On Thursday May 26, the Happy Wanderers will travel on Metro-North to the upper west side of Manhattan. We will visit Grant’s Tomb where Mamundi Subhas (who spoke to the DMA two months ago) will be our guide. We will also visit the site of the 1776 Revolutionary War battle of Harlem Heights. Nearby is The Riverside Church built by the Rockefellers and also the Columbia University campus. Time permitting, we will walk down to The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. We will then take the bus across 125th Street and return to Darien on Metro-North. During our wandering we will eat lunch at the appropriate time. Since this outing will likely be popular among DMA members, we will ask anyone interested to reserve a space with Joe Spain or David Mace. If we have openings closer to our time of departure, we will open participation to spouses and friends.
Category: Activities (Page 8 of 32)
Activities are gatherings that occur on a regular schedule, usually weekly, to enjoy a specific pastime.
Happy Wanderers are planning a trek to Flushing, Queens on Thursday, May 5; the group will depart by carpool from the DCA parking lot at 9 am. Among its other distinctions, Flushing is one of the most ethnically diverse areas of New York City, with large Chinese, Korean and Indian populations. The early Quakers settled here and built the second oldest public high school in the country. Wanderers will have lunch at a local dim sum restaurant before returning to Darien. If you have questions, contact Joe Spain, David Mace or Sunil Saksena.
1) At the enormous Chinese market on Flushing’s Main Street, featuring vegetables of all kinds, meat cuts both familiar and unfamiliar, fish, etc.
2) The group in front of one of New York’s oldest houses, that of John Bowne (1661). Bowne was an English immigrant who moved to what was then New Netherland. He and fellow Quakers were persecuted, Bowne was banished back to The Netherlands, made his case for religious freedom, and returned to Flushing two years later
3) The group at the entrance to Flushing High School, a 2,000 student, architecturally impressive high school built in 1912 and set on a five-acre campus. (Hard to capture the size of the building, so we took a photo at the entrance).
HIKING GREENWICH AUDUBON CENTER
GREENWICH, CT
10 AM MONDAY MAY 23, 2022
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. Probably no lunch but more later on that. 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 or Bob Plunkett
On a windy, but mild, morning 9 DMAers and 3 spouses hiked about 3 miles over varied terrain in just over 2 hours. The hike took a little longer than anticipated due to two navigation errors by the hike leaders. The first was due to a sign issue which seemed to direct us one way but meant the other. The second was a total lack of any signage at a fork in the trail. We, of course, took the fork but it turned out to loop us around onto a trail already hiked! Once we got that figured out, the rest of the hike went smoothly. One would think that the pre-hike we made two weeks ago would have ironed out any confusion but it did not! The conversation among hikers tends to distract navigation despite efforts to stay focused.
On the plus side, the wildlife sightings were way above average. Birds, butterflies, frogs and deer tracks were seen but the best was near the end where a mother duck and her 8 tiny ducklings were swimming in a pond.
This hike concludes the 2021-22 hiking season. Since September of 2021 we have gone on a hike every month for a total of 9. Thank you to all who participated. We will resume hiking in September.
Dave McCollum and Bob Plunkett
The spring DMA golf outing will be at Oak Hills Golf Club. 24 tee times have been reserved starting at 8:30. Let Bob McGroarty or Peter Carnes know if you’d like to play.
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?
On Monday, April 11, 2022, commencing at 9:00 am, Doug Campbell will host a virtual meeting of the Money Matters group when attendees will be joined by Eric Monies and Brandon Vaughan to discuss the topic of cryptocurrency and “NFTs” (non-fungible tokens that are part of the Ethereum blockchain).
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!
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.
On Thursday morning, March 31, the Happy Wanderers will travel to up the coast to New Haven. The group will assemble in the DCA parking lot 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.
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
On April 22nd, Jim Phillips will lead a Current Affairs discussion of the Electoral College. Its history and whether it is still relevant today. There are numerous arguments to change the system, but no one has come up with a better alternative; and if they did, it would be extremely difficult to receive enough votes to amend the Constitution. This should be a lively discussion given how it affected the 2016 Presidential election and others before that.
Articles
2 videos:
1) 10 minutes
2) A debate on whether the Electoral College has outlived its usefulness; Watch only if you have time. 1:35