By Bob Gaydos

Hawk, watching me watching it

Following my own advice, lately I’ve been trying to maintain a sense of serenity in an increasingly untidy world by being more conscious of what’s going on in my own chunk of it. What’s going on around me and what can I do, as physicist/author Thomas Campbell says, to reduce the entropy?

In the simplest terms, which is all I’m qualified to offer, Campbell’s book, “My Big TOE (Theory of Everything)”, uses physics and mathematics to explain, among other things, that consciousness is fundamental in the universe, and that the goal of the Larger Consciousness System is reduction of entropy, or disorder.

       As part of that system, I feel I have to do my part. So I focused on my world. No politics.

     Well, the biggest news story around here has been a massive fire that has consumed acres of forest around Greenwood Lake, a lovely spot which sits on the border of New York and New Jersey. The fire has raged for days in this area, which has been uncharacteristically rain-free for weeks. I’m trying not to speculate that global warming, which some people say doesn’t exist, has had any part in this change of weather pattern.

 The positive news is that no homes have been destroyed as of this writing and no evacuations have been necessary thus far. 

    However, an 18-year-old parks employee, helping with the massive fire control effort, was killed when a tree fell on him. A tragedy. And I’ve seen no account of the significant toll the fire has surely taken on the wildlife that call the forest home.

       Connecting those dots, it has been all too easy to notice the toll taken on wildlife in my neighborhood by the confluence of mating season, the end of Daylight Savings Time and the steady increase in land development and consequent reduction of forest space for deer to live  free and safely.

     A 10-minute drive this morning produced three deer carcasses on the side of the road. Another drive the other night, about 15 minutes, resulted in close encounters with half a dozen deer.

      Four friends of mine have had direct contact with deer this season, the result being one totaled Subaru, one dead buck and three trips to the repair shop. Fortunately, none of my friends was hurt.

       Counting raccoons, squirrels, foxes and other wildlife just out there looking for some food, there were more than 35,000 animal-related crashes in New York State in 2023, according to the Institute for Traffic Safety Management & Research. That’s about one every 15 minutes. 

      My limited contribution to reducing the entropy in this regard has been to utilize my cataracts-free eyes gratefully and diligently when on the road. Really, it’s more like self-preservation.

     As I was writing this column, I noticed a hawk sitting on a branch of a tree out back. Consciousness, I said to myself. So I sat and watched the hawk as the hawk sat and watched whatever was going on in our patch of New York.

     Not much. The dogs, much too big to be prey for this predator in any case, were in the house. There were no squirrels, chipmunks or rabbits to be seen. We, the hawk and I, sat and watched for 15 minutes. Very patient bird.

      Then, suddenly, he or she took off, flying swiftly to our neighbors’ property and an apparent target of opportunity. Out of my sight. Not sure I had much effect on the entropy there.

     But, as fate, or synchronicity, would have it, just as the hawk flew off, a bulletin from The New York Times popped up on my phone. Donald Trump was planning to nominate Rep. Elise Stefanik as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

      Talk about potential entropy. Stefanik went from being a fairly normal middle-of-the-road Republican to a number one Trump stooge and apologist literally overnight. No qualms. No apologies. No explanation.  Like that hawk, just waiting for her opportunity.

     Yeah, it’s politics, but she’s from upstate New York and strongly supported George Santos, the phony disgraced congressman from Long Island, when he ran for Congress. We like to keep our portion of the Empire State free from such, umm, entropy sources.

      Sorry, readers. Sorry, Mr. Campbell. Guess you could call that a slip. Creature of habit. 

By Bob Gaydos

     I was voter number 838 Sunday afternoon, Oct. 26, at the Government Center in Monticello, N.Y.. Row A, Kamala Harris and Democrats, all the way. “Yes” on New York State Proposition One extending protection against discrimination in several categories including pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes — Democrats’ preemptive effort to thwart possible Republican efforts to enact a national abortion ban.

            Republicans have forfeited any chance of consideration at the ballot box with their full-throated and conscience-free embrace of all things Trump, punctuated by the all-out salute to hatred and bigotry at his Sunday night Madison Square Garden rally. An utterly despicable display.

       In contrast, it was a pleasure casting the vote Sunday. A sunny afternoon. Lots of parking. No lines. Plenty of helpful volunteer poll workers. Name, address, signature. Smooth as silk. Well done, Sullivan.

