I’m in tune with his smalltown dreams

Most of you have heard of only child syndrome. But Sullivan County child syndrome?
Trust me, it exists.
The symptoms are common of any childhood in the sticks.
We learn to fight – hard – for what we want because we won’t recognize the advantages to small town life until we’re much older.
Even once we have – sometime after we’ve left town and returned to embrace the past – we have a soft spot in our hearts for the success stories.
We cheer for our own underdogs – the kids who are catapulting themselves up and onward.
As proud as I am to have carved out my own niche here in my hometown, I’m prouder still to be able to give a boost to the kids who are following my path.
At the root, my life and that of aspiring rap star Metafore couldn’t be more different.
But there was a strange thrill when I opened the e-mail from his manager and cued the music.
This, I told her later, was not what I was expecting.
I supposed a teenager from Liberty had gotten lucky, gotten someone to pay attention to his rhymes and now he was going to get a little regional attention, a few gigs here and there.
But the rhythm thumping out of my computer speakers made me reach for the volume.
While my colleagues glanced over, smirking, my shoulders started to move.
I was on my way back to high school, before I was a mother with a bit on a country radio station and Elmo tracks in her CD player.
This was good.
This was fantastic.
This was the stuff that – 10 years ago – I would have recorded on a mix of favorites and slipped in the tape player in my car, bass up so high my windows shook as fast as my parents’ eyes rolled.
And, to think, this was a kid from Liberty.
Then I met with Tashan Turner, who’d earned the nickname Metafore when he was in high school – Monticello High School.
He was polite, well-spoken.
He was proud, but not cocky.
He was sure of his talents but not counting on them.
And he wasn’t hiding who he was.
His dreams stretch beyond personal achievement and back to Sullivan County, his home, the place he’d like to put on the map.
Ten years ago, I would have told you my musical tastes would never become “adult,” I’d never paint a genre and its artists with a broad brush.
But 10 years, a real job, mortgage, marriage and child later, I’ve shut off much of the rap and turned a blind eye to its stars.
I’m not surprised that some people saw the front page of the Democrat last week, read “rapper” in the headline, and turned the page.
I’m begging them to give it another go.
He’s a hometown kid. He’s OUR hometown kid.
He’s not straight out of Compton. He’s straight out of Monticello, born in Harris and a graduate of Liberty High.
He raps. And he’s pretty darn good at it.
He makes me proud, proud to be a product of Sullivan County, the place that will one day boast a sign – birthplace of Metafore.
And maybe, one day, Sullivan County kids can see from the get-go, that we were never the underdogs in any fight.
(By the way, we can make it happen. We can go online to vote every day up until Dec. 31 at www.snackstrongproductions.com.)

The ‘boys’ in the office

I get funny looks when I refer to them as “the boys.”
Forget, for a moment, that all three of my officemates are well past the age of majority.
They’re still the boys to me.
With the recent move of the Towne Crier staff into the Democrat’s main office here in Callicoon, I’ve been shifted into a new workspace.
With that has come a new set of office buddies – it’s now three guys and me in one big, refurbished room.
In almost 10 years of working on and off for the Democrat, it’s the first time I’ve been based somewhere other than the back room overlooking the Callicoon Creek.
But the old darkroom has been recast as clean, bright new digs with bigger desks, empty bulletin boards for me to fill and a whole new view.
And, of course, those officemates.
I’ve always shared my workspace with at least one guy; from the days when I worked as my dad’s secretary through my days in the newsroom of The Tidewater News down in Virginia.
But now I’m officially outnumbered.
Remember, it’s three guys and little ol’ me.
Three burping, pooting, belly-scratching guys… and, well, this good old country girl who at least has the good grace to say excuse me after a belch makes its escape.
Three guys who equate cold with the North Pole and a reasonable 68 degrees with the equator.
I’ve adapted with three layers, but these fleecy gloves sure do make it hard to type.
Not that the new department formations is without its benefits.
I now crank up the iTunes radio rock stations because I’ve got two on my musical side in the battle for the tunes to work by.
Our sports editor has no way to miss my puppy dog eyes as he makes his way past my desk and on to the grocery store, then back again with my caffeine injection bottled up by the folks at Pepsi-Cola.
And I’ve got a fountain of knowledge to draw from when I’m penning a story for the sports section.
But I’m still the only girl, and like the only daughter finds herself organizing the surprises for her brothers, I’ve gotten to learn a thing or two about doing it my way.
This season, it’s fallen to me to bring the holiday spirit to our little corner of Catskill-Delaware Publications.
Nary a twinkling light or candy cane was strung up by the boys who hold down the fort five days a week to my part-time two.
So off to Target for four stockings, a fake silver tree and the requisite ornaments.
I carefully selected the candies I don’t eat, protecting my waistline while abusing theirs.
The snowman appliqués of the stockings winking from their perches on the desks of my colleagues, the disco ball ornaments glinting from the miniature tree atop our pile of potential stories, I surveyed my work while the boys gorged themselves on their candy gifts.
Almost, but not quite, I decided.
I sat at my computer for a moment and quickly typed up a sign.
“Welcome,” it reads, “to the land of the misfit toys.”
And they heard me exclaim, as I dashed out of sight, “Merry Christmas to all, and to all… you better have something good for me next year!”

