Birth of Rochester and the D&C

The main newspaper in Rochester, NY is the Democrat and Chronicle. Today's paper had a section celebrating its 175th birthday. Included were several interesting items, but I found Mark Hare's writeup to be a quite nice history of the early days of both the city and its newspapers.

Scary New York Numbers

I regularly read or hear statistics about New York State that indicate it is below average or near the bottom among the 50 states in a wide range of categories. Most of the time, these stats are talking about high taxes or other economic figures.

Columnist Jay Gallagher has done us all a great favor by gathering together many such statistics into one column, New York's Numbers are Numbing. Not all of these numbers are bad for New York -- a few are actually pretty good (low crime), and many are middle-of-the-pack (so not that bad at least relative to other states). But ouch... so many of these numbers place New York at or near the bottom.

The Saga of Pecker McNugget

This is almost too funny to believe. If I didn't know it were true, I wouldn't believe it -- or I'd think it was something from The Onion or a similar site. But my friend and work colleague Tim Fressie has had a bit of an issue with some town officials regarding a rooster on his property. Hearing Tim tell the tale is far funnier than this local newspaper story, but this story is still a worthwhile read. I particularly like how the reporter finds ample opportunity to mention the name of the rooster, Pecker McNugget.

My First Race: Chase Corporate Challenge

I've been a jogger/runner for many years now, going back to my college years in the early 1990s. I do it mostly for exercise, and also because I find it pleasureable and a good way to clear my head -- and sometimes do some really good thinking. In fact, I find that some of my best ideas arise while running. From April - November I try to run 3-4 miles, several times a week. It is always weather and schedule dependent. I think the longest I have ever run is 6 or 8 miles, many years ago.

I had never been in an official race, until last night when I participated in the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge, a 3.5 mile charity race here in Rochester, NY. Several people from work were a part of it, even though we didn't have an official company team with a tent, etc. It was a hot and humid night, but overall I'm glad I participated, and I plan to do so again next year.

It was a very interesting experience, not least because of the huge number of people involved. There were over 10,000 people crammed onto the RIT campus (apparently a record for this event in Rochester). With so many people lined up and involved in the race, the first 5 minutes or so was stop-and-go traffic at best: standing, walking a bit, standing, and so on. And all but the very fastest runners were asked to start well behind the official starting line. I'm sure all of this is standard procedure for such large races, but it means your "time" for the race is not all that meaningful really. I finished in 34 minutes, 10 seconds -- but I'm sure I lost about 5 minutes because of the craziness of the beginning of the race. I didn't push myself at all during the race, so I'm fine with that result. Of course, the top man came in at just under 17 minutes, and the winning woman at just over 20 minutes, so I was just an average joe jogging along.

Something else I found fascinating, which again I'm sure is quite normal for these kinds of races, was the noise and chaos of the two water stations they had setup during the race. With thousands of plastic cups being dispensed, the noise of them hitting the ground, and then being trampled repeatedly, was rather strange. I don't envy the groundspeople who will be cleaning up those messes! I also found it rather difficult to actually drink the water in such cups -- no wonder people often just toss it on their faces or over their heads to cool off.

You can read about the event in our local paper here, and there are a few other articles linked from that page, plus a 17-photo gallery too. The race included various local politicians and other well-known folks, perhaps most notably Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy -- who is actually a serious runner from what I understand (I think he was taking it easy during this event). See also the longer writeup at the Chase CC website.

Images of America from Arcadia Publishing

I wanted to give readers a brief recommendation of a paperback book series from Arcadia Publishing, which describes itself as "the leading local history publisher in the United States, with a catalog of more than 4,000 titles in print and hundreds of new titles released every year." The series is titled "Images of America". Follow the link for it from the homepage, or visit this page, and scroll down to the intereactive map to find books in the areas that interest you. There are thousands of titles, many focused on specific cities, towns, or regions of the USA -- or even just a city in a particular era.

I was introduced to the "Images of America" series because my uncle, George Stone, co-authored the book on Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia, and he sent me a copy a few years ago. Since then I've also gotten a copy of the "Perinton, Fairport, and the Erie Canal", since we live in Perinton (there is also a separate one "Perinton and Fairport in the 20th Century", which I hope to get a copy of sometime soon). These books are about 120 pages or so, and are composed of historical photographs with descriptive captions for each. They are interesting reading, and certainly serve well as coffee-table books. And with so many already published, you are just about guaranteed to find one or two that will be of interest to you: just search for the town/city where you live now, or the ones where you grew up, or any others of interest. And check for multiple titles in your geographic area -- for instance, the city of Rochester, NY, with a population of just over 200,000, has 12 separate titles in this series -- plus over a dozen more for surrounding suburbs like Fairport. That is a lot of historical coverage for just one metropolitan area!

I'll add that there are also over 100 in the similar "Campus History" series, though none yet it seems for my alma-mater, The University of Rochester. The Sports in America series also looks interesting, and it boasts nearly 100 titles at present. Other series include Then and Now, Black America, and Postcard History.

All of these books generally have a cover price of $19.99 - $24.99, so visit their site or Amazon, or visit your local B&N or Borders and go to the local books section to browse around (I assume they'd carry these).