Person-to-Person Mail Carrier Food Drive. We are still looking for additional volunteers to spend 1 to 1 ½ hours after our general meeting on April 27 to staple information flyers to shopping bags in support of this effort to generate food donations for the P2P Food Pantry. There will be a sign-up sheet at this week’s general meeting (if we meet in person at the DCA) or you can reach out directly to Frank DeLeo via email (frankdeleo@hotmail.com) if you’d like to help. Easy work for a good cause. We’re looking for 10+ volunteers.
Category: Activities (Page 18 of 50)
Activities are gatherings that occur on a regular schedule, usually weekly, to enjoy a specific pastime.
Cruise the Norwalk Islands and Green’s Ledge Lighthouse on the Norwalk Maritime Center’s “Spirit of the Sound”. Revolutionary in design, this 64-foot all-aluminum catamaran was launched in 2015 as the first research vessel in North America with hybrid-electric propulsion. She runs virtually silently on electric power. It has an outside main deck, upper deck and inside cabin. (It also has a head). The capacity is 40 people.
The boat will cruise the scenic Norwalk Islands, including Sheffield Island and Green’s Ledge Light. It is an excellent area to view wildlife. Long Island Sound is an important feature of our community. DMA has had several speakers on the subject that you can review:
Tim Pettee, Saving Greens Ledge Light, April 22, 2020
Dick Delfosse: Norwalk Islands History, Secrets, Stories, Navigation, Wednesday, November 1, 2017
January 25, 2017 Joe Schnierlein Norwalk Aquarium The environmental conditions of Long Island Sound
Leigh Shemitz, Ph.D., president of SoundWaters, October 31, 2018
The boat will depart at 3:45 sharp. They must depart by then to get under a draw bridge that will not open between 4-6 for the rush hour. Come early – there is a comfortable place to hang out. Park at the foot of Washington Street. (The parking system is strictly enforced and is a little tricky to deal with – another reason to come early). The boat will return shortly after 6 when the bridge will again open for us. Cost is $30.
Snacks and grog are allowed onboard. Bring your own. No glass. We plan an optional dinner afterward at local restaurant.
Fee TBD.
See Frank DeLeo or Gary Banks.
Kiera Parrott, Director of the Darien Library will join us to talk about Darien’s policy for adding and removing books and other materials to the collection, also known as a “Collection Development Policy.”
We are postponing to the fall revisiting our discussion on alternative points of view on Global warming, Some told us we missed points of view. When we return in the fall John Wolcott will give an alternative point of view for us to discuss.
Then, if we have time, we are going to wrap up the year by discussing what the headlines are on May 12th. What’s on your mind? What is being discussed around the dinner table or golf course or wandering or hikes or bridge table, bowling alley, or the Pickleball court?
Some subjects have been suggested below.
Book Banning
These are books school systems don’t want you to read and why
Public Libraries Face Escalating Book Challenges
Book Ban Efforts Expand Across the United States
Banned Books Display in Maryland disturbs parents
In Some States “Don’t Say Gay Bills Have Been Around for a While
“Unparalleled in intensity-1,500 book bans in US School
Global Warming
Unsettled? What Climate Science Tells Us, What it doesn’t.
Net-Zero America: Potential Pathways, Infrastructure, and Impacts
Psychological Strategies for the Long Haul of Climate Action I Opinion Newsweek
With what we know when we meet, what is your view of Darien”s purchase of Great Island?
HIKING MIANUS RIVER GORGE PRESERVE
167 MIANUS RIVER ROAD
BEDFORD, NY
MONDAY APRIL 18, 2022
10:00 AM
This hike should take us 2.5 to 2.75 hours. NO DOGS ALLOWED.
No lunch after due to the Monday date when many restaurants are closed.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If Monday turns out to be a rainy day the hike will be postponed. If in doubt, please contact one of us below.
DIRECTIONS: Google maps or Waze both recognize “Mianus River Gorge Preserve, Bedford”. The Preserve is off of Long Ridge Road.
Do not confuse with a similar named place in Stamford.
CONTACTS: Dave McCollum or Bob Plunkett
Hike recap:
Twelve hikers spent a delightful 2.75 hours traversing over four miles of trails at Mianus River Gorge Preserve today. We started out with thirteen but one very wise DMA’er realized that his knee was acting up near the start and retired for the day. A good plan for him as the trail climbs steeply in spots to over 400 feet above the river. The halfway point is back down at the reservoir that the river feeds before it is distributed into the water systems of Greenwich, Rye and Port Chester. The return trip follows a mostly different path through terrain very unlike that directly along the gorge. This area has almost open fields and many stone walls, a result of the farming that took place well over a century ago.
This hike is one of the more spectacular venues we visit with its river views and water features along the way. Some glacier certainly distributed a million rocks around the preserve! Alas, no wildlife seen again. Thanks to Marilyn Parker for her consistently fine photography, and great hiking!
Dates and times have been finalized for these training sessions. All sessions are at Post 53 headquarters.
- Tuesday, May 24, 7:00 PM — CPR Certification training. $60 fee.
- Thursday, May 26, 7:00 PM — CPR Heartsavers training (non-certified). No fee.
- Thursday, June 2, 7:00 PM — Trauma/Falls training. No fee.