       Of course, this is precisely the kind of thing Republicans have been trying to dismantle across the country — orderly, honest, uncomplicated voting. For all. When that happens everywhere, they tend to lose nationally because their policies don’t sit well with many Americans. Especially for the past decade when their only policy has been to oppose anything Democrats propose. It’s hard to run a two-party system of government that way.

       That’s why Trump and the MAGAs want it their way: one ruler with absolute power and a bunch of flunkies to make it happen. Essentially eliminate all marginalized citizens — non-white, non-straight, non-Christian — who might expect support from their government by eliminating their vote and the votes of those who support the concept of equal rights and opportunity (those Trump calls “the enemy within”).

       It wasn’t that long ago that women were on that list of marginalized citizens. Not anymore. They have the vote and tend to vote in larger numbers than men. They have a candidate this year who understands their concerns and those of the citizens who were targets of ugly “jokes” and comments in Madison Square Garden Sunday night.

       Early voting numbers are up in many areas of the country where it hasn’t always been as easy as it was in Monticello Sunday afternoon. I’d like to think it’s a positive sign for Kamala Harris and those who want to protect and preserve democracy in America. 

          Vote like your freedom depends on it.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

Almost ripe gooseberries. RJ Photography

  Change is inevitable, they say, so the best course is to try to learn from it. For example, moving from an urban environment, which I lived in for most of my life, to a rural one required learning some new skills.

     Some are more important than others. Pruning and harvesting gooseberry bushes without getting cut up by thorns is one of the more esoteric ones.

     I’m learning.

    “How’d you get those scratches on your arms?”

     “It’s gooseberry season.”

     “Huh?”

     “Thorns.”

     That was a recent conversation. With temperatures in the high 90’s, I went after the spreading bushes while wearing a T-shirt. Good thing the berries are juicy.

        But not just that. They also have history. I’d never heard of gooseberries before becoming countrified and I imagine a few of you haven’t either. That’s because they were banned in America for decades.

      Early in the 20th century, federal and state governments banned the growing of currants and gooseberries to stop the spread of white pine blister rust. Basically, the fungus was killing white pine trees, which were vital to the construction industry in the country.

     It seems the blister rust fungus completes its life cycle only when gooseberries or currants and pine trees are living in close proximity to each other. Rather than cut down all the pine trees to save the gooseberry bushes, the decision was made to stop growing gooseberries to save the pine trees. Hard to argue with that.

      Yet here we are with seven very healthy gooseberry bushes waiting to be harvested. What happened? Are they illegal? Not anymore.

       Science saved the gooseberries as well as the pine trees. By mid-century, cross-breeding programs had been developed using remaining pine trees to develop varieties resistant to the rust. That meant gooseberries could be living safely in the neighborhood with the pine trees.

    The federal ban was lifted in 1966, although some states still have restrictions on cultivating or shipping gooseberries.

      But not ours. 

     In 2003, New York state passed a law to allow commercial growers and home gardeners to legally grow red currants, gooseberries and immune or resistant cultivars of black currants throughout the state. We’re legal.

     For the record, according to info I gleaned from the Cornell Cooperative Extension, the berries I’ll soon be picking are the “Pixwell” variety developed in North Dakota in 1932. They are “easy to propagate, commonly sold three-foot bushes with small thorns … that bear medium-sized fruit that starts out green and turns purple upon ripening.”

       Right. Funny how they kind of just glided through that “small thorns” item.

                           ***

(Note: “The word ‘gooseberry’ comes from the old German name for the berries, Kräuselbeere, which means ‘curled or crimped berries.’ This name became grossularia in Medieval Latin, then groseille in French, and finally ‘gooseberry’ in English. The ‘r’ may have been dropped at some point during the transition.” 

— This is from Google AI. You’re on your own regarding its accuracy.)

By Bob Gaydos

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

    Once upon a time, in an America in which politicians discussed, debated, argued and compromised in order to pass laws for the betterment of the nation, a man named Robert F. Kennedy ran for president.

       He had previously served as attorney general of the country and was a key adviser to the president, who happened to be his brother, John F. Kennedy.

       President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 and his brother, commonly called Bobby, eventually moved from Massachusetts (where his younger brother, Ted, would serve as senator for 47 years) to New York, where he was elected senator. Bobby served New York from 1965 to 1968, when he, too, ran for president.

