My first hike of any real merit took place a number of years ago. Tumbledown Mountain, in southern Maine, is not particularly challenging, but it is a pretty hike and with a loop distance of 5.6 miles does get the heart pumping a little.

I was intrigued by the hike after reading a description of Tumbledown Pond, which, at an elevation of some 2,500 feet, about 500 feet short of the summit, provides hikers with the opportunity for a refreshing swim and, also, for those so inclined, the...

I’m not usually a betting man, but I’m going to make an exception in this case. Sometimes you just have to take a chance.  Here goes…

I bet that more people are losing money – make that, a lot of money – than making money on gambling in sports fantasy leagues, despite what the never-ending commercials on TV are pretending. I guess I have to say pretending because they don’t actually make that claim, but if you watch almost any sporting event these days that’s what the ads seem to be...

Juan Felipe Herrara was recently named U.S. poet laureate. The son of Mexican migrant workers and a native of California, Herrara is the first Latino to earn this distinction.

He has published more than a dozen collections of poetry, along with short stories, young adult novels, and children’s literature, and was described by New York Times critic Stephen Burt as one of the first poets to successfully create “a new hybrid art, part oral, part written, part English, part something else: an...

The common refrain these days is the water’s beautiful, but it is a bit chilly when you get out.  Then someone laughs and says well, you just need to stay in the water longer. And someone else adds, yes, that’ll work until around November.

The water we’re all talking about is the water at Walden Pond. On a mid-summer’s day, when the air temperature ranges into the 80s and the water temperature approaches that, it’s home to hundreds, families and singles, young and old, loungers and...