Category: Activities (Page 17 of 34)

Activities are gatherings that occur on a regular schedule, usually weekly, to enjoy a specific pastime.

Hike Waveny Park – Thursday, March 25, 2021

January 29, 2021 /

HIKING WAVENY PARK

    NEW CANAAN, CT

THURSDAY MARCH 25

    10 AM

Waveny Park in New Canaan is a 300 acre complex of athletic fields, extensive woodlands and numerous structures that was originally the Lapham Estate. Also on the park grounds are New Canaan High School and Waveny Life Care Network. It is a remarkable resource for New Canaan and surrounding towns.

We plan to meet at 10:00 AM in the first parking lot on the right after entering from South Avenue. This lot faces the large lawn used mostly for soccer. We will hike most of the woodland and parkland trails over a distance of 2.5 miles. The trails are wide and flat although the climb back to the parking lot from South Avenue is a little steep in spots. Be forewarned the wind up on the soccer field can be brutal but once in the woods no problem. Layer up if it is cold!

As always on our hikes guests are welcome and Waveny allows dogs on a leash. This venue should be another where it will be easy to keep distanced but have the opportunity to talk to each other in person, something we have missed during the pandemic.

The entrance to Waveny is at 677 South Avenue (Route 124) in New Canaan. There is ample parking.

 

CONTACTS: Dave McCollum and Bob Plunkett 

Trip report:

Our first hike of spring took place in magnificent Waveny Park in New
Canaan on a cloudy but pleasant morning. A group of 12 DMAers and
guests plus two dogs enjoyed the well groomed trails and the chance to
meet face to face rather than over Zoom.

We hiked a total of 2.5 miles in a little more than an hour over mostly flat
terrain on the former Lapham Estate, now owned by the Town of New
Canaan. The trails are mostly through woods but closely border the Merritt
Parkway for a relatively noisy stretch! Once away from the traffic, all was
serene again.

As has been our practice since the start of the Pandemic, no lunch was
scheduled after the hike.

 

Book Club: Unsinkable by James Sullivan, March 10, 2021

January 20, 2021 /

 

UNSINKABLE

FIVE MEN AND THE INDOMITABLE RUN OF THE USS PLUNKETT

BY JAMES SULLIVAN ‧ RELEASE DATE: DEC. 8, 2020

The captivating story of a World War II destroyer that saw plenty of action.

While conducting research on the Plunkett, which was “all over the place, intersecting with the greatest events and personages of the war,” Sullivan discovered that several crew members were still alive, so he interviewed nonagenarian veterans, as well as their children and grandchildren, in addition to his diligent combing of archives, journals, and ship’s logs. The result is a vivid portrait of the sailors, wives, girlfriends, and families and their world, in which the Plunkett’s battles often seem like interludes. As is typical in war, tedium was the norm, excitement came at rare intervals, and one horrendous incident ensured the ship’s place in history. Launched in 1940, the Plunkett was one of 514 destroyers that fought WWII; 71 were lost, the most of any ship. Even before war broke out, the Plunkett escorted convoys to Britain across the North Atlantic. In November 1942, it accompanied a massive fleet and army that crossed to North Africa during Operation Torch. In July 1943, the Allies invaded Sicily, and the Luftwaffe sank many Allied ships—but not the Plunkett, which also narrowly escaped damage during the invasion of the Italian mainland at Salerno. Matters changed on Jan. 24, 1944 in the sea off Anzio, where a swarm of attackers seemed to target the Plunkett. Countless bombs missed, but one struck, causing terrible damage and killing 53 men. Sullivan delivers a gripping account of what followed as the men fought the fires, rescued survivors, retrieved bodies and body parts, and limped into harbor. After three months of repairs in the U.S., the ship returned to Europe to serve again. Sullivan has done his homework, and readers will enjoy his generous digressions into biography, courtship, shore-leave horseplay, shipboard politics, and a postwar summary.

An outstanding addition to the still-active genre of WWII histories focusing on a single unit, ship, or bomber.

Hike Rowayton, Friday, January 15, 2021

January 7, 2021 /

“HIKING” ROWAYTON

FRIDAY JANUARY 15, 2021

      9:00 AM

                 MEET AT ROWAYTON MARKET*

Please join us for a three mile tour of the village of Rowayton.

We will start out from the Rowayton Market at 9:00 AM and hike around most of the perimeter of Rowayton. Lot’s of water views and interesting architecture and history. While there will be some modest hills, for the most part the hike will be relatively flat over paved surfaces. It can be windy so layer up!

Guests and dogs on a leash are welcome. Should be fun!

