Posts Tagged ‘Claverack’

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Letter From New York 12 17 15 Naughty Hedge Fund Managers to a return of The Force, may it be with you

December 17, 2015

Red Dot.  Alana Hauptman.  Jerimiah Rusconi.  James Ivory.  “A Room with a View”  “Howard’s End”  “Maurice” Putin The Donald Martin Shkreli Enrique Marquez Farook  Malik  US and Cuba flights  Star Wars  May the Force be with you!

Early this morning I came down to the city and will return on the 7:15.  There is a Holiday Party I should attend but will not.  I want to return to the cottage and continue cleaning up from the dinner party I had last night.

Alana, who owns the Red Dot, and her partner, Patrick, were there as well as Jeremiah Rusconi, the premiere consultant for restoring homes in the Hudson Valley, and James Ivory, the directing partner of the Merchant Ivory team that brought us such films as “A Room With a View,” “Maurice” and “Howard’s End.”  He lives at the end of my street and has become by way of a friend.

It was a lovely evening.  Roast duck, scalloped potatoes, creamed pearl onions and peas, carrots and a salted caramel chocolate ganache for dessert.

We talked of movies and politics and local events in the warmth and coziness of the cottage.  Floodlights lit up the creek and holiday lights festooned the front of the house.

Jim and I started the evening with martinis and went on to a chill white Cotes du Rhone.  It was a softly warm evening of good chatter and comradeship, all united by the place where we live.  I treasure nights like that at the cottage.

While we dined and sipped wine, the world was moving on…

Putin has said that The Donald is the absolute leader in the race for the Presidency.  They have formed a mutual admiration society.  Trump wants to get closer to Putin and Putin sees nothing wrong with that. 

While I was waking up this morning to make my way into the city, Federal agents were preparing to arrest Martin Shkreli, the bad boy of pharmaceuticals.  He is famous, or infamous, for upping the price of drug that had sold for $13.50 a pill to $750.00 a pill.  Used to treat people with toxoplasmosis, including those with AIDS, it was a critical component of many folks drug regimen.

Apparently, according to the Feds, he was not a very good boy before that and is charged with fraud and wire transfer conspiracy.  He’d been doing, according to the Feds, a number of naughty things with companies he’s been involved with and lying consistently about the financials of those companies.

I hope it’s all true.

Enrique Marquez, a friend of the San Bernardino shooters, Farook and Malik, was arrested.  He legally obtained the assault weapons used and gave them to the shooters, without going, apparently, through he legal process to transfer firearms.

He converted some years ago to Islam but quite going to his mosque because some members found him “goofy.”  Depending on what charges are filed, he faces some years in prison up to life imprisonment.

The US and Cuba are working out an agreement to allow up to thirty flights a day between the country.  Hello, tourism!

And hello “Star Wars,” which is released tomorrow.  Generally the reviews are really good and say the film harkens back to the first films, which were actually Episodes 4, 5 and 6.

1, 2 and 3 came out much later and while box office successful, were not critically acclaimed and didn’t capture the love of the audience the way the others did.  The magic seems to have returned with this episode, number 7.

I am sure I will see it but not for a bit.  I don’t like crowds and the crowds this weekend with be formidable.  May the Force be with you!

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Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Russia, Social Commentary, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter From New York 12 12 15 Climate Change

December 13, 2015

It’s hard to believe that Christmas is in thirteen days.  The temperature today scratched 60 degrees.  I wore only a fleece pullover all day; it was too warm for anything more.

Now, a little after 7, the temperature is beginning to drop and I am thinking of perhaps lighting a fire.  When I finish writing this, I am going to watch some video and “wrap” presents, which means I put them in those oh so convenient bags, wrapped in tissue paper.

In the late afternoon, I went grocery shopping as I am having people over for dinner on Wednesday evening.  Since I am getting up in the morning and going to the city until Tuesday evening, I needed to do the shopping now.  Wednesday I will cook.

Young Nick was here today and we got the table all set so I don’t have to be concerned about that.  I love having dinner parties; it feels like a vacation to me putting them together.

