A lot of people feel because of all these storms that are taking place throughout the world that the end is coming near.

I don’t believe it.

I think we’re getting near the end times, but this isn’t it.

We’ve always had storms.

Chief Richard Earl Grimes, known also as Altar Man, led a group of a few dozen people last week as they participated in a Lakota ritual called Hanbleceya—Crying for a Vision. The ritual spans many days and is also called a vision quest. It was held in High Falls, New York. There are many aspects to it, but its core feature is that some, called questers among the larger group, go to their own spot deep in the woods, after much preparation and ceremony. There, they spend the next one, two, three or more days, alone, reflecting, considering their place in the universe and welcoming any epiphanies that occur. I arrived in High Falls on the final day of this Hanbleceya, in time for a ceremony designed to cleanse the spirit and bless the parting feast. After sharing in the passing of a peace pipe, and other aspects of the ceremony, I spoke with the chief.

If I could walk up to my fourteen-year-old self and say, Listen, you’re going to be a professor of science at a college; you’re going to write multiple books; you’re going to speak in public—

The following is a transcribed interview with Vince Wallace, a decades-long National Guardsman, maintainer of the Civil War soldiers’ section of Hudson’s Cedar Park Cemetery, a survivor both of the Great Depression and at least two brushes with death, and a former hot air balloonist who, nearing his eighty-fifth year, continues to embrace chances to get into the clouds.

What a shame to have a park with excellent river access gated off at the road until seven in the morning.

That was the aggravation on a recent morning as I arrived with my kayak in the back of my truck, ready for a long paddle from Schodack Island State Park in Castleton.

More than sixty years ago, Greenport resident Joe Krupa became somewhat of a local celebrity for his skill in racing small boats on the Hudson River, back when the fabled Hudson River Marathon stock boat race from Albany to New York City was a huge deal. Joe went to stock boat nationals in Tennessee in 1951 and became the class B national champ. He was known for being his own mechanic, with no official sponsors. Joe and I know each other as fellow members of a boat club. I can attest that Joe has probably spent hundreds of evening hours in recent years puffing a cigar while the sky darkens over the mouth of the Roeliff Jansen Kill. He's part of a segment of his generation that can take apart any type of motored machine, identify the thing that's wrong with it, fix it, and put the whole thing back together. I've been trying to get him to agree to an interview for this site for months and he finally gave in Tuesday.

Chances to own an island in the Hudson River don’t come along very often. And even if a price tag hovers at $559,000—which is what Campbell Island in Schodack is listed for on privateislandsonline.com—it’s fun for a river frequenter to imagine being able to lay claim to 97 acres of riverfront land.

When I didn’t see Bill Rosecan—who I know through working with Camphill Hudson—where we had planned to meet, at the Henry Hudson Riverfront Park in Hudson on Wednesday evening, I walked around for a bit. I eventually thought to check the train station. Inside, Bill, a train enthusiast, was talking with the station attendant, getting information on the schedule for the evening. Bill smiled and apologized for having lost track of time and we walked down to the park. The following is a transcription of our talk at the waterfront. At a couple different points in the interview, as you’ll notice, he briefly stops his narrative to greet passersby.

Part of my incidental routine for outdoor adventure is to be lackadaisical in the planning stage, which often makes for some aggravation during the trip, but makes for a better story to tell when the trip is over.

This past week, my brother and I escaped our normal lives long enough to paddle on the Hudson River from the mouth of the Roeliff Jansen Kill—which is the boundary line between the towns of Livingston and Germantown—south for about ten miles to Tivoli Bays.

When I walked into the Savoia Monday afternoon, Jacob Walthour was sitting at the end of the bar, watching an episode of Gunsmoke on TV. He welcomed me to sit down and I soon started asking him questions. When his wife, Barbara, with whom he runs the Savoia, came in, the interview shifted to her and Mr. Walthour went off to run some errands for the bar. Toward the very end of the interview, there’s an appearance in the interview by Rick Nardone, regular patron of the Savoia. The following is a transcribed version of Monday’s talk.