One of our nation’s most prominent writers discovers the truth about how to live a long and happy life from the centenarian next door in this “original and highly readable account of a splendid American life” (The Wall Street Journal).When a veteran Washington journalist moved to Kansas, he met a new neighbor who was more than a century old. Little did he know that he was beginning a long friendship—and a profound lesson in the meaning of life. Charlie White was no ordinary neighbor. Born before radio, Charlie lived long enough to use a smartphone. When a shocking tragedy interrupted his idyllic boyhood, Charlie mastered survival strategies that reflect thousands of years of human wisdom. Thus armored, Charlie’s sense of adventure carried him on an epic journey of the Jazz Age, racing aboard ambulances through Depression-era gangster wars, improvising techniques for early open-heart surgery, and cruising the Amazon as a guest of Peru’s president. David Von Drehle came to understand that Charlie’s resilience and willingness to grow made this remarkable neighbor a master in the art of thriving through times of dramatic change. As a gift to his children, he set out to tell Charlie’s secrets. The Book of Charlie is a “genuinely original, formula-shattering” (Bob Woodward) gospel of grit—the inspiring story of one man’s journey through a century of upheaval. The history that unfolds through Charlie’s story reminds you that the United States has always been a divided nation, a questing nation—a nation of Charlies in the rollercoaster pursuit of a good and meaningful life.
Author: Webmaster (Page 1 of 98)
Thursday, November 19, at 8:36 a.m. at Darien Metro-North Station or 8:39 a.m. at Noroton Heights Metro-North Station
On Thursday, November 19th, the Wanderers will travel to Manhattan and wander on and near the High Line beginning in the Meatpacking District and wandering northward through Chelsea before ending in Hudson Yards. We will take the Metro North train to Grand Central that leaves the Darien train station at 8:36 a.m. and the Noroton Heights train at 8:39 a.m. As usual, we will gather at the Information Booth on the main floor of Grand Central and proceed together by Subway to Gansevoort Street.
The Wanderers will wander past the impressively designed Whitney Museum of American Art before wandering up onto the well-landscaped High Line and enjoying its picturesque views of Manhattan. This wandering will include excursions from the High Line to the well-engineered park known as Little Island with its commanding views of the Hudson River and New Jersey and past the very popular indoor food hall known as Chelsea Market. The Wandering will proceed on the High Line through Chelsea to Hudson Yards, a 28-acre Manhattan development mixed use neighborhood featuring the Vessel, luxurious shops and skyscrapers atop an active rail yard.
The Wanderers plan to have lunch at O’Toole’s Way at 518 W. 30th Street, New York, New York 10001 (646-558-5706) in Hudson Yards and conclude with a Wandering around Hudson Yards and to the Hudson Yards Subway Station before returning to Grand Central and home via the Subway and Metro-North.
Contact: Chet Cobb or Harry Bergen
DMA Members
The final golf event of the year!
Location: Woodway Country Club
Date: Thursday – October 15
Time: 9 AM Shotgun Start
Cost:
$192 paid at the Club
Includes: 18 holes of golf; golf cart and luncheon.
Signups: first come – first playing (we have a limited number of player times reserved).
Contact if interested
Bob McGroarty
The hale and hearty hikers will stroll the East and West Beach trails in Sherwood Island State Park this Thursday morning, October 8. The trails are level and approximately 3 miles long. Pets on leash are permitted in the park, as are friends and spouses of DMA members. For those wishing to carpool, we will meet at the back parking area of the DCA at 9:30 a.m. For those driving directly, we will meet at the Nature Center parking area in the east parking lot at the park, and will start and end our hike from the Nature Center.
After the hike, for those wishing to partake, we will enjoy lunch at Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana in Westport.
Our next meeting is Thursday, October 15 at 2PM in the Lillian Gade Room, 2nd Floor in the DCA. Note that we are back to our regularly scheduled time for this meeting. The Zoom link appears at the bottom of this email. We are electrified to have Harry Bergen moderate our discussion on the power shortfall facing this country and the possible solutions. Here is a summary along with pre-reading suggestions:
Electron Denial? The Future of Power
Electricity demand is predicted to grow significantly over the next 5 to 10 years and the general consensus is that the growth is largely due to an increase in data centers. In contrast with Data Centers that have been in use for decades, Data Centers are now hosting AI services which are extremely hungry in terms of computing power and electric power. At this session we will discuss the numerous issues surrounding this increase in Electric Power Demand including:
- If we can meet the increase and demand and when
- The critical path items required to supply the additional power
- What role renewables might play
- Location of Data Centers
- Public acceptance of any related projects
Suggested reading :
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/electricity.php?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Click below for details.
