The Town Center and the Pub

Posted on January 26, 2026 by Humanity Hiker

“Can I pay with my looks?”

Our kids now cringe whenever I ask a clerk or waiter that question.  They were with me when I got the best answer from a checkout clerk at a convenience store in Long Island.

“I’m sorry sir, but the store does not carry enough change.”

Perfect! Had he been a waiter I would have tipped him generously.  From that time on I asked about paying with my looks at every opportunity just so I could share the best answer to that question.  And every time I asked in front of our kids, they rolled their eyes.

Then came the time I asked our waiter Tubby at what was the Wood Creek Bar and Grill in Norfolk.  I was there with Cindy in what we called the datemobile at the time, a wheelchair I used to get her around Norfolk.  I did not get to deliver the punchline this time because Tubby said “Sure!” and covered our tab.

Yes, I know.  Tubby did not cover our tab because of my looks, but rather because of my devotion to Cindy.  Another time at the pub strangers from another table also covered our tab.  The pub has been good to us in more ways than covering our tab, forming a big part of our story.  What is now called the Norfolk Pub has been a big part of many people’s stories.  But that is changing soon.

In the year 1800 the population of Norfolk was a little over 1600.  According to the 2020 census we are now a little under 1600.  In many ways Norfolk has been a steady town in the state of steady habits. I boast about that to outsiders as one of our charms.  Yet the town center reveals that not even Norfolk remains unchanged over time.

My earliest memories of the space now occupied by the pub was that of a post office.  Not until I left for college did the space first become a pub, Ken’s Pub. Some folks claimed their earliest memory of the pub to be that of Casey’s Bar and Grill.  Maybe my own memory fails me, but I remember Casey’s being located two buildings down, in what now is called Infinity Hall.  Also in the building was Mubarek’s Market, Norfolk’s grocery store at the time.  Mubarek’s became the Apple Store, still a place to get groceries.  Then the building became dormant for a few years before becoming a concert hall and bistro.

Across the street from the pub lies the Norfolk Hub, functioning to serve various community needs.  My earliest memories of this space was of Pallone’s Pharmacy that included a soda fountain and comic book section towards the rear.  I have a cherished memory of Tom Hester, a close friend of my brother Bob, taking me to the drug store for a sundae one day.  The pharmacy changed hands but retained an employee well known to everyone in town, Kevin O’Connor.

The Berkshire Country Store sits next to the Norfolk Hub.  The store carries a few groceries and has a deli instead of a soda fountain.  You can get the Holly’s Wild Child sandwich there, named after my niece who worked there early on.  You also can get cheerful conversation and treatment from Ryan Craig, the proprietor.

What you no longer can get there are the supplies from the Norfolk Hardware Store, my first memory of that space.  The Polinsky family became practically my next door neighbors when they first moved to town to start the store.  I remain good friends of the family, though they are no longer here.  Neither is a hardware store in town.

Across from the Berkshire Country Store lies Robertson Plaza, formerly a large patch of asphalt next to the Royal Arcanum Building that houses the pub.  The plaza features stairs that go down to a boardwalk around what we ironically call City Meadows.  This past summer I ran up and down the 58 steps of these stairs as much as fifty times, for a total of 2900 steps or over 1900 feet of ascending and descending. I parked Cindy in her red adult stroller at the top, looking out over the meadow towards Haystack Mountain (honestly a hill).

The Speckled Hen was another of the names of the pub, also Hawk’s Nest and Greenwoods Station.  As I run up and down the stairs I sometimes see employees of the pub bringing out trash to the bins in the back.  In past years our son Noah was one of those employees.  Noah worked for both the bistro and the pub at a crucial time in his life.  He is thriving now in large part because at one time he could walk to work, close to home.  The bistro is now closed and the pub soon will be.