       Life being sometimes cruelly unpredictable, Bobby Kennedy was also assassinated, being shot to death in a hotel kitchen while campaigning in California in 1968.

       Today, in an America in which one of the two major political parties has abandoned negotiation for fear, threats, lies and violence, Kennedy’s son, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., trading on the family name and legacy, is running for president. 

     Not as a Democrat, like his father and uncles, but as an independent candidate. Unfortunately, this apple has fallen far from the family tree. So far, in fact, that every member of his family has endorsed Democrat Joe Biden for president and encouraged Americans not to vote for RFK Jr. 

      When I decided to write about Kennedy’s third-party candidacy, it was mostly because I was angry that he would likely take votes away from Biden, since many Americans, while pridefully long on opinions, are woefully short on actual information. I thought, they’ll see the Kennedy name, think progressive Democrat, and figure, what the heck, he’s a lot younger than Joe.

      Yeah, but he’s more like Donald Trump and the Republican Party, which has abandoned all traditional American political principles. A lot more like Trump, in fact.

     Kennedy is a conspiracy theorist. An anti-vaccine activist. He says he’ll put the country on Blockchain currency if elected president. He threw the environmental group largely responsible for reclaiming the Hudson River, not far from me, into turmoil when he decided he wanted to take it over.

   And he’s definitely anti-Democrat. In fact, Kennedy’s New York campaign manager specifically said Junior was running as an independent, knowing full well he has no chance of winning, in order to take votes away from Biden.

    But guess what? Life being, as I said, unpredictable, those annoying polls, which keep popping up with dubious information, have apparently started showing Kennedy taking more votes away from Trump than from Biden.

     Maybe it’s the same theory: What the heck, he’s just as nutty and he’s a lot younger than Trump.

     For what it’s worth, Trump never got more votes than his opponent and he truly cannot afford to lose votes to a third-party candidate. Much more so than Biden, So Republicans are worried about Bobby Junior, too.

      I don’t know and I really don’t think the pollsters know. I do know that no third-party candidate is going to get elected president and that Americans who are familiar with history and cherish democracy have a duty to educate others who are familiar only with the name, Robert F. Kennedy. Names can be deceiving.

      I saw and heard Bobby Kennedy campaign for the presidency in person. This is not that Bobby Kennedy.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

The Granderson shirt.

    I wore the Granderson shirt the other day. For the second time. The first time I wore it was more than six years ago. Donald Trump had just moved into the White House, I was recovering from a serious automobile accident and they hadn’t started playing baseball for real yet. Yeah, fun times.

     Still, the good news was that I had lost a significant amount of weight thanks to a more healthful diet and a bit of exercise, gotten into better shape and, noticing the Granderson shirt at the bottom of the shirt drawer, I decided to try it on. Again.

     I say again because the shirt had been given to me a few years earlier as a gift for either my birthday or Christmas by my son, Zack. He had inherited my rooting interest in the New York Yankees and at one time my favorite player on the team was Curtis Granderson. So Zack gave me the Granderson shirt, which was very thoughtful and appropriate. But it didn’t fit because I was inappropriately overweight.

     But, voilà, at this somewhat depressing time six years ago, I decided to try the shirt on again and it fit. Sort of. Let’s say I could wear it without being embarrassed. It also provided me an opportunity to write a little about sports, something an old sports editor can’t resist. And, as I’ve shared before, I often look to sports to start the day with some good news.

It fits.

      Well, the really good news is that when I found the Granderson shirt still at the bottom of the shirt drawer the other day and put it on, it fit perfectly. Clean living had finally paid off.

    So this old Yankee fan wore the Granderson shirt. The Yankee one, number 14. I specify Yankee because, as New York sports fans know, Granderson also played for the Mets. And, to get to the actual news in all this, the former outfielder for both New York teams was recently inducted into the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame, which I didn’t even know existed.

    I came upon this bit of information, not surprisingly, via Facebook. A meme posting from the organization informed me that Granderson and Darryl Strawberry, who also played for both the Yankees and Mets, were among 16 recent inductees into the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame.

     At a time when Trump still dominates headlines and TV airtime because of the 91 felony indictments among other things, I thought it was nice synchronicity for sports  to show up again to remind us of something positive.

