|
Follow Up on the
News
|
Purple
Haze On Strings
Onteora’s
orchestra is one of fifteen high school groups in the country
chosen to compete and perform at New York City’s Lincoln
Center. Invitations were based on recommendations from state
officials of organizations such as the New York State School
Music Association (NYSSMA). The three-day trip will include
clinics with world-renowned music educators, composers, and
judges, who will also give feedback on each group’s
strengths and weaknesses. “Playing in a world-class
concert hall is an experience in itself,” said Paetow.
“The kids are pretty psyched!”
The trip will cost each of 34 strings players $529, and the
students are busy fundraising to pay the way of five members
whose families cannot afford the expense. Originally, they
were also trying to raise enough to cover the $3000 to $4000
needed for a bus and the driver’s overnight accommodations,
but the school board has agreed to pay the transportation
cost.
Paetow expressed gratitude to the school board and to principal
Barbara Ruben, who has been “unbelievably supportive,”
she said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
for these kids.” Fundraising efforts have included bake
sales, candy sales, an all-day Practice-a-thon, and a “Black
Wednesday” right after Halloween, when donors of $5
got to wear black all day, plus a bright purple ribbon. At
the winter concert, audience members bought raffle tickets
for a chance to conduct the orchestra. The winning ticket
went to artist Kate McLoughlin, who teaches at the Woodstock
School of Art and used to be a substitute teacher at Onteora.
McLoughlin sashayed onstage and conducted “Purple Haze”
with verve and humor.
In addition to the crowd-pleasing rock number, the orchestra
performed several classical pieces, both with and without
the addition of woodwind, brass, and percussion sections.
One of the more challenging pieces was Antonin Dvorak’s
“New World Symphony #5”. The audience gave the
musicians a standing ovation.
Principal Ruben’s husband decided to sponsor a student
after hearing the orchestra play. Olive town clerk Sylvia
Rozzelle sent in a donation, and several banks have contributed
in response to letters from Paetow, who will put any surplus
funds into treating the students to a special meal on their
trip to the city.
Being selected for this competition is the highest honor yet
for the Onteora music department, which has already racked
up a number of awards. Two of the orchestra’s subgroups,
the chamber music ensemble and the electric string band Mango,
received first-place awards at last year’s Six Flags
competition in New Jersey. For the second year in a row, Onteora
was runner-up in the Grammy awards for high school music departments.
In 2003, the orchestra and chorus were invited to Washington,
D.C., to perform at the base of the Washington Monument as
part of the Salute to America festival. The band, under the
direction of Steve Murphy, has won honors in numerous competitions,
including the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Manhattan.
Paetow is hoping her eclectic style will pay off at Lincoln
Center. “A lot of people have a purist attitude that
orchestras are only supposed to play the music of dead white
guys. NYSSMA has jazz categories for vocal and band but not
for strings, and they don’t have fiddling. People are
writing music for jazz and rock orchestras, and there are
lots of electric strings out there, plus Scottish and Celtic
music. The orchestral world has not recognized them yet. I’d
love to take ‘Purple Haze’ to Lincoln Center.
I don’t know what the reaction of the judges will be.
They’ll probably fall out of their chairs.” She
does not know yet whether the competition regulations restrict
the type of music to be played, or whether an adult is permitted
to participate, although drummer Sultan, whose daughter sings
in the Onteora chorus, has already expressed his interest
in playing along.
Paetow has been at Onteora since 1984, but she actually began
teaching 31 years ago at the age of twelve. “I owe a
great debt to the world of music,” she said. “I
went to a conservative high school, and my brothers were valedictorians,
but I was not a great student. Music really saved me. My music
teacher encouraged me to get private lessons and play outside
of school.” In addition to teaching, Paetow plays regularly
with the Woodstock String Quartet, which supplements their
classical repertoire with arrangements of Hendrix, José
Feliciano, the Beatles, and Cole Porter.
It is a testament to the skills of the Onteora music teachers,
including department head and chorus conductor Krista Cayea,
that around 200 students participate in the orchestra, band,
or chorus, out of a total school population of just over 700.
Paetow commented, “I try to make it non-threatening
to the kids. It’s not about intimidating them—that’s
not going to bring out the music. I have people telling me,
“I see you’ve got some of the brightest kids in
your group.’ But we also have autistic kids, special
ed kids—music helps them. Some of the average kids work
their way up. In the last twenty years, studies have shown
that learning the language of music opens up other rooms in
the brain.”
Donations for the Onteora orchestra’s trip to Lincoln
Center may be sent to Wini Paetow, Music Department, Onteora
High School, Boiceville NY 12412. Checks in any amount should
be made out to “Onteora Central School”.
