Claverack Cottage. San Bernardino shootings. Domestic terrorism. Nick Stuart. Newtown. Milwaukee. Milwaukee 53208. Stephen Ambrose. IS. Radical Islam. World War II.
It is six o’clock. The world beyond the cottage is dark after a day of grey and drizzle. I went out only to do a few errands and spent most of the day at home, working on paperwork, prepping some things for my class in January, following up on some things. It felt positive, moving through the endless amount of “paperwork” a life in the 21st century demands, even when most of it is digital.
The world has ticked on since I last wrote two days ago. There was another shooting, in San Bernardino. I thought about writing something on the train coming up from the city but I felt a bit punched in the gut by it all.
They are now working to determine if this was an act of domestic terrorism. It might well have been.
My friend, Nick Stuart, and I met for a martini last night before my train. He arrived ebullient. Just before he came to meet me, it was announced “Newtown,” a film he is Executive Producer of ,was accepted into Sundance. Today he found out he is about to be a grandfather; his oldest daughter Rihannon is going to be having a baby in June. We’ll celebrate more on Tuesday and Wednesday, both days I will be seeing him.
Some had told him that “Newtown” was an old subject and its time had past but given what has been happening it is more relevant than ever. Today I read that there is a mass shooting of some kind on an average of once a day.
So “good on you” Nick, as my Aussie friends would say for having preserved with this project.
Another one, on mass incarceration, which is nearing completion has been requested by the White House for a screening. Who knew that Milwaukee had the highest number of prisoners per capita than any other city in America? It is titled “Milwaukee 53208.”
The room is filled with the sounds of the ticking of a small grandfather’s clock. It has been part of the background sound of my life since I was born. It was on a shelf in the hall just beneath the stairs that went up to my bedroom. Lately, I have been calling it the “heart of the house.”
It makes me feel like I am living in a soft womb of a house, comforted by the sound of a heartbeat. It is part of what makes the cottage special.
I’m also doing laundry, a grounding task if ever there was one.
I’m reading Stephen Ambrose’s history of World War II. It’s a bit drier than I expected but gives a look into the horrors of that war. As awful as it was, it reminded me that America and Canada were probably the only combatant countries that were not ravaged on the home front by the war.
It also has taught me how much the world and our country were changed by that conflict.
I am wondering how our world will be changed by the current conflict in which we find ourselves?
Perhaps I am being a historical romantic but it feels as if we are living through another tipping point in history as we struggle with IS and radical Islam.
If the couple in San Bernardino were, indeed, domestic terrorists we face ongoing “Paris style” attacks and it will be a struggle to avoid mistakes of the past such as the encampment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Letter From New York 12 05 15 Winter Walk in Hudson…
December 6, 2015Hudson, New York. Winter Walk. The Red Dot. James Linkin. Mat Tombers. Mathew Tombers. Nutcracker. Columbia County, New York. Warren Street, Hudson. Old Chatham Kettle Corn. Alana Hauptman. Brooklyn North. Hamptons.
It is the first Saturday in December and that means that tonight was Winter Walk in Hudson, an event I have attended faithfully for fourteen years.
Hudson has one of the most magnificent collections of late 19th Century buildings in the country and each year on the first Saturday in December decks itself out for a winter party.
Carolers line the streets and sing traditional carols while people in costume meander the street. Shops decorate themselves for the day and there are probably 30,000 people who show up for the party.
It is Hudson’s kick-off for the Holiday Season.
For me, it reached its culmination when I returned from wandering the streets to go to The Red Dot to meet my friend James Linkin. You couldn’t move in the place and it was the most festive of the places I had visited.
Alana, proprietress of The Red Dot, goes full tilt every year to transform her establishment to some Christmas theme. This year may well be the most spectacular she has created. It was all about The Nutcracker.
She did an amazing job and it, alone, put me in a festive mood.
It was a local night. The conversations were about decorative windows and great themes and neighborly conversations. It was a celebration of local joy. Tonight was about hometown. Hudson is the county seat and the heart of Columbia County.
While I don’t live in Hudson it is the center of my life in Columbia County. It is for almost everyone who lives in the county. Hudson has a life of its own.
It is the last suburb of New York and the first suburb of Albany. It has attracted a number of people who are economic refugees from New York, people who are connected to the city and who can no longer afford to live there.
It is a haven for those who are artistic, many are the artists who once made SoHo, SoHo.
The creative energy that has found itself here that is amazing.
With humor, people have called this Brooklyn North or SoHo Redux. And it is true, there is a creative energy that flows through the county that is quite amazing.
The weekenders are people who cannot afford nor want to be in the Hamptons; looking for something that is more tangible and real. We are also inhabited with those who could afford the Hamptons but don’t want it.
I have been to fourteen successive Winter Walks and each year find something new to wonder at.
Tonight I wandered through almost all of Warren Street while eating some of the best popcorn in the world: Old Chatham Kettle Corn. In a kind of popcorn ecstasy I walked the streets, not buying but looking for gifts for the folks on my list for which I have not found the perfect item.
Tonight the trials and the tribulations of the world were far way. I was in my own place, my own world and allowed myself to be drenched by it.
It was so good to celebrate my time and my place.
Since parking was impossible I hitched a ride in with young Nick after we had finished our weekend chores. And I called Riverview Taxi to bring me home.
Andy, the driver, came into the Red Dot to find me. He was early and he wanted to be sure he found me and got me into his cab.
It is the kind of personal touch of small town America that is seeping away in the world of Uber but one that I appreciate as I appreciate my place in this special place.
I’ve witnessed the growth of Hudson, seen it change a bit and know it will change more. But it is a special place as is this whole county which is my home now.
I am lucky and am lucky enough to know I am lucky.
Tags: Alana Hauptman, Brooklyn North, Claverack, Hamptons, Hudson, James Linkin, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Nutcracker, Old Chatham Kettle Corn, Warren Street
Posted in Columbia County, Hamptons, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Uncategorized, Winter Walk | 8 Comments »