       The New York State Baseball Hall of Fame has been in existence since 2011, but opened its new museum just this past July, in Gloversville, which is a 45-minute drive from the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, thereby putting upstate New York on the map for traveling baseball fans.

       Granderson and Strawberry, two hard-hitting outfielders, all-stars and fan favorites were naturals for induction to this New York-focused hall. As a major leaguer, Granderson was respected, not only for his baseball talent, but for his contributions to the community at large. He was an intelligent and articulate spokesperson for the sport and for sportsmanship in general and worked with inner-city kids. He was also a streaky home run hitter and could strike out a lot. He’d fit right in today if he were playing.

    Strawberry was also a power hitter, known for booming home runs, but his most powerful story today is of his recovery from alcoholism and drug abuse, a story he freely shares with those who need to hear a message of hope. He and his wife have set up a foundation which helps pay for treatment for addicts.

      So these two recently joined the ranks of other New Yorkers or those with strong New York connections who have contributed over the years to the sport of baseball — professionals and amateurs, players and coaches, executives and writers and announcers as well as the 22 New York-born major leaguers who are also enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame just down the road.

      A quick check of other inductees into the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame produces the name of Joe Nathan (induction class of 2018), who was a standout pitcher for the Minnesota Twins and Pine Bush High School, where my son, Zack, and his brother, Max, both graduated.

        Synchronicity. Nice to have another shirt to wear. Thanks again, Zack.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

Aaron Rodgers’ Jets season, and maybe his career, end after four snaps in the Meadowlands.

   “What fools we sports fans be.”*

    Sports (is/are) often looked upon as a microcosm of life, offering highs, lows, stirring victories, deflating defeats, rewards, failures, memories and might-have-beens, despair and, seemingly always, hope and, as a town that prides itself on providing something for everyone, New York delivered in spades for sports fans on all of that in the past few days with the (1.) incredible situation in which New York Jets fans, whose team won its opening game on a 65-yard punt return TD in overtime, possibly feel worse than New York Giants fans, whose team (2.) was embarrassed on the same field the day before, losing to the hated Dallas Cowboys, 40-0, because (3.) the Jets lost their new future Hall of Fame quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, after just four snaps when he went down with a torn left Achilles tendon (the Greeks knew drama, too), and is out for the season and, at 38, maybe for good, meaning all that money and preseason time spent training the team to play the way Rodgers plays may have been wasted, or (4.) maybe not, since the Jets former starting quarterback, Zach Wilson took over and played well enough to win and the defense stymied the vaunted but sloppy Buffalo Bills offense, all of which took the spotlight off (5.) 19-year-old local girl Coco Gauff winning the U.S. Open tennis championship at Forest Hills, joining Serena Williams and Tracy Austin as the only American teenagers to win the tournament, a feat she (6.) immediately gave thanks for by dropping to her knees in prayer, which apparently confused some people, but not as much as the news that (7.) the New York Yankees’ potential new centerfielder (and former Hudson Valley Renegade), rookie Jasson (The Martian) Dominguez, a 20-year-old sensation who has been hitting home runs with astonishing regularity since joining the team a short while ago, has been diagnosed with a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow that will (8.) require surgery, ending his 2023 season and likely costing him the first half of 2024, this being (9.) only the latest in a season of mysterious injuries to key Yankees players, (10.) raising questions (at least here) about the capabilities of the team’s training regimen, something that was never in doubt concerning (11.) Deion Sanders, a former Yankees top draft pick, who played 14 years in the NFL and nine years in Major League Baseball, including a day in which he played an NFL game in between two baseball playoff games, who earned the nickname Neon Deion for his flashiness and thus had lots of doubters when he said he would (12.) take over and coach the unheralded University of Colorado football team into a winner, then proceeded to (13.) lead them to stunning wins over TCU and Nebraska in the first two weeks of the season (14.) with his son, Shadeur, starring at quarterback (talk about good genes) and stirring thoughts about winning combinations and fond memories of former champions, such as (15.) the cast assembled in the Bronx for Old Timers Day, which featured the “Core Four” of the Yankees’ 1998 World Series champions: Andy Pettite, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Derek ! Jeter, incredibly now an oldtimer, who got his 3,000th hit on a long ago Old Timers Day, back in the town that on this weekend truly had something to offer every sports fan.