I started writing this post while sitting at the bar of the pub.  This will be my last time here since Ken’s, Hawk’s Nest, Speckled Hen, Greenwoods Station, Wood Creek, Norfolk Pub will be closing for good at the end of the month.  Heidi Forler was the proprietor of the Wood Creek and Norfolk versions.  I had hoped to wish her well but on this Saturday the pub is swamped, despite the temperature being in the single digits.  Lots of folks want to wish Heidi well, to let her know what the pub meant to them.  In addition to good food she often served customers good hugs.

For me the pub meant a place of family gatherings.  When inviting a crowd for Cindy’s birthday was no longer practical, we instead had gatherings when our grandkids came to town (along with their parents).  During “outdoor season,” when I could get Cindy out in the stroller, our “dates” would be at the pub.

The pub also became the place for our anniversary celebrations.  I used to order as many chicken wings as years of marriage,with garlic parmesan our favorite.  That tradition ended as our marriage lasted way beyond Cindy’s life expectancy for early onset Alzheimer’s.  I just did not want to eat that many wings even as leftovers.

While sitting at the bar I get to chat with Lindsey Prevuznak, the bartender for over a decade.  She always asks me how Noah is doing.  To my left sits Glenn Derby, who went to school with my nephew Tom.  To my right Larry Hanaffin and Sally Carr sit down. Larry went to school with my brother Dave.  In the steadiest town in the state of steady habits, some families remain steady residents.

We all get to chatting.  I ask Sally to confirm some of my recollections for the town center.  She provides a few of her own, such as there once being five restaurants in town.  In a week there will be none.  Gone, along with a pharmacy, groceries and hardware store.  Gone, along with the Pallones and Polinskys.  Even in the steadiest of towns things change.

I leave my perch at the bar and bundle up for the cold walk home.  I take Lindsey’s picture, give Glenn a pat on the back and shake Larry’s hand.  I wished I could have gotten one last hug from Heidi, but I am warmed by the turnout and show of support that keeps her busy as the closing of the pub draws near.  I hope the proprietors around the town center remain steadily friendly and warm.

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Balancing Coverage

Posted on January 22, 2026 by Humanity Hiker

Recently I received more coverage.  I will not say permanently yet, since past experience taught me better.  Yet for now at least I am being confronted with the challenge of extra coverage.

The writings and music I work on take time.  Giving presentations will take even more time.  On the one hand extra coverage will enable me to do these things I probably need to do.  On the other hand that takes me away from caring for Cindy, which I enjoy doing. The key to balancing those two things lies in the amount and timing of coverage.

That is the latest care partner problem for me to solve.

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Our First Dates

Posted on January 19, 2026 by Humanity Hiker

Forty-five years ago, some members of the group planning to hike the Appalachian Trail (AT) went down to Times Square for the 1980 New Years Eve celebration.  At the time I had been dating a woman in the group for over a year.  Nancy was two years older than me and gorgeous!  She also insisted on an arrangement where we were simply dating until something else came along.

Nancy was not at the Times Square celebration, but Cindy was.  As the ball dropped I commented that being at Times Square was a tale I would tell my grandkids.  I had no one in particular in mind with that comment, considering my relationship with Nancy was to be temporary.  However, years later Cindy shared that when I said “my grandkids,” she was thinking “our grandkids.”

During the spring I had a long chat with Cindy on the phone.  As an experienced, long distance hiker I attempted to prepare her for the challenges she could face on the upcoming thru-hike.  Better to expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised.  Cindy confidently declared:  “Mind over matter!”  That was when the wholesome woman with the perfect strides had me.

We went on a date soon after where we were walking along Main Street of Willimantic.  We passed a sketchy bunch of young adults who started singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.”  I did not look as sketchy as that gang but I am me, a mountain man who would never make the cover of GQ.  That means Cindy exuded enough wholesomeness for two people.

Our first day of the thru-hike started in May and featured over twenty miles of hiking in intermittent rain.  I avoided hiking with either Cindy or Nancy that first day.  Nancy wanted our dating to be temporary because she intended to move on.  I wanted to spare Nancy the awkwardness from me doing that first. While hiking with almost everyone else I lifted rain dampened spirits by predicting I felt dry air blowing in.

