County fairs began as a showcase for farmers; rides, games and entertainment were added to attract more visitors. Older residents remember a time when the Ulster County Fair had only a carousel and Ferris wheel.
It’s a scene that seems perhaps a little out of place — dragonflies chase each other through clusters of lush rice grass, rooted in verdant wetlands. These rice paddies are not in some Asian river delta or even the “Rice Belt” down south. They’re tucked behind a bend of a country road in Esopus.
On July 26 long-time Woodstock activist, father, and friend, Marc Jargow died after stoic struggle against terminal illness. He was 68 years old.
The Matagiri Sri Aurobindo Center will commemorate its 49th birthday with an evening of classical Indian music and theater at 7 p.m. Wednesday, August 2 at the Mountain View Studio. Matagiri is a nonprofit organization located just outside of Woodstock dedicated to spiritual growth and the evolution of human consciousness.
To the Saugerties business community, Michael Persico is known as a sharp investor in the local real estate market and a community-minded business owner who held Chamber of Commerce mixers at his 50-acre estate in West Saugerties and donated the use of a building in the heart of the village for use as a visitor’s center. But federal prosecutors paint a very different picture of the 60-year-old Brooklyn native.
Culturally, the Catskills are a bright mosaic of urban and rural mores and values. But scratch the surface and we have all the problems of rural Appalachia: addiction, poverty, a greying population, a general purposelessness that siphons the brightest of our young people out of our schools and our communities.
In the attic, I open another box and find canceled checks going back to 1982. Did my parents ever throw anything out?
So, how did the one-time MHAL wrestling champion and MHAL 110 hurdles and pole vault champion, and noted free-spirit, come to be the guiding force behind a tech program for kids?
Schenker laughs. “It was unusual.”
Dina Washington is a literal postal professional, and then some. Walk into the Uptown post office and you’re greeted by her luminous smile and positive vibes. She is upright and energetic, yet collected and positive.
“It (poetry) just hits me, an image or a phrase, and it starts to write itself. Most of my ideas come just when I’m going off to sleep, when my conscious-mind, my analytical and logical mind, is dozing off and sleep brings things, other things, out, brings things to a head, the unconscious, and I write them down…”