My mind rests from all the everyday noise and I am lost in the cooking and prepping.

Because it is so warm, there have been lots of climate change jokes going around.

Today, an accord about climate change was reached by 196 nations in Paris.  It is monumental and there is still a great deal of work to be done.

Beijing has been on red alert for several days this month, pollution having reached a level that caused schools to close, factories to shutter, cars to get off the road and for people to stay at home. 

Delhi has worse air than Beijing and is doing less about it though starting January 1st, cars will be on an even/odd system for being on the road.  But the police say they will cancel it, if it becomes too inconvenient.  Which it probably will…

My friend Raja lives in Delhi and has a young daughter who spends this part of the year with nebulizers and in great discomfort because of the pollution.

Yes, we need to be tackling these problems.

Oh, so many problems…

This morning I had an impossibly difficult time waking up but when I did I began to charge into action.  It’s that time of year for all of us when there is absolutely more to do than we can but somehow it all comes together.

I’m getting up early tomorrow and heading down to the city.  My friend, Rev. Peter Panagore, is giving a talk at Trinity Wall Street about his death experiences.  He’s been dead twice.  Once as a result of a hiking accident when he was young and, most recently, when he had a massive heart attack and they kept losing him in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

He has seen heaven.

I hope I do.

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Posted in Claverack, Columbia County, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Letter From New York 12 05 15 Winter Walk in Hudson…

December 6, 2015

Hudson, 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.

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Posted in Columbia County, Hamptons, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Uncategorized, Winter Walk | 8 Comments »

Letter From New York 11 25 15 On Thanksgiving Eve…

November 25, 2015

It is 5:12 on Thanksgiving Eve and it is dark out, pitch black.  The sun has receded and gone to sleep for the night.  As often is the case, jazz is playing and I am writing what probably will be a fairly quick Letter.

In the kitchen, I am preparing pumpkin soup for tomorrow, a quick and easy Jacques Pepin recipe I found some time ago and dearly love — as do the people to whose house I am going tomorrow for the Thanksgiving feast. 

When I finish that, I am going on to do the creamed pearl onions with peas.

Tomorrow, I will do the cranberries once I have decided on a recipe.  Then, around one, will pack it into the car and head up to Larry and Alicia’s where I’ll be, staying at their place for the night so I don’t have to drive back after all the feasting and fun.

Lionel will be there and has been asked to bring along his sheet music so he can bash out some tunes for us after dinner.

So, for me, this has been a day of prepping, which I find fun.  Had a haircut, for which I was overdue.

Even without the fire, it is cozy in the cottage.  In about half an hour I am going to head over to Lionel’s house where he is cooking us dinner.

Cooking onions now…

While I am involved in the pleasantries of prepping for The Great American Holiday, which I love almost as much as Christmas, I know the world is not having the fun I’m having.

There is the knotty problem of IS, and Syria, Turkey, Russia, France, the US, Iran, UK,  are all working to figure out how to deal with them against the backdrop of Turkey having just shot down a Russian warplane.  Russia is deploying anti-aircraft missiles to Syria.  Kick it up another notch…

Paris is still recovering.  Tunisia has been hit with a suicide bomber. 

Video of a young black man being shot by a white policeman in Chicago has stirred protests and residents are being warned of possible gang violence in the wake of its release.  The police officer has been charged with First Degree Murder. 

The video is online but I don’t have the stomach to watch it on Thanksgiving Eve, while cooking and prepping.

And the magic moment has arrived when I must close this missive and head over to Lionel’s.

To everyone who reads this and to everyone who doesn’t, I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving!  May you enjoy your day and the people with whom you spend it.

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Posted in Airstrikes, European Refugee Crisis, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Letter From New York 11 20 15 Another day, another atrocity…

November 20, 2015

Claverack. “A Trick of the Light” Louise Penny. Three Pines. Linda Epperson. Mali. Radisson Blu in Mali. Agatha Christie.  “Murder at Hazelmoor” Paris.  Ca’Mea. Hudson, New York.