The fourteen of us in the group camped at the same spot that evening.  We put up our tarps and tents because of the rain.  To my chagrin I discovered I was one tent peg short.  When I announced that to the group, Cindy demurely came up and offered me one of hers.  I did not want to invite Cindy to share a tent, but if anyone else in the group offered me a tent peg I would have.  As I imagined a glance from Nancy boring into me I offered a space in my tent for Cindy.

The next day called for another twenty miles to where our support vehicle awaited.  The dry air I predicted would blow in turned out to be a major tropical storm.  The second day in and my credibility as an experienced hiker already shot!  Fortunately, as a “lean mean hiking machine” I thought I would use the dreadful weather to my advantage. I hiked five miles further than the rest of the group to a lean-to, both to avoid setting up my tent in the pouring rain and the awkward dynamics of the evening before.

Dry air blowing in on the second day

I looked forward to my solitude that evening. The roof of the lean-to kept me dry while a hot meal of mac and cheese warmed my bones.  The group was five miles behind and no one else would be hiking in such a downpour.  My blissful meal and reverie was disturbed by the sound of two voices njoying each other’s company as they approached.  Around the corner came Cindy and Nancy to share the shelter.  The three of us were the only ones in the shelter that night, with apparently only me wishing I was not there.

I had to abandon the intention of being neutral during the hike. By my reckoning then, hiking the whole Appalachian Trail amounted to our fifth date. I failed to have her back home by midnight, though her father did come out to meet us …

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Brain Health Update – 1/15/26

Posted on January 16, 2026 by Humanity Hiker

I came across a post on Medium that pitted the cognitive burden of uncertainty vs difficulty. The assertion that uncertainty has a greater cognitive burden rings true for me as a care partner. Care partners of loved ones with dementia are six times more likely to get dementia as well. I have preserved my brain health in part because of certainty about what I am doing, with routines that provide certainty for my tasks.

The author focuses on neural processing; my approach would be to pit stress vs difficulty. Extensive literature indicts the cognitive burden of chronic stress. Uncertainty can be a creator of stress, as can other factors such as a hurried or worried mind. Unfortunately, these trying times induce chronic stress for many. Speaking of stress …

Studies confirming the benefits of exercise for brain and emotional health constantly pop up. One that recently caught my eye declared “that exercise was as effective as pharmacological treatments or psychological therapies” for treating depression. The researcher goes on to declare that exercise should be a “first line treatment” and that it remains “underappreciated and underutilized.”

Yet the same researcher also asserts that medications are easier for doctors to prescribe and for patients to follow. He suggests taking antidepressants first to elevate a patients mood enough to then start exercising. Such a tactic ironically refutes exercise as a “first line treatment.”

Exercise as a lifestyle factor provides health benefits that go beyond combating depression. Exercise also enhances the growth and performance of the brain. This lifestyle factor provides additional benefits for our cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems. There are no drawbacks to exercise if not chronically overdone.

Medicine tends to address a specific problem. If medicine addresses the problem well but a person leads a crappy life, then medicine can mask the need and the extra benefits a better lifestyle might have provided. Denied those extra benefits, using medicine to address a specific problem might lead to additional problems and additional medicine.

Maybe medicine succeeds to prime a patient for harder yet more beneficial lifestyle changes for some. Others might conclude they do not need the harder, more beneficial adjustment to lifestyle. Lifestyle factors in general should be the first line of treatment when that is possible. They are preventative as well as curative, with fewer risks and greater benefits. Medicine and therapies then become the second line of treatment for specific problems.

I am aware of the exceptions to this advice. Genetics or environmental conditions may inhibit a “lifestyle first” approach for many individuals. It’s also possible that negative lifestyle factors make the pursuit of positive ones near impossible without medical interventions. We are a country with much chronic stress and social isolation, with both being bad for brain health, both making a change of lifestyle difficult.

