My original intention was to create family trees only for Majors descended from William, one of three brothers who came to the United States in the 1960s, and for Smolinskis descended from my grandparents, Boleslaw Smolinski and Helena Kalinowska. But soon I started trees for descendants of the other Major and Smolinski brothers who came here in search of a better life, and for some families related to us through marriages. Among them are Carrigans, Kaldowskis, Kanes, Maltbys, McGinns, McLaughlins, O'Haras and O'Neills.

Several of my efforts are little more than starter trees, created mostly from obituaries. I was aided by an unusual website, www.fultonhistory.com. And since the website's launch, several families have provided additional information The McLaughlins, who have an interesting history in Skaneateles, N. Y., and the man with the best nickname ("Forty Acres" McLaughlin). have been particularly helpful.

Also included are personal recollections of several family members, plus stories found in old newspapers, several about relatives who were unknown to me before I began this project.

For example, I learned about James A. "Chick" O'Shea (1906-1990) who married Ellen V. "Nellie" Major of Skaneateles Falls, a tiny village that many Majors called home. In 1921, while a teenager and a student at Marcellus High School, O'Shea was involved – and injured – in what narrowly missed being one of most horrific accidents in Central New York history.

O'Shea was one of 44 students loaded on the back of a truck headed for a basketball game in Manlius, about 40 minutes away. It never reached its destination because it was struck by a fast-moving New York Central train at the Kirkville intersection. Miraculously, only one student was killed. O'Shea suffered a fractured left leg and left kneecap.

Sometimes I enjoy life in the rearview mirror, which happens while I look at the many old family photographs that have accumulated. These photographs — like the one of me taking my son, Jeff, to work in Akron (above) —trigger memories of past experiences and stories told to me by my parents.

I'm old enough to recall a time before television and evenings when my family gathered around a large radio to listen to Jack Benny, Fred Allen, "The Great Gildersleeve," "Duffy's Tavern" and "Fibber McGee and Molly." It was a time nicely captured by Woody Allen in his movie, "Radio Days."

Kids amused themselves differently in those days, especially on Russet Lane in the Central New York village of Solvay. It was a dead-end street in a great location where it was almost impossible to be bored even in the dead of winter.

After attending Kent State University and graduating from Syracuse University, I found my perfect job at the Akron Beacon Journal where I edited the newspaper's television supplement and interviewed celebrities, many over the phone, but in person when they were guests on "The Mike Douglas Show," which originated in Cleveland and remained there for a few years before moving to Philadelphia.

Later, as TV editor at the Providence Journal, the interviews continued. I've included a bunch of them in this section, including some that did not go as well as I wished — Barbra Streisand, for example. But I had an entertaining lunch with Mary Tyler Moore and her then-husband, Grant Tinker, and a face-to-face with the surprising Betty White, among many others.

While looking for items about members of my very extended family, I often was distracted by stories that dealt with outlaws who captured the nation's fancy during the Depression. And I wanted to separate the facts from things I had learned from movies.

It was because of the Faye Dunaway-Warren Beatty film that Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow emerged as the most popular names from the group of 1930s outlaws, but at the time they were minor figures compared with the four outlaws pictured above — Wilbur Underhill, the most feared; John Dillinger, the most notorious; Harvey Bailey, the most successful, and Verne Miller, the most unlikely, but eventually the man behind the infamous "Kansas City Massacre."

Finally, our world has become unbelievably crazy, not only because America elected a proven idiot in 2024, but because of the trivia that attracts media attention.

I respond by ranting from time to time, writing them rather than shouting them out a la Howard Beale in the classic 1976 film, "Network." Beale was mad as hell and said he wasn't going to take it anymore. I'm mad, too, but I fear we have no choice but to keep on taking it.