Multiple reasons for the season

It might be a time decked in merriment, but the holiday season isn’t easy on a reporter.
The sad stories come out, the tales that beg to be told because you wonder who would do this… and right before Christmas of all times.
Human tragedy just seems that much worse under the multi-colored lights of the holiday season.
A father is diagnosed with a rare disease and can’t put presents under the tree for his kids.
A child loses her best friend and favorite Christmas present, the dog who has gotten her through every moment when it was just tough to be a kid.
I wrote about them both last week, and when the paper had been put to bed, I was tired.
I went home, kicked off my shoes and looked around.
There are signs of Christmas commercialism in our house for sure.
Beside the wooden crèche given to Jillian by my mother is a singing snowman from that chief of holiday schmaltz, the Hallmark company.
Hanging in the archway at the end of the living room is a stocking already stuffed – and decorated in Classic Winnie the Pooh finery.
I could apologize for letting Disney take over a holiday once rooted in religion.
But I won’t.
Yes, technically, Jesus is the reason for the season – at least in our Christian household.
In others it is the miracle of that single night’s worth of oil that burned for eight long days.
The religious connotations of the 12th month cannot be lost, and it’s only proper that we honor our own special beliefs in the coming weeks.
But beginning on Thanksgiving Day and usually lasting well through the Epiphany in January there’s a feeling of well-being, the type that allows us to wallow in the depths of Bing Crosby’s croon and wipe a few tears at George Bailey’s rediscovery of himself.
The holidays are distinct days, set apart for celebration by Jews and Christians (and on a cultural level, by the folks who set aside some time for Kwanzaa).
But the season has transcended religion.
Commercial or not, it’s about giving.
It’s about going over the top – buying toys not just for our own girls and boys but a few extras to toss in the Marine Corps boxes on the street corners.
It’s about peeling a few dollars we can barely spare off our bank rolls and slipping them wordlessly into the palm of the young mother desperately watching the total climb on the grocery register.
For me the essence of Sunday school and Mass every week could be compressed into one simple motto, tattooed on every child fresh from the womb – do unto others.
Filling their lives with excess for just one season can’t hurt if it’s done the right way – with presents for them, and a few for the Toys for Tots bin; with cookies for them and a plate full for the local bake sale.
What do I believe in this holiday season?
Celebrating is the answer.
Not with presents per se or candy canes. Not with the tree or the stockings. But with everything and everyone.
They tell me it’s contagious.
That’s how I muddle through the depressing stories of the holiday – content in the knowledge that people who know how to celebrate the season can help make even the darkest hours bright again.

Reason not to vote for Ron Paul? It’s plastered all over!

You’ve got to hand it to Ron Paul.
While Obama and Rudy and all their pals are working hard trying to tell me why to vote for them, the Texas Congressman has already told me why not to vote for him.
The reason is brandished on road signs all over Sullivan County.
His bumper sticker – up for sale for a whopping $3 apiece on his Website (or two for $5!) – has been slapped on bright red stop signs and those yellow warning signs.
For awhile there was even one stuck to the bulletin board put up by the hard-working Sullivan Renaissance volunteers in downtown Jeffersonville.
The sticker had been glued right to the glass, which likely created quite the job for whoever de-gunked the surface and took it down.
I wonder where on Mr. Paul’s platform he’d like to add, “defacing public property.”
Oh, I’m sure he didn’t take time from his busy stumping schedule to put his stickers up here in Sullivan County.
It had to be some Republican flunkie who made a donation via his online “store” (after all, his site advises “purchases” count toward the $2,300 campaign contribution limit on American individuals. But if you’ve hit that mark already, you can call his campaign for some freebies).
Well stocked with the bright blue stickers, they hit the town.
I considered calling the state and county and maybe the towns for an estimate on the damage done – after all, removal would take up a highway worker’s time, put mileage on a publicly-owned vehicle and cost us for the squeegee and the de-gunking fluid used to clean the sign.
So we’ve got salary, cost of fuel, wear and tear on tires . . . all out of our tax dollars.
All this for a candidate who so proudly states he’s never voted to raise taxes.
Perhaps the “flunkie” got something right.
I didn’t know a thing about Ron Paul until my husband pointed out his stickers last week.
Then I got mad.
I went online and read up on his campaign.
I now know a lot more about Ron Paul than most American voters.
Guess what.
I’m still not voting for him.
Want to know why?
I wondered if there was a reason for handing the all-important task of marketing over to someone with such an obvious lack of respect for the hard-working taxpayer.
But an e-mail to the Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign Committee last week went unanswered.
Turns out Ron Paul doesn’t care to tell me why I should vote for him.