     “All the world’s a stage,  And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances …”**

(PS: The Mets were out of town and lost a game, but hired a new head of baseball operations.)

(PPS: Just to top it all off, the day after Old Timers Day, the Yankees were held hitless by the Milwaukee Brewers for 11 innings, got a game-tying two-run home run by Giancarlo Stanton in the 12th and a walkoff double by Kyle Higashioka to win in the 13th. But hardly anybody noticed.)

*Slightly edited Shakespeare.

**Real Shakespeare.

By Bob Gaydos

   With the virtual disappearance of local newspapers, the crisis-of-the-moment atmosphere of news on television, heightened in recent years by social media, it’s easy for local happenings of note to sometimes slip by, umm, unnoticed. No cameras, no crowds, no name-calling, nothing going on here, folks. Just keep driving.

     Well, the other day as we drove a familiar route on Route 17 in slightly upstate New York, passing from Sullivan County into Orange County, I noticed an unfamiliar sight — a sign reading “Welcome to The Maurice D. Hinchey Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area.”

     Where did that come from? I wondered. What does it mean?

   Some research revealed that the entire Hudson River Valley, including counties bordering on both sides of the river, was designated by Congress in 1996 as the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area “to interpret, preserve and celebrate the nationally-significant cultural and natural resources of the Hudson River Valley.”

    I assume I heard about it at the time and forgot. Considering  the river’s role in so much of this nation’s history, from the Dutch settlers to the Revolutionary War, to the Hudson River School of Painters and the wealthy industrialists living in the valley, that designation makes a lot of sense. So, good for Congress.

     The area was officially renamed in honor of Maurice D. Hinchey in 2019. Considering that Hinchey probably did more than anyone else to save and preserve the river, that makes even more sense. Even better for the politicians.

     But what took them so long? And does just putting up a sign along the highway do Hinchey justice? I don’t think so. People, especially those new to the area and those just passing through, ought to know something about the name on the sign.

    So … Maurice Hinchey built a reputation in his 17 years in the State Legislature as the premier champion and defender of the environment in New York state. As longtime chairman of the Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee, he cracked down on polluters, investigated organized crime control of waste hauling, made Love Canal and toxic waste a national issue and, perhaps most importantly, raised an awareness of the importance of protecting our natural resources as a key to economic growth.

     Cleaning and preserving the Hudson River was one of his major priorities and no one worked more diligently at that.

     In addition to his 17 years in the state legislature, Hinchey served 20 years in Congress, representing an area that stretched from his home county of Ulster to the Finger Lakes region. He was a vocal opponent of fracking and consistently fought to bring resources to the Hudson Valley region that would improve the environment and boost the economy at the same time.

     A frequent visitor at the offices of The Times Herald-Record in Middletown, he spoke quietly and knowingly and dressed sharply. In sum, he was an impeccable champion for the region.

     Hinchey died in 2017, in his hometown of Saugerties, in the Hudson Valley. He was 79. Having survived cancer, he succumbed to frontotemporal degeneration, a rare terminal neurological disorder, according to his family. I was saddened when I heard the news, but his legacy as the champion of the Hudson River Valley had already been assured many years earlier.

     In fact, that legacy may be growing. Hinchey’s daughter, Michelle, a Democrat like her father, was elected to the State Senate in 2020, representing much of the same area that her father did. Among other things, she has been focusing on renewable energy and sustainable agriculture. She appears to be well aware of why her father’s name is on that new sign on Route 17.

    Hopefully, now you are, too.

                                  *** 

     From the National Park, Service website: The Hudson River Valley NHA is managed by the Hudson River Valley Greenway, a New York State sponsored program created to facilitate the development of a regional strategy for preserving scenic, natural, historic, cultural and recreational resources while encouraging compatible economic development and maintaining the tradition of home rule for land use decision-making.

The sites: https://www.hudsonrivervalley.com/sites

Bob Gaydos was editorial page editor of the Times Herald-Record of Middletown, NY, for 23 years.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

     I voted early. Easy. No lines at the Government Center in Monticello at 2:30 on Tuesday a week before Election Day. Helpful, pleasant volunteers. I voted for every Democrat across Row A. Also easy. There was really no other choice.

