Tomorrow will be a perfect day to take in the leaves upstate as they color up. If so much natural beauty wears thin and if you happen to be near Woodstock, New York, consider coming to The Golden Notebook for my 2:00 talk on The Orphanmaster. Signing copies, too. I know there are excellent lattes down the street and I’m pretty sure the nice people in the store will allow you to nurse one in in a paper cup while you sit back and enjoy my slide show — lots of nuggets about the way people, places and things looked in 1660s Manhattan. The raging beaver trade. The fashion of men in red-heeled pumps. What was it actually like, anyway? New York before it became New York. Imagine.
Please do come. I’ll be up on the second floor.
Jean Zimmerman 
So it sounds like your ancestors were some of the English who cohabited with the Dutch on Manhattan? I’d love to know more about their story.
You have your share of reds out there in the desert, in all seasons! Here today, all around we have the sound of the leaf blowers. Well, not here specifically around the Cabin. Leaf blowers are verboten in our haven.
Wish I could come hear your talk, but I am reading your blog from Norway! I have a strong interest in early NY history since my ancestors moved there not long after the Mayflower and generations up to my father were all born in and around Manhattan and Brooklyn. I enjoy your blog.
Yes, I can imagine it. Well, actually, I CAN remember much of the ORPHANMASTER talk that you delivered, some months ago, here… I enjoyed it! But I’ll miss the Fall Colors… I remember them, too, and I do miss them; oh, that big maple tree that so recently shaded my sun porch in the summer and turned the most brilliant red imaginable in autumn. And the lawn service raked up those leaves, not as I remember from the yellow maples of my youth. Then it was rake ’em up, jump into them a few times, then transport them all the way out to the gutter, and set the fire. Watch the cinders.