This begs the question related to the previous study. Can the difficulty of a lifestyle change such as exercise be overcome through certainty of the benefits?

If you find this post helpful please like and share. Personally encourage at least one friend to subscribe.

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Our True Love Beginning

Posted on January 12, 2026 by Humanity Hiker

Here you go, the first true love background post.

I arrived at the “zombosis land” trailhead as people on the practice hike were passing through.  Appalachian Trail (AT) thru-hikers bestowed the name “zombosis land” on the heavily forested, fairly level stretch of trail on the east side of the Housatonic River.  As an experienced thru-hiker I came prepared with reading material for this nondescript stretch:  the driver’s manual for my brand new Datsun.*

*(For all you young whippersnappers, the old Datsun brand in America became Nissan).

As luck, fate or a bit of intentional timing would have it, Cindy was one of the hikers passing through after I arrived at the trailhead.  I first met Cindy during an introductory meeting for the 1980 AT Expedition led by Warren Doyle. Most of the attendees were University of Connecticut students.  I became involved as an alum of both the University and a previous expedition led by Warren.

The goal behind Warren’s AT Expeditions was to create an “all for one, one for all” experience for the thru-hikers in the group.  Towards that end we had meetings intended for bonding. My first awareness of Cindy came at such a meeting, when the group was sitting in a circle sharing personal anecdotes.  Cindy had an attractive “girl next door” type of beauty, reinforced when she shared with us her love for walking her two dogs.

I do not remember what I shared, or if that left an impression on Cindy, but Cindy left an impression on me.  When she passed through on the trailhead I strategically fell in line right behind her.  She then left another impression on me with her smooth, effortless strides.

I found myself hiking faster than expected. Most of my hiking up until then had been with my eventual best man Savitt, who was 6’2”.  Keeping up with his long strides for thousands of miles partially explains why I became an endurance athlete.  Keeping up with Cindy on a forest footpath was not quite as strenuous, but still delightfully invigorating.  Plus looking at her legs effortlessly striding along was immensely more pleasurable than looking at Savitt’s legs.

As we hiked through “zombosis land” I read my driver’s manual out loud for all the hikers within ear shot.  I did this partially to show off, demonstrating how an experienced long distance hiker like myself could read and hike on a wilderness trail at the same time.  Mostly I read the intricacies of the car’s dashboard and changing a tire to entertain people during a boring stretch of trail.  I read each technical paragraph with dramatic, Shakespearean flair.

At the next practice hike I drove down from New Hampshire with a different gimmick planned.  I arrived ahead of everyone else in the group on a country road that the trail followed for a short stretch.  I set up an orange juice and donut stand and waited for the reaction of the hikers as they came by.

Cindy arrived at the same time as Mike Hinckley.*  Unlike all the other members of the group, Mike took my gimmick seriously, getting out his wallet and asking what I was charging for a cup of orange juice and a donut.  Cindy’s smile indicated she got the joke and, dare I say, liked the jokester.

*(Many years and wilderness trails hence, good ol’ Mike hiked more thousand of miles with both Cindy and me than any other of our long distance friends).

When asked what we first saw in each other, we both draw from our first impressions on those early practice hikes.  I tell people Cindy has the best legs and stride of anyone I ever met.  Cindy told people she enjoyed my humor, a confession that still perplexes our kids to this day.

Posted in Hiking Partner, Lasting Love | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

My Updated New Ten Year’s Resolution

Posted on January 6, 2026 by Humanity Hiker

Happy New Year!

Last year at this time I posted “My New Ten Year’s Resolution” about my plan for keeping active and increasing my social engagement. I had assumed that when Cindy turned 65 last February my home health aide coverage for her would expand as she was place in Connecticut’s Home Elderly Care program. Instead, my coverage for much of 2025 was actually less than for 2024.