    The hamlet where I live is tucked in to the southeastern tip of Sullivan County in upstate New York, about an hour’s drive to New York City. It’s between the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson River Valley. Pretty country. A lot of it is Republican country, but not as much as it used to be. Our area’s congressman and state legislators are all Democrats. A recent development.

       When I say there was no other choice on the ballot aside from Democrats, I don’t mean there were no Republicans running for federal, local or state offices. I mean, in my opinion, no Republican candidate for office even deserved consideration for my vote if he or she had failed to publicly voice any kind of criticism of the Trump disaster despite having six years and countless opportunities to do so. Two impeachments. The election conspiracy/lie. Thousands of other lies. The January 6 Insurrection incitement. Classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Threats of violence. And, of course, total incompetence. Nothing.

       Republican silence on Trump goes well beyond party loyalty to the realm of blind allegiance to their leader and/or sheer cowardice, neither of which I want in an elected official at any level. As far as I can tell, it is a pandemic of its own within the Republican Party in every state at every level. Silence, obedience … or unhinged vocal support.

          I cannot think of one local Republican official in the three-county area (Orange, Sullivan, Ulster) which I call home who has publicly said a negative word about Trump. Not one. Six years. To do so, many apparently fear, would cost them votes and maybe end their political careers. The thought that it might gain them respect and new votes apparently hasn’t occurred to them.

         Of course, there are those Republicans who support Trump vocally, if not vigorously, yet deny that this defines them as racist, bigoted, fascistic, phony, cruel, anti-science, anti-free press, ignorant of the law, misogynistic, double-dealing, anti-education, anti-veteran, hypocritical, self-absorbed, lazy liars. There’s more, but you know it all. If the Republican Party, individually and as a whole, supports Trump, it is Trump. The whole ugly package.

  Full disclosure: Most of what you’ve read so far is repeated from a column I wrote two years ago, prior to the presidential election.  Fortunately, Democrats prevailed. Yet, today, many of the leading voices in the Republican Party still parrot Trump’s lie that the election was stolen from him. Indeed, Republican candidates for all sorts of state and local offices also repeat the lie. For many it’s their only campaign issue. Truthfully, the only issue Republicans seem to have is to gain power and maintain it in any way possible, legal or otherwise. Violence is apparently not ruled out.

     That’s a pretty harsh statement, but I repeat, I see no evidence that it is offbase. The only Republicans who have criticized Trump have been ostracized from the party. The silent ones are complicit in what I believe is the greatest threat to our democracy in my lifetime.

    I am 81 years old and after more than a quarter century of writing editorials for daily newspapers I never imagined I would write these words. But then I never imagined one of the two major political parties would abdicate all responsibility to govern in favor of creating an authoritarian system of government designed primarily to protect conservative white Christians. 

      This column is directed primarily at those who say their vote doesn’t matter. Or that both parties are the same. Wrong. Every vote for every office matters this year. Joe Biden’s two years as president with a Democratic Congress produced meaningful legislation for all Americans. If Republicans control Congress, there will be two years of stalemate and phony hearings, but no meaningful legislation. If they control state governments, no Democratic victory will be accepted. Constant turmoil.

     Vote like democracy depends on it, America,  because it does. And vote for every Democrat on the ballot. Please.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.

The world in 500 words or less …

By Bob Gaydos     

Thomas Webster at the Capitol.

   History came to my area of slightly upstate New York twice in one week recently, but not in a celebratory way. The history was announced in newspaper headlines. Both involved “firsts.”  Some might have regarded these historic moments as simply the result of unfortunate circumstances, but they made me think of the choices we make.

        The headlines linked two of the biggest stories in the world — the Jan. 6 Insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and the war in Ukraine — with two men with ties to Orange County, N.Y. 

