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They say a picture is worth a thousand words so I guess this section’s pages will have the equivalent of a billion words… HOWEVER, I am waaaaaaaaaaay behind on this page…
My goal was to be chronological but I have hundreds and hundreds of pictures – many I’m not sure of the exact year and every time I start to work on this page I hit that hurdle and get side tracked.
My Mom graduated from Chestertown HS around 1951…
This is my Dad’s Greenwich HS graduation picture from 1936…
And here’s the school band – Dad’s behind the snare drum…
In a strange twist of fate, some 69 years later (2005), I was hired as the district’s Micro Computer Specialist… my office is in the building where he went to school and I walk across that very stage almost daily… his diploma is in a frame on the wall in my office… 🙂
Here’s Dad on the Greenwich Baseball Team…
I was born in 1960 in Glens Falls Hospital, yada, yada, yada… grew up in Lake George, NY… we were homeless for a stretch in the late 60’s – living at the drive-in theatre where they both worked at the time. I graduated from Lake George High School in 1978 majoring in Mathematics and Business and settled in Queensbury in 2005.
My brother Larry came along in 1962… a former trumpeter, is an accomplished bagpiper and enjoying retirement to its fullest… 🙂
Quick side story… back in the mid-80’s I was working part time as an Adjunct in the Music Department at what was then Adirondack Community College… the college also hosted the local community band and symphony orchestra in which I was also a member… during this time I became friends with a Psychology teacher who was also an amazing bassoonist and saxophonist named Percy Ferguson and his teenage son Pete who was a fantastic trumpet player – especially for his age… I later learned that Percy’s brother was none other than trumpet legend Maynard Ferguson!! I told him of one of my and my brother’s favorite memories from high school was attending one of Maynard’s clinics and concerts in Gloversville back in the late 70’s… after that, they’d always let me know when he was playing nearby…
Over the years, Pete and I became great friends and regular tennis adversaries… then he started calling when Maynard was coming and we’d head out, meet the bus and hang out until the show that night… flash forward to November of 2000… this is where my brother comes back in the story…
Pete toured with Maynard right up until his passing… he calls me the day before they played the Troy Music Hall in Troy, NY and asks me to do him a favor and I said sure but didn’t tell Larry – only that we had to leave a little early…
We drove to the Holiday Inn in Troy and waited in the lobby… for Maynard’s valet… AND Maynard HIMSELF!! We loaded them and the boss’s horns into my van and I drove them to the venue where Larry got out with Maynard and Sarge and carried his horns!! He still talks about that… 🙂
I have to stop right here for a minute since Newhart fans are probably dying to ask where my ‘other brother Daryl’ is thanks to the old Bob Newhart Show… oddly enough, we DO have a half sister Cheryl (Larry, Daryl and CHERYL (close enough?)… boy will we be glad when that show fades from memory…
Cheryl lives in MA with her husband Carl (below with my brother and I from a while back)…
Dad passed away in 1986 after a lengthy battle with Diabetes and bleeding ulcers that eventually took part of his leg and much of his eyesight and Pneumonia which ultimately took his life…
Larry got married and he and his wife Terri both retired from the Warren County Sheriff’s Department in 2019 but Terri went back to work as an Investigator…
Mom turns 94 in June of 2026!!
She was 88 back in 2020 and we would usually be preparing for her ‘summer tour’!! She loves music so attending as many summer concerts as possible (and sampling their food offerings) has become the norm – whether I’m playing in it or not. 🙂
But a hip replacement in February of 2020, the COVID pandemic and some really bad information given to her by a social worker (who was later fired by the state) at the Pines of Glens Falls would turn her life upside down…
The surgery went great!! They had her up and moving and the plan was to repeat that later in the day and send her home… WAIT?!? No Rehab?? They told her that her insurance didn’t cover short term rehab and she would have to go home… they gave her a pain pill, got her up later in the day and she was moving very well… when she got back to bed, she started throwing up… no one could figure out why but they kept her overnight…
The next day they had her up again and all was well with her hip but she kept complaining that it felt like something was stuck in her throat… the vomiting stopped and she was sent home where I moved in for the week on a Tuesday… I had her doing her exercises but couldn’t get her to eat much other than pudding or applesauce and would only drink water (and she loves her coffee)… I had gigs on the weekend so my brother took my place with her and Sunday morning he texted me that she was in an ambulance and heading back to the hospital!!
She had a different experience this time… old country doctor who determined that there was nothing stuck in her throat but that pain pill they gave her the first day had lodged in her throat and burned a hole!! Once treated for that she started eating normally again… we told him the story about the rehab to which he replied, “That’s bullshit!! We’ll get you in rehab!!” and they sent her to the Pines on Warren Street in Glens Falls, NY.
