Page 5 - Dave Hurst News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Forever carrying one another’s hearts, Betty and Thomas Hurst left this earth Friday, Jan. 1, 2021. Having reached the age of 94, they enjoyed lives that were abundantly lived.

Everyone is glad to be done with 2020. Such was the intensity of this past year, so pervasive was the adversity, that writers far more skilled and erudite than I will offer millions of words, trying to make sense of and draw lessons from this year’s events and experiences. Yet I can’t resist adding my 660 words to the pile. The first of those words is shame – shame on this nation, all four of its Estates (government, public, media and church) and on me. Times of crises bring out our best and worst; this year saw far too much of our worst.

The recent nor’easter that bedeviled much of the Northeast was a godsend to the Alleghenies. About a foot of wet-based powder descended upon Laurel Ridge, creating nearly perfect conditions for cross-country skiing atop Laurel Summit – conditions that have been exceedingly rare there for the past two or three winter seasons. Rarer still was that those conditions persisted into the weekend, giving my close friend, neighbor and outings’ companion, Tom Gray, and me the opportunity to “go out and play.” Just the drive in along Laurel Summit Road was worth the trip. Snow l...

Well, we probably won’t be gathering around a warm hearth and swapping family stories this Christmas. That will be just one of a rather long list of activities that will be denied to us during this holiday season if we’re taking this pandemic seriously – especially now. Don’t quit reading, though, that is not where this week’s column is heading. Storytelling is the subject. As is the case with so many things during these days, there is a digital workaround to gathering with others and telling stories, even interesting local stories about places you know. Each year the...