Today was a startlingly beautiful day; a perfect early fall day, the sun shining brightly with the temperature scraping near 60 degrees.  The best part is that it is now late November! 

I woke early and watched the sun glitter on the creek while sipping my morning coffee and reading the NY Times on my iPhone.

It has been a good day.  I finished reading “A Trick of the Light,” a Louise Penny murder mystery set in the fictional town of Three Pines in southern Quebec.  There are twelve or thirteen of them.  My friend, Linda Epperson, told me about them some years ago and I have been working my way through them.

When I was in, I think, 3rd grade and was home sick, restless of course, my mother tossed an Agatha Christie at me.  It was “Murder at Hazelmoor.”  It converted me to being a mystery fan and a bit of an Anglophile.  Thanks to my friend Dalton Delan, I am the proud owner of an original edition of the book.

Three Pines is a little village filled with eccentric characters and a disproportionate amount of murders per capita.  What it does remind me of, a bit, is my little town of Claverack without the disproportionate number of murders.

A few years ago the son of the man who owns the house two doors down from me did, apparently, an amazing number of drugs and shot his father and then killed himself.  I was out of town.  The father lived and is still in the house.

But that moment haunts our street, just as all the murders in Three Pines haunt that village.

I am writing on about mysteries because I don’t want to think of the mystery which is the world.

Today’s tragedy was in Mali.  Al Qaeda terrorists burst into the Radisson Blu hotel there and killed, at last count, at least 21, screaming “Allahu akbar” [God is Great, I think] while slitting one man’s throat and rampaging with automatic weapons.

It is over now.  They are counting the dead.  At least one American is gone.  Another day, another tragedy played out.  In Africa, where there have also been all the atrocities from Boko Haram.

Tuesday night, the night before my birthday, my friend Larry took me to dinner at one of our favorite spots, Ca’Mea, great northern Italian cooking.  We talked about Paris; he and his wife, Alicia, had been there not long ago.

He was torn, thinking on one hand he wants to know what is really happening in the world and, on the other hand, not wanting to be overwhelmed by it.

I totally understand.  Sometimes I just want to retreat to my two little acres of land and listen to jazz and watch movies and not think about what is happening out there in the world.

But I can’t.

I care too much.

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Posted in Boko Haram, Claverack, Columbia County, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Paris Attacks, Social Commentary, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Letter From New York 11 18 15 Happy Birthday to me…

November 18, 2015

The day started grey; it looks like it will end grey but at lunchtime the world was flooded with sunlight and happiness, the way I was feeling.

Today is my birthday.  I’m a year older and, I think, a year wiser.  It has been an awfully contemplative year this past year.  When I was in high school, I had my “gang” and we’d laugh and say: live quick, die young and have a good looking corpse.

Unfortunately, some did just that but most of have lived on, exiting middle age for the last act, working to shape this phase of our lives with as much care as we worked to shape other periods in our lives, whether we succeeded or not, we attempted.

At 6:00 AM my friend, Nick Stuart, texted me with what he wanted to be my first “Happy Birthday” of the day.  It was.  I went right back to sleep.  Later, up and having my first coffee, another friend, Mary Dickey, called and we chatted, planning a time to see each other.

I’m here for the rest of the week, snuggling into my cottage.  Right now, I’m listening to jazz and looking across the table, out to the creek.  The trees have shed their leaves and the branches claw nakedly to the sky.

It is not the winter of my discontent.  If anything, I am more content than I have been in my life while watching life unfold in its mysterious ways.  Next January, I will be teaching a class, “Media and Society.”  I’m excited.

My friends Jeffrey and Joyce sent me a message today:  I hope today is a reminder of all good things that have and can happen.

And I am reminded of all the good things that have happened and may well still happen.

As I drove through the countryside, my friend Dairo phoned and we’re meeting for a martini in Hudson, a completely unexpected delight.  Alana Hauptmann, proprietress of The Red Dot, phoned me while I was eating at Relish to sing me “Happy Birthday” and to tell me to stop on by as she had a present for me.