She did great in rehab – probably because the surgery was over a week ago) and was set to be released just as COVID began shutting everything down… the afore mentioned social worker scared the Hell out of her – telling her that, if she went home and it didn’t work out, she’d never get back in there and she should immediately apply for residency!! Mom panicked!! She filled out the paperwork, gave away her clothes and furniture, give up her car, her apartment and her independence!!
Two weeks later, the Pines staff told her she should go HOME because she ‘didn’t need the type of care they offered‘… but now she had no home and we sadly didn’t have room in our tiny house with Julie, Selena, myself, 2 dogs, a cat and a pygmy hedgehog so she was stuck.
Then COVID hit everybody hard and the facility (and the whole world) went into lockdown!! She was a prisoner and we couldn’t see her and she couldn’t even leave her room for over a YEAR!!… And that hip was never an issue… that social worker deserved to be fired in my opinion and the state apparently agreed and led her out a few months later…
As of February 2026 the place continues to be a total shit show but she’s making the best of it but it should have never happened!! I try to help by ‘breaking her out’ about every other day for shopping and a quick bite and some of our favorite eateries.
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In the meantime… in June 2018, Selena was about to graduate and turned 18 at the end of the month. She chose to have her graduation and birthday parties combined and early (2nd week of June) so as not to conflict with the parties of kids she wanted to invite. She wanted a Mardi Gras theme and between family and friends bringing food and beverages and the tasty Cajun cuisine we ordered from Nanola the party was a huge success!!
One of my duties in the weeks leading up to it was to put together a slideshow we could loop throughout the day… I spent weeks putting it together and finding what I thought was just the right music and converting old VHS-C videos to digital so I could include them… by the time I was finished it was about 90 minutes long!! Great for a loop – not so great if you really wanted to watch it… If you’re in the latter group and have some time to kill, click the image at left and kick back for a little retrospective… 🙂
I suppose a little background is in order…
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Julie and I met back when I worked the front desk of the local YMCA (minimum ‘rage’ and all the pride I could swallow)… We started dating on August 14, 1993 when I invited her on a trip to East Providence, RI… I was on the writing and teaching staff as well as a marching member of the Capital Brass Sr. Drum & Bugle Corps out of Albany, NY and thought she might like to ‘get away’ so I brought her along on the long bus ride but I’m sure she had no idea what it was all about…
We arrived at the rehearsal site early in the morning but by mid morning it was already sweltering. By mid-afternoon it was well over 100 in the shade (and we were in the sun)!! Thank goodness for the ice cream truck that happened to roll by at which point I gave the drumline a well deserved break and treated them all to ice pops and popsicles.
Julie kept an eye on some other member’s kids (she’s always been great with kids) so the adults could try to focus on practice in the extreme heat. A couple run-throughs, cold showers, a light bite then off to the stadium to get dressed and warm up. The corps placed 5th that night behind the Caballeros, Crusaders, Hurricanes and Les Metropolitains but Julie came in first in my heart and 11 years later – TO THE DAY (August 14, 2004) – we were married!! Over those 11 years we dated off and on… Selena was born in June of 2000 – 6 weeks premature… FULL DISCLOSURE… I am not Selena’s biological father – he made a baby then made tracks and wasn’t heard from again for years!!
But I can still remember the day she was born… I was working for a small computer shop in South Glens Falls at the time and Julie was in the hospital because of some severe pains she’d been having unrelated to the pregnancy (later diagnosed as Endometriosis) and they had decided to induce labor. I ran over on my lunch break to see how she was doing… as she lay in bed, she took my hand… AND HER WATER BROKE!! That’s it for me – I’m outta here!! You’ve been great!!
Being a ‘preemie’, Selena had a rather lengthy hospital stay before she finally came home but she had me wrapped around her finger from day one… and still does!!
She was so tiny I always called her my little ‘peanut’ – look at the size of her – probably about 3 months old in the picture at left…
Of course my Mom was thrilled to have a grandbaby at last – something I’m sure SHE was beginning to wonder would ever happen… The scene at right would become a common one – Selena loves her ‘Nana’, Mom loves Selena and Selena loves to EAT’!!
That eating would turn out to be at the root of some serious health issues she’d develop…
Every so often she would get a raging fever – hot to the touch even – and couldn’t keep water down let alone any food!! Then she’d get all dehydrated and end up back in the hospital with an IV… this went on and off for years before her pediatrician finally decided to test for food allergies and it turned out she was severely allergic to dairy (and a host of other things but dairy was the worst) – she couldn’t even come in contact with any one or any thing that had come in contact with a dairy product!! We ended up carrying Epi pens and it was a nerve-racking time to say the least. It took a while – several years in fact – but fortunately she outgrew most of them – especially the dairy – and has been making up for lost time ever since!!
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Enough of my yammering – let’s see some more pictures!!
Please click the sub-menu headings under ‘We Are Family’ to jump to a specific year… Enjoy!!