To the editor:

In the late 1940s, a young woman from New York City traveled by bus for a winter visit with her college roommate, whose family lived in Keene. All her life, my mother remembered her nighttime arrival and feeling awestruck by the Adirondack stars.

In 1966, I was 7 years old when my parents traveled from Long Island to vacation with their children in the cabins of Camp Lavigerie, north of Onchiota. I have never forgotten my first sight of the Milky Way, sweeping across the dark expanse of Lake Kushaqua.

Decades later, my wife and I brought our two young children to an Adirondack Mountain Club campfire on the shores of Heart Lake. Afterward, we stopped alongside the fields of the Adirondack Loj Road. As our daughter slept, I lifted my son atop the roof of our car–the third generation in our family to marvel at that heavenly sight.

So when dear friends in Keene invited me and my wife to come up from New York for the total solar eclipse, we didn’t hesitate to say yes–to gaze in wonder once more at the Adirondack skies.

Thom Duffy

Brooklyn