Other Voices

Robert C. Lawrence and his wife, Carol Ann, were kayaking on an Adirondack lake, watching some loons, when she asked him how the mountain looming over them, Blue Mountain, got its name.

Lawrence thought he’d buy a book on Adirondack place names at the Blue Mountain Museum to answer the question. But there was no such book.

So he wrote one.

He and his wife, both retired teachers, operate as a team, Lawrence says in this week’s Enterprise podcast. “We just enjoy life,” he said — traveling cross-country in their camper, gardening, playing with their dachshund who is named Adirondack.

“What’s with Those Adirondack Mountain Names?” is Lawrence’s second book. His first book, “Sailor of the Stars,” takes students through the process of astronaut training — beginning with the application process and ending with a post-mission press conference.

Lawrence says, as a child of the sixties, he grew up on the space program, watching every space launch. He was a paperboy for the Watertown Daily Times in northern New York and “read every article on space.”

That also inspired him to be a writer, Lawrence said. He wrote for the Space Launch News and once involved his eight most gifted writing students in interviewing and writing about astronaut Eileen Collins and Albany Med doctor Heidi DeBlock, who monitored the hearts of astronauts when they landed at Kennedy Space Center.

“I was even able to interview my favorite folk singer,” Lawrence said. Judy Collins had written a song, “Beyond the Sky,” for Commander Collins and her crew before their launch in July 1999.

His current book starts with a song written by a friend and fellow teacher, Dale Wade-Keszey: “Marcy was some important guy,” go the lyrics. “But the rest, can you tell me why?”

Lawrence, who has retired from his career as a Guilderland teacher, taught fifth grade at three elementary schools — Lynnwood, the old Fort Hunter, and Guilderland — before teaching at Farnsworth Middle School. He’s stayed in touch with some of his students and next month is going to the wedding of a former sixth-grader of his.

Read the full article at https://altamontenterprise.com/04192022/retired-teacher-educates-others-adirondack-mountain-names