This week on Talk of the Town on Magic 590 plus 100.5 FM, Bob Cudmore’s guest is Drew Matonak, president of Hudson Valley Community College in Troy.

Episode 176-Historian Jerry Snyder looks at the history of electric trolleys in Amsterdam, N.Y.  Snyder recently spoke on the topic at a meeting of Historic Amsterdam League.

Episode 175-Baltimore sports writer John Eisenberg discusses his book “The Streak: Lou Gehrig, Cal Ripken Jr., and Baseball’s Most Historic Record.” Eisenberg tells the story of baseball’s legendary “Iron Men,” Cal Ripken Jr. and Lou Gehrig, who each achieved the record of most consecutive games played.

Episode 173-Bob Cudmore covers the restoration project at the Green’s Corners one-room school, built in the  1800s in West Glenville, N.Y.  Featured is a conversation with Ann Belfance Farina who is 100 years old and who attended the school in the 1920s.

Episode 174-Tugboat captain and historian Art Cohn discusses canal schooners, the tractor trailers of the Erie Canal.  Cohn was interviewed during the summer tour of the replica canal schooner Lois McClure. Picture shows canal schooner Lois McClure docked at Amsterdam's Riverlink Park.  Also on this episode, a visit to an authors’ fair at the Fulton County Museum in Gloversville.

Episode 7-Minutiae, A Jay Towne Production.Minutiae is a serial drama, based in Amsterdam, NY, and Episode 7 serves as a turning point for the series, with Jason on his deathbed, in the valley of decision, weighing his own past actions against the moral imperative he has dodged his whole life. With appearances by those he loved most, plus a special guest, Episode 7 threatens to be a worthwhile listen. ...or, whatever.

Minutiae-Episode 6 Jay Towne Production.Minutiae is a serial radio drama, set and produced in Amsterdam, NY, in a time of great change for the McDonald family, who learn how their favored son, Jason, was kidnapped, attacked, and left to die in a South Side,  Amsterdam field. Their struggle to cope with the family's loss forms the backbone of the show, and leads them to understand their world in a differently similar light. Produced with the help of a wonderfully talented cast and crew, Minutiae can also be currently heard on WCSS 1490 AM on a semi-regular basis.

Episode 172-Roger Seiler has written an historical novel “Master of Alaska,” based on the story of Aleksandr Baranov, a merchant who served as governor of Russian Alaska from 1799 to 1818.

Episode 171-Bob Cudmore discuss two of Bob’s Daily Gazette columns—the story of Amsterdam, N.Y., opera singer Albert Sochin DaCosta and late 19^th century folk artist Kris Vogt, a homeless man who made sketches of the homes of others.

Youtube recording of Amsterdam, N.Y., native Albert Sochin DaCosta, a prominent opera singer until his untimely death in 1967. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=662wKJQLl8k

Episode 168-Part One. American Revolution in The Mohawk Valley Conference was held Thursday, June 8-Sunday, June, 11, 2017. There was a tour of Mohawk Country Historic Sites. These sites included the following: Fort Plain/Fort Rensselaer (the Fort Plain Museum), the 1747 Nellis Tavern, Fort Klock, the Stone Arabia battlefield, the Stone Arabia Church, the Grave of Colonel John Brown (the Hero of the Battle of Stone Arabia), and Old Fort Johnson. The Historians with Bob Cudmore covered the event.

Episode 169-Part Two- Coverage of the 2017 American Revolution in the Mohawk Valley Conference. Loyalist historian Gavin Watt, professor William Fowler on George Washington, history blogger Peter Feinman, author and reenactor Phil Weaver.

Episode 170- Ron Fierstein is author of “A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War.

Episode 162-Bob Cudmore provides his Top Ten List of Amsterdam, N.Y., broadcasters.

Episode 161-Archaeologist and historian Wayne Lenig discusses Mohawk chief Joseph Brant’s 1780 raids in the Mohawk Valley. http://www.fortplainmuseum.com/index.aspx

Episode 163-Norm Bollen of the Fort Plain Museum previews this year’s American Revolution in the Mohawk Valley Conference. The event includes ten speakers, two bus tours of historic sites, a documentary film sceening and more. More information is at www.fortplainmuseum.com

Episode 166- Best-selling author Simon Sebag Montefiore discusses the Romanov tsars of Russia, the most successful dynasty of modern times, ruling a sixth of the world’s surface for three centuries.  Montefiore has written “The Romanovs: 1613-1918.

Minutiae, Episode Five, is the latest installment in the McDonald's saga, and it brings the family closer to finding their son's killer. Jason is also seen in flashbacks and in his writing as his family and friends' lives interconnect and move toward an uncertain future. Produced in Amsterdam, NY, and performed in front of a live audience." A Jay Towne Production. All The Minutiae Episods are available here on The Historians. Scroll Down.

Episode 165- The curator at Fort Ticonderoga, Matthew Keagle, gives a fascinating account of the history of this important northern New York 18^th century fort, held at various times by the French, the British and American revolutionaries.

Episode 158-Folksingers Cosby Gibson and Tom Staudle perform songs from the early days of the Erie Canal. Construction of the canal began two hundred years ago this year.

Episode 164-Author Wanda Burch discusses her book, “The Home Voices Speak Louder than the Drums: Dreams and the Imagination in Civil War Letters and Memoirs.” (McFarland Publishing, Summer 2017)  Singer-songwriter John Kenosian has set some of these letters and memoirs to music.  Kenosian and Burch are performing a concert series in New York’s Montgomery County called “Home Voices: The American Civil War Experience through Words and Music.

Episode 159-Peter Betz has stories about the Gloversville soda battle of 1933, Prohibition and the 1949 visit of the Freedom Train,  Peter writes a biweekly history column for the Leader Herald newspaper in Gloversville.

Episode 4, Minutiae, The Jay Towne Production.

Minutiae is a serial radio drama based in Amsterdam, NY. The saga deals with a family grieving for a lost son, Jason, a possible murder victim, by keeping him alive in their memories using flashbacks and short fiction from Jason’s diary. By doing so they memorialize him and serve the story as moral fable. Scroll down to catch up with Episodes 1-3. www.facebook.com/Minutiaedrama/

Episode 160-Dennis Webster looks back at a precedent setting murder case in his new book, “Murder of a Herkimer County Teacher: The Shocking 1914 Case of a Vengeful Student.”