•  The Insurrection: Thomas Webster, 54, a retired New York City police officer, was the first person arrested in connection with the riot to defend himself at trial by claiming Capitol police officers had used excessive force against the violent mob seeking to overturn the 2020 election results and maybe hang Mike Pence. Interesting defense choice right there.  After viewing videos of Webster profanely berating the officer, beating him with a metal flag pole, tackling him and grabbing the officer’s gas mask, the jury took only two hours to find the former Marine guilty of assault and other charges. Married and with a family, Webster started a landscaping business in Orange County after serving 20 years as a New York City cop. He said he chose to go to Washington, D.C., alone and carrying that flag pole, on that fateful day to hear Donald Trump speak about how the election had been stolen. Webster said he became agitated as the pro-Trump crowd approached the Capitol. Once there, he joined the melee and, like many others, was photographed doing so. Now, the man who once served on the protective detail of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, faces a possible 20 years in prison. 
• Ukraine: Willy J. Cancel, a native of Orange County, graduate of Newburgh Free Academy, Walden volunteer firefighter, was reportedly the first American to die in combat against Russian forces in Ukraine. A former Marine who, reports said, had not received an honorable discharge and had never been deployed, Cancel was a corrections officer in Tennessee. But his family said he was also employed by a military contracting company. Soldier-for-hire might be considered an unusual second-job choice for a 22-year-old man with a wife and seven-month-old child. That company sent him to Ukraine, where he died. Cancel was praised back home for his service and bravery. A Go Fund Me site has been created on Facebook for his widow and infant child.

     I don’t know anything else about either of these men and am in no position to understand, much less judge, the choices they made. Their stories just reminded me that, what may seem to some like reasonable, even honorable, choices can have unintended, dire consequences. Even historic ones.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.

By Bob Gaydos

Kathy Hochul is sworn as New York’s 57th governor.

      Move over FDR and Teddy R. Step aside, Mr. Harriman, Mr. Rockefeller. Make way for history, John Jay, Martin Van Buren and Grover Cleveland. In fact, Al Smith, Ham Fish, George Pataki et al, how about a round of applause? This week, August 24 to be precise, New York State got its first woman governor.

      It only took 231 years. Thirty states managed to accomplish this feat before New York. The new governor of New York is Kathy Hochul. Until recently, most New Yorkers had never heard of her. That’s true of most lieutenant governors, but most lieutenant governors don’t get to become governor when the actual governor resigns. That’s how Hochul got the job. No matter. Her moment in history deserves more recognition than it has received. 

        Let’s start with the irony of the situation. Andrew Cuomo, whom Hochul replaced as governor, chose her as his running mate in 2014 because she was from upstate and because he thought a woman on the ticket would bring him more votes. He used her for political reasons. Cuomo was forced to resign, of course, because nearly a dozen women accused him of using them to address his sexual needs. He denied the charges, but bowed to overwhelming pressure from fellow Democrats to resign.

           Perhaps the most damaging response to the allegations came from the state attorney general, Letitia James, whose investigation produced a report that described a “hostile work environment” created by Cuomo’s actions. James, also a Democrat, through her involvement in investigating Donald Trump’s taxes, has become one of the best-known, politically influential women in a state that for a long time did not encourage such ambition.

         In fact, the state did not have a female senator until 2002, when Hillary Clinton, a transplant from Washington,  D.C,, won election. She was succeeded by Kirsten Gillebrand when Barack Obama tapped Clinton to be his Secretary of State. Gillebrand is still in the Senate, but is not necessarily influential in New York politics. Nor has any of the several congresswomen elected over the years from the New York metropolitan area been especially influential in state politics.

          State government has been a boys club for a long time in New York. Hochul says she’s ready to integrate that club by running for election, and winning, on her own next year. She will undoubtedly face a tough primary challenge, but first she has the challenge of the ongoing Covid pandemic to deal with as well as that lingering hostile environment around the governor’s office. Can she do it? She said she intends to do both in her swearing-in remarks.

        How well she handles those challenges may hold the answer to another question: Can a one-term congresswoman and former county clerk, who spent most of her time in Albany as a goodwill ambassador to the state’s 62 counties, convince New Yorkers that she can run their government?

          By the way, Hochul is not the only New York lieutenant governor to make history in stepping up to the governorship. Basil Paterson became the first African-American To be governor of New York and first legally blind person to be governor of any state. He succeeded Eliot Spitzer, who resigned in 2008 after news reports said that he had patronized a prostitution ring run by an escort service in Washington, D.C. The FBI had a tap on the premises. 

        Paterson did not seek election to the governorship in 2011, giving way to Andrew Cuomo. (It really is all connected.) But Paterson did appoint Gillibrand to Clinton’s vacant Senate seat. He also became the focus of a recurring skit on Saturday Night Live. 

       Back to Hochul. Hillary Clinton still lives in New York and if there’s anything she loves to do, it’s breaking up good old boys clubs. Stay tuned.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com