier and more rugged, through scenic views of rocks and trees. This is a park that is well used by the public and it is easy to see why!
We encourage hikers who would like a shorter hike to come with us. There is almost always an intermediate point where it is an option to return to the start. So long as there are at least 2 for that option, we can offer it on most hikes.
After the hike a smaller group ate lunch at Zody’s 19th Hole Restaurant at the E Gaynor Brennan Gold course. Lunch there, by the way, is excellent and well priced!
Dave McCollum
Robert Plunkett