My inbox overflows with messages of good wishes on this day.   Every other second it seems, a new Facebook birthday wish pops up.  This is one of the wonderful things about Facebook.  I’ve heard today by phone, text, email and Facebook from at least a 150 people wishing me well, not to mention the snail mail cards I have collected.

I have not paid much attention to the world beyond me today.  I know there have been developments in Paris and I have not followed them. 

It is my birthday and I am allowing myself to be joyful and whimsical and inattentive to the problem’s of the world.  Time enough tomorrow.

Happy Birthday to me!

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Letter From New York 09 18 15 How lucky am I…

September 18, 2015

It is a stunningly beautiful day here in Claverack. The creek is a mirror of the trees above it, the sun is beginning to descend in the west, the temperature is perfect and I am savoring every moment I get to be out on the deck.

Those days are numbered. I needed to wait awhile this morning to come out here, as it was just a bit too cool when I woke up.

There hasn’t been a letter for a couple of days. I’ve been busy. Yesterday I drove down to Norwalk in Connecticut for lunch with a good, old friend, Bob Altman, who is the king of recipe videos. He’s done thousands of them.

We toured his studio and then went down to the beach for lunch. I had no idea Norwalk was on the water until yesterday.

It was a five-hour journey both ways but very much worth it. On the drive, I listened almost exclusively to NPR, catching up on what they were saying about the world.

There were interviews with Syrian refugees, men and women who had lives there but have found their towns destroyed. Fearing for their lives and the lives of their children, they left Syria. Many went to Turkey but there is no path there for them to legitimacy so they continued on, trusting in many cases to rubber boats to take them to Kos or Lesbos.

Hundreds if not thousands have died in the pursuit of their dream to make it to a safe place. Overwhelmed, Europe is reacting, attempting to staunch the flow coming toward them. It is a human crisis of unfathomable dimensions.

And I sit here in this blissful spot, bothered by nothing except an occasional mosquito. I cannot comprehend the misery of the millions on the move. I accept it in the abstract but I have no visceral connection with it.

My brother probably does. He has been going to Honduras for years to deal with the lack of medical care for those who live in the back of beyond, people who have no more and sometimes less than these refugees.

Sitting on this deck, overlooking the creek, I realize what luck I have had to have been born me, in the time and place that I was. I have been spared many of the world’s travails by having been born in mid-century America.

The future has always been uncertain. I am old enough to remember “duck and cover.” As if that would have saved any of us from a nuclear blast…

But here I am in the third act of my life, seated on a deck overlooking a placid creek with the luxury of looking at the world and being able to ruminate about its meaning. I am SO lucky.

In the next months, I will probably spend more of my time in Columbia County. Last night I went to Christ Church’s “Vision Meeting” and was glad to have been present. It helped me feel connected to this place.

I may be doing some work with the local not for profit radio station, helping them with their marketing and fundraising. I am settling in to being a citizen of Columbia County as opposed to being a “weekender.”

It feels good.

The god Fortuna smiled on me when it/she brought me to this place, allowing me to settle into a home that I think had been part of my dreams since I was a child. It has been great fun to have lived in New York but I think that time is passing.

Once, when I first moved to DC I though how fortunate it was I was there. I had been allowed to know several great American cities. I have lived in Los Angeles, part time in San Francisco, Washington and now New York. How lucky is that?

I’ve never lived in Chicago and I’ve never really liked Chicago so I don’t think that’s a big miss.

I’ve seen a great deal of the world, much more than I might ever have if I had remained a high school English teacher in Minneapolis and have been a witness to two generations of technological changes and been, somehow, a part of both.

F

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Posted in Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Social Commentary, Syrian Refugee Crisis | Leave a Comment »

Letter from Claverack 09 13 15 In a time of travail…

September 13, 2015

The sun is setting here in Claverack. It has been a grey day, mostly, with bits of rain here and there. It’s been warm but not hot. The high was at most mid-70’s today. Soon it will be cool and I’ll be lighting fires in the Franklin stove.

