This will be a bit of hurried letter as I am just back from lunch with my friend Larry Divney and shortly before I have to go to dinner at my friends, Lionel and Pierre.
It has been a lovely day. Coffee with the NY Times, the way I start most days, followed by a hair cut, followed by an invitation to join Larry for lunch, an invitation I was loathe to ignore.
Larry was my boss for a nanosecond when I worked at A&E before he went on to head Ad Sales for what became Comedy Central. He then became President of Comedy Central. He “retired” for about four months and then came back as President of Ad Sales for MTV Networks. He is a legend in the business. And I am grateful that we are friends, still, after all these years.
We met up one day, fourteen years ago, in our local Walmart. I had just moved to Columbia County and a mutual friend, Chuck Bachrach, said to me you can’t be far from Larry and Alicia, his wife. He gave me their phone number. I left a message and then went to Walmart where I ran into them.
We’ve been especially close ever since. We have had Thanksgivings together as well as Christmases. It is one of the great gifts of my life that they have re-entered my life as friends in Columbia County.
This is a special place, this little county. It collects people who don’t want to be part of the Hamptons scene or can’t, like me, afford that.
The world swirls around us and we acknowledge that, we discuss it and we are grateful we are far from it. I’m not sure it’s true but here we feel safe from the turmoil of the world.
Actually, I don’t think there is anyplace left that is free from what is going on. It’s just that we are less likely targets.
Apparently, IS is destroying yet another ancient city, one declared as a UNESCO World Heritage site, the ancient city of Hatra. It was the capital of the Parthian Empire that wrestled with Rome for centuries.
Tragedy upon archeological tragedy.
The world is losing its history and that is a tragedy. We are dealing with monsters here, who have no respect for what has come before them. I am enormously sad.
The light is good tonight; again everything seems cast in a shade of brown. Tonight is when we leap forward and lose an hour of sleep. I must begin to change the clocks. I’m not excited but it is the way the world works.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York 05 24 15 Remembering 9/11
May 24, 2015The sun is beginning to set in the Hudson Valley, after a brilliant day that was perfect, the sky is now grey with the portends of rain that are indicated for tomorrow.
I have had a wonderful day. I woke early, read the NY Times and then went down to Christ Church in Hudson for their Sunday service. It is Pentecost, with lots of incense and circumstance.
There is a family that often sits in front of me. A mother, father, daughter, grandchild, usually there in the pew in front of mine. I noticed today that the father was on crutches. I was going to ask him what had happened when I realized his right leg had been amputated below the knee. It was far more serious than I had realized. And while I know them from their often being in the pew in front of me, I didn’t think I knew them well enough to ask what had happened.
I am a frequent attender of services at Christ Church but not quite a member of their community.
From there I went to the Red Dot for lunch,; Eggs Benedict on potato latkes. It was, as always, exquisite. I went from there to Ca’Mea, where I greeted my good friend Larry Divney and then went to my friend James Linkin’s house. We sat and chatted and came back to the cottage and sat and watched the creek flow by; the neighbor’s dogs plunged joyfully into the creek.
Since the dogs have arrived, the deer have gone. I miss the deer. They are afraid of the dogs.
Susan, Jim’s wife, came to join us and I made martinis for us. They went off to have dinner at Vico, a restaurant on Warren Street in Hudson.
I am not sure how we got on the subject but it seemed appropriate for Memorial Day. We began to talk about where we were on 9/11.
Susan had just flown in the night before from Europe. Jim was working. I was up, prepping for a conference call with Brazil. When I was in the shower, I felt something and thought: if I were in California I would think we had just had a small earthquake.
It was, of course, the first plane hitting the first building.
It felt right, this Memorial Day, to be remembering that day. The day when the world changed.
Everything has been different since then. We have a Department of Homeland Security. We have Iraq, the never-ending story. We have IS. We have huge debts. We have so much that it boggles the mind.
The world changed. Forever. I don’t know whether it was for good or bad but the world has changed forever. I suspect not for the good but history will tell.
Tags:9/11, Ca'Mea, Christ Chruch, IS, Jim Linkin, Larry Divney, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Pentecost, Red Dot, Susan Anderson, Vico
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