Lemon
Squeezed Again
“With the support and expertise of the Corps, it is
my hope that the NYSDEC can increase the frequency and scope
of dam inspections within the watershed, provide greater scrutiny
of NYCDEP’s inspection process and allay the fears of
watershed residents,” Hinchey wrote to the AEC’s
Lt. General Carl A. Strock at that time. In the previous year,
Hinchey had secured Congressional authorization to conduct
a watershed study aimed at the development of a comprehensive
plane to deal with the local water situation. The Corps had
acknowledged the “need for a watershed management plan
to identify construction projects that could include dredging,
removal of debris and stream bank restoration along the lower
Esopus to mitigate against future flooding” but Hinchey’s
January missive specifically and pointedly addressed dam inspection.
Since September 19, 2008 will mark a full century since the
dam’s masonry began to be constructed into a 252 foot
high barrier, close consideration of the inspection process
is a priority which watershed residents feel should not be
taken for granted- particularly since troublespots have begun
to crop up elsewhere.
The DEP has expended $24 million for remedial work at the
Schoharie Reservoir in the last few years and has slated another
$300 million for a reconstruction project to bring the dam
up to State standards beginning in 2008. Although DEP officials
devoted millions to the building of a new, security-enhanced,
high-tech headquarters at the Ashokan Reservoir, local residents
have complained of a neglected infrastructure surrounding
the reservoir.
Known as “plum tree land” in the years before
the reservoir was build, the Esopus Valley was changed forever
by its arrival, creating wavering stages of “truce”between
New York officials and local residents. Punctuated by periods
neighborly cooperation as well as squabbles and endless lawsuits
which began as the City attempted to dodge property taxes
on its newly acquired upstate lands even before the reservoir
project was finished, the relationship between downstaters
and locals hasn’t changed much since those initial impressions.
As the late historian Alf Evers pointed out, New Yorkers saw
the folks around the reservoir as “uncouth bumpkins”
and the locals returned the favor by viewing the interlopers
as “ignorant barbarians who believed that the people
north of their city line existed only for the convenience
or profit of New York.”
Another suspected reason for the barring of pedestrians from
walking the scenic road was thought to be the Article 78 filed
in October to show cause why local vehicles could not be coded
to drive the route, a petition which Olive Supervisor notes
has yet to enjoy a response from the DEP.
Not at all, claims the DEP’s Shokan-based representative
Michael Kite.
“It’s closed because we’re doing some repair
on some trenching that we put in for security lines,”
Kite explained. “We need to replace some concrete covers
along the roadway right at the main dam.”
Kite emphatically denies that there is any structural concerns
about the dam or that any of the repairs will apply to the
primary sections.
“It has nothing to do with the dam. There’s no
structural work,” Kite assured, estimating that the
“walkway” will be reopened to pedestrian traffic
by the end of December. “It has to do with installing
some security (devices), nothing else.”
New
OCS Super Named
Keller’s letter to the town board in November
described her efforts to persuade the DEC, who partnered
with ACE in the remedial work upstream and, by agreement,
is responsible for maintenance problems, to act to avert
increasing threats of flood damage in the area.
"During a telephone call with a DEC official last
week I was told that the DEC had decided that stream widening
was ineffective as early as the 1970s," Keller wrote.
"Why the corps and DEC decided to use this methodology
in 1985 is a good question."
Keller also notes that ACE broke their own rules about
not using stream materials to rebuild banks but denied
a permit to the Kellers to do the same before the damage
exceeded their capacity to repair as individuals, as it
has since more recent storms.
"The Bushkill was a small stream running alongside
Watson Hollow Road when my husband moved here in the 1970's,"
Keller elaborated. "One day he came home and the
Army Corps was in the stream with giant bulldozers, widening
it. It was not a beautification project. In the last couple
of years there’s been a lot of big storms consistently
causing large trees to fall in the stream. Parenthetically,
a water expert I spoke with said when a stream meanders
back and forth and is small, when big trees fall, they
fall over the stream. When you widen it, they fall INTO
the stream. The Corps thought they were doing the right
thing but now we have a stream full of trees and, worse
yet, the banks shored on both sides with stream material
have eroded."
Olive Supervisor Brendt Leifeld, whose town office, along
with the Davis Park recreational field and pool are also
threatened, said the DEC would issue emergency permits
to homeowners for limited work "but not approval
to go in and bulldoze it out like they did 20 years ago.
It looked like hell and didn’t really do anything.
It just speeded up the velocity of the water there- which
is not a good thing."
Leifeld, who toured Esopus and Bushkill troublespots with
ACE representatives and other local officials in May 2005,
said his perspective on the matter is tempered by having
grown up alongside a stream in Chichester, noting "I
don’t care what you did, the stream did what it
felt like doing. I’ve seen rocks as big as Volkswagens
fall down there." He added that DEC was supposed
to return to modify the Bushkill stream flow to compatibility
with the dictates of Mother Nature.
Jason Shea, a civilian engineer and watershed planner
with ACE, sent forms and regulations he thought might
be helpful, including "Section 208: Authority for
Snagging and Clearing for Flood Control" and "Section
204: Authority for Environmental Restoration Projects
in Connection with Dredging" but, clearly, the situation
calls for more than spotwork.