 

*THERE IS PLENTY OF PARKING IN THE LOTS ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE MARKET

 

Contacts:

Dave McCollum and Bob Plunkett

 

HIKING ROWAYTON
JANUARY 15, 2021

Led by David McCollum and Bob Plunkett, a hearty group of 20 including
several guests participated in a walking tour of the coastal village of
Rowayton on a cool and windy Friday morning.
Our route started at the Rowayton Market and proceeded south along
Rowayton Avenue to the end and then around Pine Point and Nearwater
Lane to South Beach. DMA member Peter Tombros, a Bell Island resident,
joined us to get us access to the Rocky Point promontory surrounded on
three sides by the Sound. Normally a great place to see Manhattan, but the
misty weather blocked our view.
After a windy and cold stop for sightseeing,, we walked the length of Bell
Island over the stone bridge to the Rowayton Yacht Club. At that point, we
split into two groups, one taking the Sammis Street shortcut back to the
Market, and the remainder continued up Bluff Avenue and then down
Wilson back to the Market. About one and three quarters hours for the
longer walk.
A good start to what we hope is a series of winter walks over local venues.

 

 

Book Club: Agent Sonya by Ben MacIntyre, February 10, 2021, 2:00

December 17, 2020 /

The New York Times bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor tells the thrilling true story of the most important female spy in history: an agent code-named “Sonya,” who set the stage for the Cold War. In 1942, in a quiet village in the leafy English Cotswolds, a thin, elegant woman lived in a small cottage with her three children and her husband, who worked as a machinist nearby. Ursula Burton was friendly but reserved, and spoke English with a slight foreign accent. By all accounts, she seemed to be living a simple, unassuming life. Her neighbors in the village knew little about her. They didn’t know that she was a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer. They didn’t know that her husband was also a spy, or that she was running powerful agents across Europe. Behind the facade of her picturesque life, Burton was a dedicated Communist, a Soviet colonel, and a veteran agent, gathering the scientific secrets that would enable the Soviet Union to build the bomb. This true-life spy story is a masterpiece about the woman code-named “Sonya.” Over the course of her career, she was hunted by the Chinese, the Japanese, the Nazis, MI5, MI6, and the FBI-and she evaded them all. Her story reflects the great ideological clash of the twentieth century-between Communism, Fascism, and Western democracy-and casts new light on the spy battles and shifting allegiances of our own times. With unparalleled access to Sonya’s diaries and correspondence and never-before-seen information on her clandestine activities, Ben Macintyre has conjured a page-turning history of a legendary secret agent, a woman who influenced the course of the Cold War and helped plunge the world into a decades-long standoff between nuclear superpowers

Book Club: Daniel Yergen, “The New Map”, Jan 13, 2021 @ 2:00

November 5, 2020 /

THE NEW MAP

ENERGY, CLIMATE, AND THE CLASH OF NATIONS

BY DANIEL YERGIN ‧ RELEASE DATE: SEPT. 15, 2020

The latest on global energy geopolitics from the pen of an expert.

Yergin is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of multiple magisterial volumes on world affairs as they relate to energy. In The Quest (2011), he described the stormy rivalry between an America struggling to maintain its hegemony in the face of upcoming rivals Russia and China. The following decade has not improved matters, and the current global pandemic is proving to be a disaster. However, bad news often makes for entertaining reading, and Yergin delivers a fascinating and meticulously researched page-turner. He maintains that an energy revolution has transformed the world to America’s benefit. However, it’s not wind and solar but fracking. American oil production had been dropping since 1970, but after 2000, fracking changed the game. In 2018, the U.S. overtook Russia and Saudi Arabia to again become the world’s largest oil producer. Production tripled between 2008 and 2020. Yergin astutely examines how other nations responded. Russia, with an economy “only slightly larger than Spain’s,” depends on oil income as much as the old Soviet Union. Responding to American oil sanctions, Putin has vastly improved relations with China, by many measures the world’s leading economy. “China,” writes the author, “has become what Britain had been during the industrial revolution—the manufacturing ‘workshop of the world.’ ” It’s already the largest producer of steel, aluminum, and computers as well as the largest energy consumer. Turning to the Middle East, Yergin describes an unhappy collection of failed states, civil wars, oppressive theocracies, bloody insurgencies, and wealthy ministates, all dealing with plummeting oil prices. The author views Trump with the same mild disapproval he applies to Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, and he chastises environmentalists for getting certain facts wrong. Yergin accepts that humans have dramatically affected the climate, but he doubts the practicality of proposed solutions.

Required reading. Another winner from a master.