I managed to create two new websites during 2025, but have not contributed much content to them yet. Otherwise, my updated resolution is basically a one year postponement of last year’s. Hope springs eternal and I believe this year is the year I get the coverage most people in my situation would have.

What I am most excited about making happen this year is a program I am calling “Music and Readings for Humanity.” This pairs up music I composed with excerpts from humanitarian writings. I will start with home gigs earlier in the year and progress to venue such as schools and libraries later. You can check out the program outline at my new eCommerce site.

Also at kirksinclair.com are songs of positivity and protest that I composed for The Bards of Balance. I intend for this to be a source of extra income this year which will help with funding the transportation for my gigs. By the way, you can listen to some of those songs right here!

I do not really plan to monetize my writings until next year. They also will be available at kirksinclair.com and perhaps elsewhere. In the meantime I will post to this website mainly on the themes of Care Partners and True Love. On the Unenlightened Wisdom website I will post mainly humanitarian content, with an eye towards the 2026 elections.

You know the drill. Share, like, subscribe and/or tell a friend.

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Lasting Love: Past and Future

Posted on December 30, 2025 by Humanity Hiker

Cindy and I wanted this blog to inform and inspire others who may find themselves in a similar situation. I never considered that to be the telling of a love story, though a few readers commented they have that impression. I never thought of ourselves as fitting the dramatic or romantic mold of the lovers in The Titanic; we are more like Jim and Pam from The Office. Yet I concede our story reveals lasting love.

True Love

Sixteen years into Cindy’s care, I find less informative or inspiring aspects of that care to write about. Now I intend to deliberately share more of our “love story.” Occasional vignettes will share my experiences and feelings in the moment. I also will fill in some of the back story of our lasting love.

Sometimes we become attached to places like we do with people. Lasting love for both a place and a person involves caring, responsibility and loyalty. A shared sense of place strengthens the bond with a loved one. Some future posts will flesh out our sense of place for both our home town and wilderness trails.

We started living in the house where I was raised to take care of my Mom who had dementia. We stayed here because of Cindy’s choice, not mine. As a nurse Cindy could have found employment anywhere. As a trained GIS specialist and program researcher with four degrees I could have found more lucrative employment elsewhere. We stayed because of the humanity, beauty and culture embedded in the pastoral village of Norfolk, Connecticut. Her love for this place is true, as is mine. I hope some of my future posts convincingly reflects this love.

This is the last of my cornerstone content posts. To recap, they were about the five major themes of this blog: Journeying, Humanity, Brain Health, Home Care Journal and Lasting Love. The next post will be in the New Year, following the plan I presented with the cornerstone content.

Please spread the word to anyone who might be interested in one of these themes. Encourage them to subscribe, as well as to share and like posts. Help me spread the content to those who will benefit.

Posted in Lasting Love | Tagged | 6 Comments

Home Care Journal: Past and Future

Posted on December 22, 2025 by Humanity Hiker

For a few years I resisted using the words caregiver or caregiving on this blog. In my mind I simply was helping my best friend. As I came to terms with offering caregiver advice, I still struggled with what that category should be called. Recently I came across the term “care partners” in an AARP article. I immediately thought: “That’s it!” This home care journal is about two care partners, not one caregiver.

Home Care Journal

“Caregiver” sounds so one-sided to me. While this might apply for a person being hired to provide care, I do not feel this correctly describes my relationship with Cindy. Throughout our marriage we cared for each other without really thinking about that as caring. She helped me with this, supported me with that, and I did the same for her. You know, like best friends do.

I consider us still to be partners while realizing that life is not fair. No one should keep score in regards to who goes last and/or longest as care partners. Or, at the least, best friends should not. Plus I view life being unfair mainly to Cindy, not me. I just have to learn and grow in different ways than I had planned.

In a sense, we still are partnering during Cindy’s final stage of early onset Alzheimer’s. Though incapable of communicating, she continues to demonstrate an incredible will to live. How do you think that makes me feel? Like I make sticking around worth it for her. To this day I still view what I do as easy, because of the type of “help” my partner provides.

