Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

August 26, 2023

The first Adirondack Hot Air Balloon Festival 50 years ago attracted 19 balloons. This year’s Golden Anniversary event is expected to draw more than 100 pilots from across the nation. (Erin Reid Coker).

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

Like the lone firecracker barely noticeable on the Third of July, the early shoots of color poke out this time each August, tiny, persistent dissents on solid green summer hillsides. One leaf at a time, they presage the coming change to another beautiful season. Soon, those mountainsides will be splashed in red and orange, and this year they will be joined by more gold than usual. There’s a good reason: The Adirondack Hot Air Balloon Festival is celebrating its golden anniversary.

The late Walter Grishkot, a New York City news photographer, brought his camera and his eye for attention-grabbing stunts to Lake George and the Adirondacks in the 1960s and soon became a publicist for Warren County. He, his wife Joan, and a few friends founded the Adirondack Hot Air Balloon Festival in 1973, as a way for the hospitality businesses of Warren County to attract visitors after Labor Day. Right from the start (the first festival attracted 19 balloons), it was hugely popular, among both local people and visitors, and became a tradition by which, for 50 years now, the start of fall is marked with a long weekend of festivities. These days, hundreds of balloonists from all over the country participate in what many regard as the best balloon festival in America. Visitors number 100,000 or more. The events are free to the public.

LET’S NOT GET AHEAD OF OURSELVES. There’s still plenty of summer to be celebrated in Lake George. The 49^th Lake George Classic Boat Rendezvous, the oldest boat show in the United States, is this weekend. More than 60 antique and classic boats will be displayed, including some never before seen by the public. The Adirondack Nationals Car Show returns to Lake George the weekend of Sept. 7-10. It’s the premiere Upstate New York muscle car show, 34^th edition, a gathering of hundreds of beautiful classic cars, hot rods, trucks, customs, and more on the grounds of Fort William Henry.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, TOO, is in the midst of its biggest summer weekend. Phish, the band formed at the University of Vermont in 1983 and known for its long improvisational jams, is in town to perform at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Its concerts, probably drawing 25,000 people each night, will benefit flood victims in Upstate New York and Vermont. And it’s Travers weekend at the Saratoga Race Course. As many as 50,000 people will watch as Forte, the Kentucky Derby almost winner, seeks to dominate the Midsummer Derby. Forte is trained by Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher and will be ridden by Saratoga’s leading jockey, Irad Ortiz Jr.

AND, OF COURSE, IT’S FAIR TIME: The Washington County Fair, a family favorite founded in 1840 and New York’s number one agricultural fair, is open again in Greenwich. The Great Schaghticoke Fair opens August 30.

DADS GET IT DONE: When violence broke out at a high school in Louisiana and 23 students were arrested, a surprising force for good intervened: Dads. “We decided the best people who can take care of our kids are us,” said the founder of Dads on Duty, a group of 40 fathers who now hang out at the school regularly to keep the peace, rib the kids, and make embarrassing Dad jokes. They’ve changed the culture for the better and now are looking to start chapters of Dads on Duty throughout Louisiana.

THE CHOICES NEW YORK FACES: New York City needs a big new jail to hold the inmates it will no longer send to hellish Rikers Island. And it has picked a location: The heart of Chinatown. There, it says it will build a jail that is expected to be the tallest correctional facility in the world. Understandably, the neighborhood is up in arms that their home will be a monument to mass incarceration. But Rikers is no longer an option. So what to do?

MOVING THE MONEY: While New York remains the financial capital of the world, its vaunted position has been diminished in recent years as financial firms have packed their bags for Nashville, Miami and Dallas and other destinations. California has felt the same pain. Both states have lost firms that manage close to $1 trillion in assets and the high-paying jobs of thousands of people who manage that money, not to mention the impact on commercial real estate, retail, and restaurants. The chief investment officer at Lightning Capital says he’s taken up fishing and even taught his kids to bait a hook since moving to Florida, where he now enjoys a larger home and bigger dinner parties.

DYLAN, THE BOMB: Bob Dylan first played in the Capital Region of New York State, famously, at Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs in 1961. He bombed. The audience talked over him. Owner Lena Spencer did not want him back, according to journalist Greg Haymes. The following year he made his way back, not to Caffe Lena but to Schenectady where he played at the San Remo Coffee House on Front Street. The Schenectady Gazette saw promise: “This young folksinger plays the guitar, harmonica, and piano. A prolific composer, he sings his varied repertoire in a voice which recaptures the rude beauty of a southern field band musing in melody on his front porch.” Now, 61 years later, Bob Dylan is coming back to Schenectady to play at Proctor’s on October 30.

METH IN THE ADIRONDACKS: Think of the Adirondacks and one thing you don’t imagine is crime. But crime is increasing in some mountain hamlets and there appears to be a principal culprit: Meth and the thefts people resort to in order to buy drugs.  Major Michael Blaise of the Essex County Sheriff’s Office told veteran Adirondack journalist Will Doolittle: “The drug problem is definitely increasing,” but any crime associated with it appears to be restricted to the villages. “We’ve seen nothing like that in the woods.” Eric Proulx, who has served as a police officer for 27 years, 10 as the police chief in Tupper Lake said: “The drug problem in Tupper Lake has gotten significantly worse.” “The whole park is plagued by drug abuse. A few years ago, it was heroin. Now it’s meth.”