Thursday, October 22, at 8:36 a.m. at Darien Metro-North Station or 8:39 a.m. at Noroton Heights Metro-North Station
On Thursday, October 22nd, the Wanderers will travel to Greenpoint, Brooklyn and wander on its main commercial streets, through two of its largest parks and past two significant houses of worship. We will take the Metro North train to Grand Central that leaves the Darien train station at 8:36 a.m. and the Noroton Heights train at 8:39 a.m. As usual, we will gather at the Information Booth on the main floor of Grand Central and proceed together by Subway to Greenpoint.
The Wanderers will wander in Greenpoint on commercial streets populated by many small Polish- American businesses. This wandering will take the Wanderers through McGolrick Park and to its historically significant Monitor Monument, through McCarren Park and past the largest public swimming pool in NYC, to Popirluszko Square with its unusual history and on tree-lined residential streets bordering the parks. The wanderers also plan to visit the beautiful St. Stanislaus Kostka Church and wander past the impressive Transfiguration of our Lord Russian Orthodox Cathedral.
In keeping with the Polish-American focus of this wandering, the Wanderers will have lunch at Pierozek Restaurant, 592 Manhattan Ave., Brooklyn (718-576-3866), a restaurant that claims to be the home of the most authentic handmade Polish Pierogi in New York. After lunch, the Wanderers will wander to the NYC Ferry’s Greenpoint Landing and enjoy the wonderful views available on the ferry ride across the East River to the NYC Ferry’s East 34th Street Landing in Manhattan. The Wanderers will wander from the East 34th Street Landing to Grand Central and return home via Metro-North.
Contact: Chet Cobb, Harry Bergen or Bill Tamme
Summary:
“On Thursday, October 22nd, 20 Happy Wanderers travelled via Metro-North and subway to Greenpoint, Brooklyn and wandered on its main commercial streets, through two of its largest parks, inside a significant house of worship and through a famous square.
While enjoying sunny fall weather, the Wanderers wandered past small Polish- American businesses before entering Msgr. McGolrick Park and viewing the historically significant Monitor Monument that commemorates the 1862 battle of the Monitor and Merrimac. The United States Navy built its first ironclad warship, the USS Monitor, in nearby Bushwick Inlet during the American Civil War. The Wanderers then wandered on residential streets before entering the magnificent St. Stanislaus Kostka Church and visiting well-designed McCarren Park, the home of one of the largest public swimming pools in New York City.
From there, the Wanderers found their way on tree-lined streets to nearby Popieluszko Square and viewed the statue of Jerzy Popieluszko, a much celebrated Roman Catholic Priest and spiritual symbol of resistance during the early 1980’s against Poland’s communist government. During this wandering, Harry Bergen provided interesting historical commentary and arranged access for the wanderers to St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, a church that Harry attended as a child.
In keeping with the Polish-American focus of this wandering, the Wanderers enjoyed a satisfying lunch at Pierozek Restaurant, a restaurant that claims to be the home of the most authentic handmade Polish Pierogi in New York. After lunch, most of the Wanderers stopped for ice cream at Davey’s Ice Cream while wandering to the NYC Ferry’s Greenpoint Landing and enjoyed the perfect weather and stunning views available on the ferry ride across the East River to the NYC Ferry’s East 34th Street Landing in Manhattan. The Wanderers then quickly wandered from the Landing to Grand Central and returned home via Metro-North.”
I also have attached the following photographs taken during our wandering:
1- Wanderers gather at the Monitor Monument in Msgr. McGolrick Park.
2- Wanderers Kevin Marks, Art Baron, Bob Hughes, Joe Sarbinowski, Joe Spain and Jeff Taebel stand across the street from the St. Stanislaus Kostka Church.
3- Wanderers are awed by the beauty of the interior of of the St. Stanislaus Kostka Church.
4- Harry Bergen emerges from one of the many confessionals in St. Stanislau Kostka Church..
5- Harry Bergen provides commentary in Popieluszko Square regarding the historical significance of the life and statue of Jerzy Popieluszko.
6- Wanderers Chet Cobb, Bob Hughes, Peter Smith, Jack Carley, Bill Tamme, Charles Salmans (left to right back row), Steve Fogarty, Harry Bergen and Geoff Schnider (left to right front row) await the arrival of the ferry on NYC Ferry’s Greenpoint Landing.
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The room is not available due to a DCA event.
Don’t miss out on this year’s sailing season’s final chance to enjoy a lovely sunset cruise on the Long Island Sound!