While new “care partner” insights or vignettes that differ from the previous thousand posts may be scarce, I will continue using this website as my home care journal. If you appreciate them, please subscribe, share or like. Ask a friend to do the same.

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Brain Health: Past and Future

Posted on December 18, 2025 by Humanity Hiker

After Cindy’s diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s in September of 2013, we decided to share that part of our journey on our blog. We knew that lifestyle factors during our American Discovery Trail journey helped reversed Cindy’s cognitive decline. Unfortunately, she declined again after the journey. I set Google Alerts to “brain health” and “Alzheimer’s” in order to provide useful information on brain health and lifestyle factors.

Right from the start there was much chaff to sift from the wheat. The “Alzheimer’s” alerts listed articles mainly intended for an investment audience. In addition to the fact that I am not an investor, my interest in combating Alzheimer’s focused mainly on “Living Well with Adversity.” My announcement page featured that title on this website at the time. Lifestyle factors were my focus, not the potential investment profits from medical cures.

The “brain health” alerts featured more university research, less drug trials by pharmaceuticals. Press releases aimed to simply report on the research and legitimize the university researchers conducting them. A variety of brain health matters in addition to dementia were covered, ranging from genetic to environmental factors. These tangents occasionally provided useful information as well.

Early on I created a few brain health features compiled from research articles. Over time noteworthy new information became scarce. One month an article would be about exercise boosting brain health, as would be the case for the next month and the month after that. The research varied in terms of type of exercise, workout intensity and length, and the time spent. The articles featured a common subtext of finding the minimum necessary for a society too busy doing other things.

Then there are the mice. Lots of mice studies! All touting the potential of some new drug, treatment or environmental condition … as long as we find a way to transfer the findings to humans. Their promises never being met provided a lesson that maybe beta amyloid plaques are not the ultimate problem.

I do not wish to sound like a total cynic about cures for Alzheimer’s and dementia that involve profits. I have encountered some interesting research related to mRNA and how the immune system functions in relation to brain cells. Yet I still apprehend the profit angle and a subtext of what can be done so lifestyles do not have to change.

I understand that at any moment in time there are people new to familiarizing themselves with brain health. To that end I will continue to receive Google Alerts and link or embed articles for others to read. I may include research into medical treatments, but no mice studies. The previous decades of mice studies provided enough rabbit holes.

Expanded coverage of brain health will be part of the Unenlightened Wisdom Project: Journeying from Brain Health to Democracy. That website will start to become active at the start of the New Year. Check it out and subscribe!

And of course continue to like and share this website. Introduce a friend to the site as well.

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Humanity: Past and Future

Posted on December 8, 2025 by Humanity Hiker

The tagline for this website … “Love kindness. Build community. Believe in humanity.” … expresses my humanitarian creed. I developed the creed for our American Discovery Trail walk across the country from May 2011 – May 2012. Since we were keeping Cindy’s cognitive decline at the time private, observing and reporting on kindness and community became our public mission.

humanitarian creed

By the time I revealed Cindy’s condition on this website I had learned both kindness and community benefited brain health. This calls for continued emphasis on kindness, community and humanity as they relate to other major themes. I also set Google Alerts to “trail magic” and “trail angels” for the humanitarian experiences of other hikers.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian creed will be a major focus of my other website, The Unenlightened Wisdom Project: Journeying from Brain Health to Democracy. If you subscribe to that website you can download the White Paper, with cartoons provided by the Speed Bump cartoonist Dave Coverly. The White Paper provides the road map for the ten year project.

Meanwhile, I have more info about the timeshare deal I am offering. The precise value and vacation depends on the choice of room type, location and time of year, averaging around $2500. This amounts to a %40 off vacation deal. Spread the word to someone who might be interested. Thanks!

As always, please subscribe, like and share. Ask one friend to do likewise.

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