The problem is, as Dan Ahouse of Rep. Hinchey’s
office points out, that streams everywhere in the area
are in bad shape and a comprehensive plan for the whole
region is needed.
Leifeld concurs; "If they can stabilize it, that’d
be great but what everybody that’s supposed to know
something about it says, you’ve got to do the whole
stream. If you patch just a little section, diverting
water from where it’s washing out, now it’s
going to the other side of the channel and changing things
there."
Leifeld said that he sent letters and a packet of photographs
last week to "everybody but the Pope- DEC, DEP, (Rep.)
Cahill, (Sen.) Bonacic, ACE, whomever and now I’m
waiting for a response."
"You read about flood disasters that cost millions,"
said Keller. "Someone needs to pay attention here
before it comes to that."
The Good Samaritan
The
eighth graders of Onteora Middle School came up
with a project called “Stuff the Bus”
that embodies this spirit of sharing. A program
called Make a Difference gave them the idea of creating
a caring community by giving food and supplies to
Family. Homerooms collected donations, and the person
donating the most from each homeroom got to represent
their homeroom by riding a bus, donated by Gary
Mulligan, that accompanied the decorated and stuffed
bus.
Carol Roberts became the modern midwife of a contemporary
nativity scene. Olive had a stray beagle named Nelly
that was very pregnant. Rather than leave her in
the kennel, Carol took Nelly and bedded her in the
horse stall on her farm. Nelly gave birth to five
female puppies that Carol cared for. All the puppies
are now placed with loving families, and Bev and
Joe Stein have adopted Nelly.
On Friday, December 15, Gino, Diane, David and Tammy
Sorbellini along with B.J. Leifeld resurrected the
Olive Tree Lighting Ceremony at the Bostock Town
Hall. They enlisted Vinnie “Meatball”
Sorbellini and Stephanie Matteson Sorbellini to
dispense hot chocolate, hot apple cider, coffee
and baked goods that were donated by Steve Blakely.
Santa, who obviously had sampled a few too many
cookies, had to have a wardrobe adjustment before
arriving on Shokan’s fire truck. He lit the
town tree, the seedling planted many years ago,
revealing a twelve foot evergreen ablaze in hundreds
of lights. Santa gave out bags of goodies containing
a homemade ornament and candy to the children. Children
decorated the two hundred sugar cookies, created
their own tree ornament and listened to How the
Grinch Stole Christmas. Supervisor Leifeld said,
“The tree lighting was symbolic of the light
and warmth we share as a community.”
Donna Van Kleeck is the woman behind the Shokan
Fire House Pot Luck Christmas party. Somehow Santa,
who arrives by Fire Truck, knew forty-three little
boys and girls by name and gave each one a special
toy from his bag of goodies. The real spirit of
giving is not in Santa’s bag but is in Donna’s
heart and in the tears she freely sheds each time
she leads us in “Silent Night.”
I understand that some man has anonymously donated
a heating unit and supply of oil for the church
in Boiceville now closed for lack of heat. I am
hoping that St. Augustine’s chapel in West
Shokan and the Catholic Church in Boiceville are
able to remain a haven for worshippers in town.
After all, a church or synagogue is a family and
community in itself.
The Reservoir church proudly showed its addition
and renovations to the community on Sunday at the
Hallelujah Celebration. They invited community members
to see how this building can share space for community
events.
Frank Carle and Cary Wood are collecting turkeys
for the Darmstadt women’s shelter. Sue Ulrich
is the heart behind the Angel Tree Project, which
collects presents to place under the trees of children
whose parents are in prison.
This season reminds us that sometimes it is better
to give than to receive although I do confess that
I asked Santa for a Roomba to suck up the dog and
car hair that falls daily. Sometimes a Good Samaritan
just will help out a stranger in need and feel better
for doing so. I am sending a special holiday greeting
to the man who changed a tire on the side of Route
28 by Glenford in the dark until someone pulled
over and shone the headlights on his plight. By
the way, man in white, the second woman to come
to your aid probably could have worked the pit crew
at a Nascar race because Christina’s husbands,
Brandon and Brian, both loved racing. Sometimes
a thank you and being called “A Princess”
can be the best present of all.
As we ponder the mysteries of this holiday season,
I can positively respond to these two questions.
Yes, Billy Cook, there are no calories in broken
cookies. Yes, Virginia Sampsen, there are Santa
Clauses. They are just some ordinary people giving
of themselves to help others. There are angels among
us. All over in small towns and in small ways, people
help people. These presents are the ones that don’t
have to be exchanged at the mall days after the
holiday spirit is over.
Sometimes the eight nights of Chanukah and the twelve
days of Christmas are not enough days for sharing
and giving. Let’s make our New Year’s
resolution to continue the kindness to our fellow
man and give of ourselves throughout the year.
|
|