The DMA will be setting sail on SoundWaters, an 80 ft 3 masted schooner, for a delightful 2-hour sunset cruise from 5-7 pm on September 29 (rain date: October 1). We’ll have liquid refreshments and light dinner fare on board.
We’ll be gathering at 4:30 pm at the Cohen SoundWaters Harbor Center at Boccuzzi Park in Stamford.
Tickets are $75 per person.
Robert Dawe M.D.
The first Current Affairs meeting of the 2026-2027 DMA year will happen on Thursday, September 17 at 3pm (NOTE TIME CHANGE!) in the Lillian Gade Room at the DCA and on Zoom.
Our topic will be: Have We Reached the End of Reading?
The Atlantic Monthly declared as much on the cover of the August issue. Let’s discuss whether we agree with the author’s diagnosis and assessment of the causes and impact on people and society. Joining us with first-hand reporting from the front lines will be Francis Janosco, longtime English teacher at Darien High School. I can’t wait to hear his perspective.
The article providing our starting point is: The End of Reading Is Here – The Atlantic (also attached).
Agree with it or not, it’s well sourced, well crafted, and a very interesting read. The article, unsurprisingly, generated what Barry on Wednesday crudely called “a shitstorm.” A more DMA-worthy way of describing it might be “a massive amount of serious reaction, much of it critical.” We’ve attached an extended and annotated reading list. Start with a NY Times rebuttal: https://www.
Here’s what we want you to do. PLEASE do read and think about the two attached articles. Then wander through the reading list. Pick one or two that interest you, and bring those perspectives to the meeting. If you want a good place to start, these two contain some spicy criticism of the Atlantic piece:
“From the bestselling, prize-winning author of SAY NOTHING, a powerfully compelling account of a family devastated by the apparent suicide of their nineteen year-old son, only to discover he had created a separate identity which drew him into the dangerous international criminal underworld underlying London’s glittering surface. In the early morning of November 29th, 2019, surveillance cameras at the headquarters of MI6, Britain’s spy agency, captured a video of a young man pacing back and forth on a balcony of Riverwalk, a luxury building on the opposite bank of the Thames River. At 2:24 a.m., he jumped. In a quiet London neighborhood several miles away, Rachelle Brettler was worried. She hadn’t heard from her son Zac, who told her he had gone to stay with a friend for the night, but wasn’t answering his phone. Five days later, a police car pulled up in front of the house, and she knew she was about to hear the news every parent dreads: Her son was dead. In their unbearable grief, Rachelle and her husband Matthew tried to understand what had happened to Zac. He had his troubles, but in no way seemed suicidal. But his death was just the beginning of the shocks: The man who owned the apartment in Riverwalk, a wealthy businessman named Akbar Shamji, told them he knew Zac by a different identity: Zac Ismailov, the child of a wealthy Russian oligarch, whose widowed mother was living in Dubai and freezing him out of his inheritance. Then they learned that the apartment was occupied by a notorious gangster known as “Indian Dave” in London criminal circles. Indian Dave had been implicated in a gangland slaying and fled the country, but for opaque reasons came back to England and was never prosecuted. From the physical evidence and recovered text messages between Shamji and Sharma, it appeared something very different than a suicide had taken place in Riverwalk that night. But to the immense frustration of the Brettlers, Scotland Yard seemed to have no interest in investigating. In a bravura piece of reporting and writing, Patrick Radden Keefe delves into a story that peels back multiple layers of mystery, and exposes the seedy truths beneath the glamourous London of posh mansions and private night clubs, a world sustained and abetted by fundamental corruption. Zac Brettler was not the only person in the tale spinning lies. London Falling is a mesmerizing investigation of an inexplicable death, fueled by multiple turns and revelations, but at its heart it is a deeply empathetic portrait of a family trying to understand not just why their son died, but who he was”– Provided by publisher.
On Thursday, September 10, the Hale and Hardy hikers will travel to Southford Falls State Park for a two-mile hike. The park features impressive waterfalls and a beautifully restored covered bridge. The loop trail is marked in red with moderate climbing of some 400 feet up to a fire tower with a 360-degree view of the park’s treetops. There are some rocky portions of the trail where firm soles on your shoes are recommended, and a hiking pole may be useful, but not essential.
For those wishing to carpool, we’ll meet at the back of the DCA parking area at 9:30 am on September 10. Ample parking is available for those not carpooling. Set your maps for the parking area at 175 Quaker Farms Rd, Southbury, CT. Non-DMA members and pets on a leash are welcome to join us.
After our hike, those who are able can join the group for lunch at Dock 34 on the way home in Seymour, CT. It boasts a scenic location and outside tables on the banks of the Housatonic River.
