Country mouse becomes a city mouse

I know someone who used to be a country mouse and now has become a city mouse. The country mouse wanders blithely over hill and dale, taking occasional naps in the shade and nibbling on one thing or another. Occasionally there is an unexpected encounter with a country hawk, whereupon someone goes missing, but this does not happen too often, if you can believe what you read. In the winter they pretty much starve and freeze as most do not have the wit to follow the sun south, like geese. This is part of what defines a lower life-form. Not flying is another thing, although some mice have been known to fly, but not on their own, and we seldom hear back from them later.City mice are always on guard. They call this excitement, and it is supposedly one of the fun things about being in a city. I don’t know about this. I am not so sure that running for your life from pretty much everything at the drop of a hat qualifies as excitement. I once heard that an adventure is a terrifying experience that you survive. It does give you a rush. Duelists sometimes suffered from this same mania, continually challenging one another until they were almost all dead, which is probably why we don’t see much of this today. There is only one left, the winner, and he has nobody left to play with. How sad.Anyway, our urban friends conserve their energy for emergencies by hitching rides on public conveyances: garbage trucks, moving vans, buses, the subway and your friend with the car who is helping you move. However, it is not all bad news. The dining choices are some of the finest. The old, interconnected city structures provide unparalleled access to gourmet kitchens. You have to be quick, though, timing it to when the chef’s back is turned. It is best to avoid being viewed directly, which will set off a hue and cry resulting in everyone sprinting all over the place and jumping up on furniture. City mice avoid direct eye contact. They operate in what we like to call the corner of the eye. This is also where ghosts, Bigfoot and the Jersey Devil operate. To be seen out of the corner of someone’s eye leaves just enough doubt to discourage a really determined pursuit. Mice are better at this. You don’t see teams of mouse hunters running around with special equipment like K-2 meters.That about covers it. The only other hazard I can think of that I haven’t covered is bankruptcy, but this can happen in either case so there is not much point in worrying about it.Bill Abrams resides, just like that somewhat sluggish country mouse, in Pine Plains.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less