As has been the case of late, I had a hard time waking this morning and hit the snooze alarm an annoying number of times but, as it was my personal commitment to go to church today, I pulled myself eventually out of bed and prepped myself and got off to church.

For some reason, I found myself thinking about my Catholic childhood, all of us forced to attend Sunday Mass with our classes, filling the 9:00 service with all our bodies, a Mass generally avoided by any thinking adult. Who would want to go to church with hundreds of school children?

Sister Ann, my 8th grade teacher, announced one day that we would be persecuted because we were Catholics. I remember thinking how strange that sounded. Certainly I didn’t think of myself as being persecuted. I lived in a nice house, in a nice neighborhood and it didn’t seem to me that anyone was persecuting me for being Catholic.

I was born a couple of generations after that had happened.

It came to mind today because Mother Eileen, interim Pastor at Christ Church Episcopal, where I now attend service, talked today in her sermon about those who are suffering around the world because they are Christians.

And, while I am not in those countries, it is real that Christians in Iraq, Syria, and other places are being targeted. There is IS with its rigid and antediluvian interpretation of Islam and there is persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt. Muslim/Christian tensions inflame the African continent.

I thought we were beyond those times but we’re not, not at all.

As I drove to church, I was listening to a program on New England Public Radio that was devastatingly funny in its oral portraits of what Republican candidates are saying regarding constitutionality. It was almost hysterical, except these people are serious. The constitution should be enforced when combating Muslims but shouldn’t be enforced when Kim Davis refuses to uphold the law of the land. The hypocrisy was astounding.

Post church, I went for a drive while I listened to “Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me!,” my favorite NPR program and then I went to the Red Dot and perused a new cookbook I had purchased the other day, realizing that we are slipping into fall and it was time to think about Holiday meals.

While the day was supposed to be cursed with thunderstorms, there were none. A bit of light rain has fallen but nothing more.

It is seven in the evening. The light has almost completely left the sky. The light on the fountain has automatically turned on.

The house is quiet. My world is quiet though I know that far away from me the world is not quiet.

The Saudis are bombing Yemen, inflicting terrible pain upon the civilians. People in the lands controlled by IS are cowering in their homes. The markets of Baghdad are not safe.

All of this seems far away. Today, though, Al Qaeda called for individuals to launch attacks in America. Europe is in turmoil over the refugee situation. 14,000 refugees arrived in Germany today. Austria and Hungary have closed their borders.

They are being overwhelmed.

People are lamenting the refugee situation without looking at the wars that are causing the situation.

These are desperate times. I am not sure what to do except to donate to charities who are attempting to help the massive flow of people, desperate to escape their desperate lives, wanting to flee to someplace where they might not be randomly killed or starved for lack of resources.

I have no answers and am not sure I have the questions. I only know we are in a time of travail.

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Posted in Boko Haram, Columbia County, European Refugee Crisis, Mat Tombers, Mathew, Mathew Tombers, Social Commentary | 3 Comments »

Letter From Columbia County 09 08 15 A day for me…

September 8, 2015

It has been a hot and humid day in Columbia County. Waking early, I went out onto the deck to read the Times and drink my coffee before the heat of the day descended upon me.

The Pope is loosening the parameters for an annulment in the church and there was much in the paper about the refugee crisis in Europe. The markets were trending upwards before the open and succeeded in closing up.

Today was all about me. After playing host to my brother and family I felt like I needed a day to myself. After reading the paper, I went to town to collect a week’s worth of mail and to do some shopping for staples.

It is apparent we are in an election season in Columbia County. Everywhere there are signs for candidates. They have increased exponentially since I went to New York City to spend time with my brother. Lawns are littered with them.

Bill Hallenbeck, a Republican and the incumbent Mayor of Hudson, is running for reelection against Democrat Tiffany Martin Hamilton. He probably will win; the town is still deeply Republican though the drift has been slowly toward the Democrats.