A swallowtail butterfly visits the pollinator garden at Crandall Park in Glens Falls.  The garden is full of native flowering plants inviting to bees, moths, butterflies, and birds. (Sally Behan)

OLYMPIC LEADER: The Olympic luger who brought the World University Games to Lake Placid and the North Country last year is the new chief executive officer and president of the Olympic Regional Development Authority in Lake Placid. Ashley Walden, 41, succeeds the retiring Mike Pratt. Walden led the organization that landed the FISU World University Games. As Ashley Hayden, she twice won silver medals in International Luge Federation mixed team events, in 2004 and 2005. She is married to former Olympic luger Bengt Walden, who became coach of Norway’s national luge team.

WHERE’S SMALLS NOW? Thirty years ago, Hollywood gave us Squint and Ham, a ragtag bunch of kids playing an endless summer baseball game, and the epic line “You’re killing me, Smalls.” The movie classic “The Sandlot” is turning 30. 

WHAT LIES BENEATH: Nearly 80 years ago, a World War II-era fighter plane flown by a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen crashed during training near Port Huron, Michigan, about 60 miles northeast of Detroit. For years, a team of divers has been trolling the deep, cold waters of Lake Huron searching for pieces of the plane. The lake bottom is the final resting place for  scores of sailing vessels, tankers and other ships that sunk over the years. So far, Huron has yielded the plane’s bullet-riddled propellor and hundreds of other pieces. This week, the searchers hauled out the P-39’s 1,200-pound mussel-encrusted engine.

KING’S RANSOM: Kevin Ford works at the Burger King at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. In 27 years as a cook and cashier, he has never called in sick. He can’t afford to: He’s a single father of four daughters. Taking an unexpected day off means he loses a day’s pay. When he had to miss work twice for medical reasons -- once for a surgery related to his sleep apnea, another for a spine procedure caused by working long hours on his feet -- he used his vacation time. So, to recognize his excellent attendance record, Burger King honored him with a small goody bag and naturally he posted a photo on the Internet. One measly goody bag? The public wasn’t having it.

• Firefly populations in North America are in decline. Researchers estimate that 14% of species from Canada and the United States are threatened with extinction. Protection efforts are hampered by a lack of data.

• New York Rep. Mike Lawler, who represents a congressional district just north of New York City, brought his 15-month-old daughter to a political event recently and she began choking. His colleague, Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, quickly scooped the food from her mouth and saved the child.

• Seattle Mariners Pitcher Luis Castillo threw an astonishing 47 consecutive fastballs – only one less than 94 miles per hour -- against the White Sox over three innings, surrendering just three hits and not allowing a single run to cross the plate.

• American Sha’Carri Richardson became the fastest woman in the world, running 100 meters in 10.65 seconds at the 2023 track and field world championships in Budapest.

HOWARD JAMES HUBBARD grew up in Lansingburgh, near Troy, N.Y., and considered careers in law and journalism before setting on the priesthood. He was ordained in Rome at the height of the Second Vatican Council and returned to Albany eager to implement its church-opening reforms. One of his first assignments was in South Albany, a neighborhood ravaged by drugs and poverty. He helped the homeless find apartments, the addicted and mentally ill find treatment. He founded Hope House and Providence House and, in 1977, became the youngest bishop in the United States, and a force in the liberal wing of the American Catholic Church. He was a constant force for good, gentle, soft-spoken, beloved in the communities he served, and fearless as a champion of social justice. He faced sexual abuse claims – allegations that were never proven -- and was criticized for having not notified law enforcement when priests were accused of abuse, for which he apologized. He was 84.

JAMES L. BUCKLEY was the beneficiary of a political miracle in deeply Democratic New York. He won a seat in the U.S. Senate as a Conservative as his two opponents split the liberal vote. He was 47 at the time, a lawyer and father of six, a veteran of naval combat in World War II. He served only one term, from 1971 to 1977, and never won another election. President Ronald Reagan appointed him to a State Department post in 1981 and named him president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in 1982. In 1985, Reagan named him to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Mr. Buckley served as a federal judge for 15 years, the last four as a semiretired senior judge. He was 100.

“Holy crap.”
-       U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, sharing a photo on his X social media feed that appeared to show a shark swimming on the LA Freeway known as the 405 hours after Tropical Storm Hilary departed Los Angeles. There was no shark on the 405. Cruz fell for an Internet joke.

IF YOU SEE SOMETHING: Kimberly Bialobos was at work at the Popeye's restaurant on Enterprise Road in Orange City, Fla., Wednesday morning when she spotted a strange-looking walk-up customer at the drive-through window.  Not all that unusual, but she called the police. Turns out the whole town was going bananas over the “customer:” a rhesus macaque monkey on the loose.

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Principal Author: Mark Behan

Sincere thanks to our contributors: Bill Callen, Ryan Moore, John Brodt, Leigh Hornbeck, Tina Suhocki, Kristy Miller, Troy Burns, Claire P. Tuttle, Erin Reid Coker, and Tara Hutchins.

FACING OUT is what we do. We help companies, organizations and individuals work effectively with their most important external audiences – their customers, their shareholders, their communities, the government and the news media.  www.behancommunications.com

Facing Out features news and other nuggets that caught our eye, and that we thought might be of value to you, our friends and business associates. Some items are good news about our clients and friends, others are stories that we hope will leave you a bit more informed or entertained than you were five minutes ago. As always, we welcome your ideas and feedback.

Let’s make it a conversation: mark.behan@behancom.com