Hike Sherwood Island State Park, Friday, Dec 11, 2020

October 28, 2020 /

Contact Dave McCollum or Bob Plunkett

“HIKING” SHERWOOD ISLAND STATE PARK

SHERWOOD ISLAND CONNECTOR

              WESTPORT, CT

      FRIDAY DECEMBER 11, 2020 AT 10:00

We will be walking about 3 miles through Sherwood Island State Park on mostly hard and gravel paths. Very little up and down. We will meet in the Pavilion parking lot at 10:00 AM. The Park hugs the Sound shoreline and is often quite windy. Dogs are permitted on a leash and, as always, bring anyone with you who would enjoy a one hour plus walk in a beautiful setting. NO LUNCH after.

HISTORY

Sherwood Island State Park is the oldest state park in Connecticut dating to 1914. The island itself was first settled by Daniel Sherwood in1787 where he built a grist mill. Over the next 70 years the land was farmed by many others but around 1860 the property became known as “Sherwood’s Island”

After the Connecticut State Park Commission was formed in 1911 the search for suitable shorefront property to buy was on. The first piece of the existing park was purchased in 1914 making this the oldest state park. The park officially opened in 1932 but not until 1950 did the Army Corps of Engineers build the jetties and extend the beaches. The Pavilion opened in 1959 and a 911 Memorial was added in 2002.

DIRECTIONS

This one is easy! Take Exit 18 off I-95 (Sherwood Island connector) and turn right towards the Sound. The road goes directly into the Park. Keep straight onto the wide roundabout and take the exit marked “Pavilion Parking”. We’ll meet at the front of that lot up towards the Pavilion.

 

 

Recap of hike:

A near record 22 DMA members, spouses and friends spent a wonderful hour and 45 minutes touring the perimeter of Sherwood Island on mostly flat and hard surface trails. The weather was magnificent as was the opportunity for hikers to see and talk to each other (even through our masks) rather than on Zoom. The easy terrain and wide paths made conversation possible and we took advantage of it by taking nearly two hours to walk three miles!

Sherwood Island, the oldest state park in Connecticut, covers 234 acres of mostly open shoreline but has a substantial wooded area as well. A beautiful feature of the park is the Connecticut 911 Memorial sited on a point with a direct view down towards New York City. The names of all Connecticut residents who died from that attack are memorialized on stones embedded on the monument. From that point we walked ¾ of a mile along East Beach to the end of the park at New Creek and then back to our starting point.

A thoroughly enjoyable day and a great way for us to get together outside during this pandemic. We will explore further walks over the winter.

Book Club: A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende, Dec 9, 2020 @ 2:00

October 28, 2020 /


A LONG PETAL OF THE SEA
BY ISABEL ALLENDE ; TRANSLATED BY NICK CAISTOR & AMANDA HOPKINSON

Two refugees from the Spanish Civil War cross the Atlantic Ocean to Chile and a half-century of political and personal upheavals.

We meet Victor Dalmau and Roser Bruguera in 1938 as it is becoming increasingly clear that the Republican cause they support is doomed. When they reunite in France as penniless refugees, Roser has survived a harrowing flight across the Pyrenees while heavily pregnant and given birth to the son of Victor’s brother Guillem, killed at the Battle of the Ebro. Victor, evacuated with the wounded he was tending in a makeshift hospital, learns of a ship outfitted by poet Pablo Neruda to take exiles to a new life in Chile, but he and Roser must marry in order to gain a berth. Allende (In the Midst of Winter, 2017, etc.) expertly sets up this forced intimacy between two very different people: Resolute, realistic Roser never looks back and doggedly pursues a musical career in Chile while Victor, despite being fast-tracked into medical school by socialist politician Salvador Allende (a relative of the author’s), remains melancholy and nostalgic for his homeland. Their platonic affection deepens into physical love and lasting commitment in an episodic narrative that reaches a catastrophic climax with the 1973 coup overthrowing Chile’s democratically elected government. For Victor and Roser, this is a painful reminder of their losses in Spain and the start of new suffering. The wealthy, conservative del Solar family provides a counterpoint to the idealistic Dalmaus; snobbish, right-wing patriarch Isidro and his hysterically religious wife, Laura, verge on caricature, but Allende paints more nuanced portraits of eldest son Felipe, who smooths the refugees’ early days in Chile, and daughter Ofelia, whose brief affair with Victor has lasting consequences. Allende tends to describe emotions and events rather than delve into them, and she paints the historical backdrop in very broad strokes, but she is an engaging storyteller. A touching close in 1994 brings one more surprise and unexpected hope for the future to 80-year-old Victor.

A trifle facile, but this decades-spanning drama is readable and engrossing throughout.

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