I’ve never met Hallenbeck though have always thought, based on what I have read in the papers, that he seems a bit out of his depth as Mayor. Still, he has served two terms…

My friend Larry and I met for lunch at Ca’Mea and then I went with him to collect things he had bought for the new loft above the renovated barn on his property.

While we were there, eating at the bar, surrounded by folks, there was animated conversation about the refugee crisis in Europe and, of course, about The Donald. The fellows to Larry’s right were astonished that Trump is the Republican frontrunner.

As am I…

The refugee crisis is astonishing. The situation is desperate. And there is no unified response even now from the EU. They are making it up as they go.

For a moment today, I thought I should go and volunteer to help out on the island of Kos or in Hungary but I don’t think there is a mechanism for such offers for help.

The day is fading. I am on my deck, a soft wind blowing from the west, cooling me a little. Across the creek, I realize the first leaves are changing. Yellow mixes with green and I grieve for what is going and am open to what is coming.

The seasons are beginning to turn.

As they turn all over the world, the refugees in Hungary are enduring cold nights now while my air conditioning keeps me comfortable.

It will be awhile before the leaves all turn and there will be more nights when I will be able to sit at my circular picnic table, viewing the creek and enjoying the moments.

Then will come real fall and after fall will come winter and then spring and then summer and I will be observing it all from my deck.

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Letter From Claverack Creek 08 28 15 Of anniversaries and other things…

August 28, 2015

It is a bucolic day here in Claverack. The temperature is in the mid-70’s and it is mostly sunny. I have spent a good part of the day on the deck. Yesterday I did my Emmy judging and today was CINE judging. I have more of that to do tomorrow because some of the links weren’t present and had to be restored.

As part of my continuing transition to life in Hudson, I went down and met with the Executive Director of the Columbia County Council for the Arts about volunteering, also meeting Dan, a member of their Board.

I’ll do something with them. I know I will need structure if I am going to be up here most of the time.

Then I meandered down to Relish, a little café across the street from the train station and had their legendary chicken salad on gluten free bread. As I returned, I needed to slow for a fawn crossing Patroon Street.

It’s been lovely to have had these two days. Down the creek, my neighbor’s dogs are playing in the creek. I can hear them splashing. It is so placid; insects are chirping and birds are trilling, the sun getting slowly lower in the sky, luscious green all around me.

I’ll go into Hudson in a while. The new hotel, Rivertown Lodge, is having a party for citizens of the city to see the renovation they did on what was a movie theater turned into a motel, now converted to a small boutique hotel. From there to the Red Dot and then home. A pleasant evening seems to be before me.

Ten years ago, Katrina was destroying New Orleans. I was watching it on CNN in New Delhi, in the Oberoi Hotel, sitting on the edge of my bed in front of the television screen and thinking this can’t really be happening. But it was.

Ten years later, New Orleans has, according to some reports, bounced back. Some parts have returned to their violent roots and parts of the black middle class has been lost, having moved to other cities and set down roots.

But that it came back at all is a miracle of sorts. There were fears in those early days that New Orleans would never recover its spirit, its verve, and all the things that had made it such a special place. I haven’t been there since Katrina but am thinking of taking the train “The City of New Orleans” or “The Crescent” down there one day and revisit a city of which I have many fond memories.

Today is also the anniversary of the death of a 14-year-old black child, Emmett Tull, allegedly killed for the brutal crime of a wolf whistle at an attractive white lady. It took a jury an hour and three minutes to acquit the two men accused of murdering him. The boy’s death did much to stir up calls for racial equality and provided an impetus for the Civil Rights movement.

Seventy years after the end of World War II, the Poles think they have found a Nazi treasure train. Rumors of its existence have persisted through the decades and now it may have been found. Wonder what it contains if it is a Nazi “treasure” train?

Politically, it has appeared to be a calm day. In the top stories, none of them were about Donald Trump! That’s a good way to end the week.

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Posted in Civil Rights, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Politics, Social Commentary | Leave a Comment »

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