There will be sign-up sheets available at upcoming meetings. You can also reach out to Frank DeLeo via email to reserve a spot (frankdeleo@hotmail.com). Checks made out to Post 53 are requested when you sign up. There is limited space for the sessions so it will be first come, first served. If demand exceeds availability, we will offer more sessions in the fall.
We plan to clean up the roadside and shore along Pear Tree Road and the Goodwives Meadows Land Trust property on Saturday, April 23, 2022 from 1-3. Meet at Pear Tree Beach near the boat ramp. Wear boots – it could be muddy. Bring gloves.
Contact Gary Banks
DMA (Bill Cavers and Gary Banks), the Darien Coastal Commission and our First Selectman cleaned up the Goodwives River inlet on 4/23. The area included Pear Tree Point road and coastline as well as Goodwives Meadows, a Darien Land Trust property. The results were a haul of 350 pounds of trash!
Selleck and Dunlap Woods trail prep in advance of its May 15 Adventure Day. We are looking for volunteers to help Chris Filmer walk the trails, clip branches, pick up trash, etc. on May 13 from 11 am – 1 pm. Please contact Frank DeLeo (frankdeleo@hotmail.com) if you’d like to help.
Guided by DMA member Chris Filmer, who has been an active member of the nonprofit group dedicated to preserving Selleck’s Woods in Darien, Frank DeLeo, Charles Salmans and others helped rake leaves and prepare a children’s play area within this large nature preserve. Within the woods is an area dedicated to the fantasy play of young children, including an “I Spy” area to spot wildlife and a make-believe challenge of bridges, “spider webs” and other obstacles.
On Thursday morning, March 31, the Happy Wanderers will travel up the coast to New Haven. The group will assemble in the parking area to the rear of the DCA building at 8:15 am for an 8:30 am departure. Members, wives and guests will carpool to Pepe’s Pizza parking lot at 157 Wooster Street in New Haven whence we will be begin our walk, exploring the sites on the New Haven Green, the Yale campus and other architectural features of the historic Elm City. Following the walk of about 3 miles, the group will return to Pepe’s for lunch and then head back to Darien for a 4 pm arrival, well in advance of the DMA musical event of the evening. You are welcome to join us in this first spring wandering! Please contact David Mace or Joe Spain if you have questions.
The second catered musical event of the spring season will feature a string quartet from the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra who will perform for the DMA at St. Luke’s on Wednesday evening, April 27. The musical ensemble consists of four highly skilled and experienced chamber musicians, including Emanouil Manolov (violin), Suzanne Corey-Sahlin (viola), Gunnar Sahlin (cello) and Nina Crothers (violin). All perform regularly with the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra and each of them has an impressive resumé featuring performances all over the United States and the world.
Kirkus Reviews: A glowing biography of the famously cautious yet effective chancellor of Germany.
Marton, A Hungarian-born American foreign correspondent, clearly admires Angela Merkel (b. 1954), who has served as chancellor since 2005 and was hailed in a 2020 Pew Research poll as “the world’s most trusted leader, regardless of gender.” The author marvels especially at Merkel’s early years in East Germany, where her pastor father joined the call to serve the socialist East by moving his family from Hamburg to the rural hamlet of Templin, in the heart of the Soviet-occupied Democratic Republic of Germany. Indoctrinated in school, sealed off from the West by border walls in 1961, and spied on by her neighbors for the state security police, Merkel toed the line and kept a low profile while excelling at physics, first in Leipzig and then in East Berlin. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, she embraced a new profession: politics. When the East German DA party merged with the West German CDU, she became the mentee of the powerful Helmut Kohl. Working her way steadily up the ranks, Merkel ultimately assumed leadership of her party after Kohl left office. Unglamorous by choice, workmanlike to a fault, and used to sidestepping male egos, Merkel proved herself to be a deft civil servant and leader, especially in opening Germany’s borders to refugees in 2015 despite the backlash. “Her political rise,” writes Marton, “would be fueled by self-control, strategic thinking, and, when necessary, passive aggression.” Merkel’s determination to bolster Europe’s cohesion with French president Emmanuel Macron’s help and to strengthen ties between Europe and the U.S., despite opposition and/or apathy from the Trump administration, form her lasting legacy. Though the text is somewhat short on criticism, Marton clearly knows her subject and writes smoothly, pulling back the curtain on an enigmatic, significant world figure.
A human portrait more than a political one that amply captures the essence of a moral, determined leader.
Thank you all for including me in such learned conversation! It shows your knowledge and your affinity to my Heimat (word is explained in the book), and I am truly moved!Of course, for me, the greatest chancellor will always be West Germany’s first one, shown below on his birthday, turning 80 and receiving a poem recited by my older brother, Alex (to Adenauer’s right). We lived in Rhoendorf on Rhein at the time, a stone throw from the chancellor’s house, and Alex had been selected by his teacher. With your keen sense of observation, you will also have no problem finding yours truly in the crowd (in case my appearance has changed since then: Always a little forward, I am showing my face next to my brother). Bonn lies on the other side of the Rhein from the small town of Rhoendorf over a bridge, and was picked because it was so obviously a temporary solution until re-unification and the return of the government to Berlin. That this arrangement was also quite convenient for Adenauer, is a mere “coincidence”.
Again, thank you all for your interest in Germany and your friendship to one of her sons.
Bert
