Tragedy begets good?

It isn’t often that good can come from tragedy. And it’s almost impossible to imagine the death of a child can promote something positive.
But I’d like to see it.
A few weeks ago, a child walking home from Callicoon was struck by a car and killed. It was tragic – no ifs, ands or buts about it.
Despite the rumors, the police have confirmed he was obeying all traffic laws. His skateboard was tucked beneath his arm. He was walking against traffic.
That doesn’t lessen the tragedy. Nothing can.
But this was a child who lived to skateboard. He was like hundreds of thousands of kids across America – some good kids, some bad kids, some little kids, some not-so-little kids.
And rumors which turned out to be false highlighted one thing about Callicoon and hundreds of thousands of communities in America – they’re places where skateboarding kids have been painted with a broad brush and treated to a cold shoulder.
There are kids who skateboard who are bad news – no question.
There are kids who play basketball who are bad news too. And kids who like to kick a ball around. And kids who like to throw the pigskin.
And, hey, if you want to get right down to it, there are some pretty awful kids who are lazy lay-abouts.
But wait, you say, there are good kids who do some of those things, right?
After all, we build basketball courts to keep kids off the streets. We line football fields and put together soccer teams.
There are plenty of good kids. And there are good kids who skateboard too.
There are kids who work their tails off to learn to ollie and nosegrind, kids who spend every waking moment from dawn ‘til dusk falling off that board only to get back up, dust themselves off, and try again.
And while, as a parent, my first thought at the death of a child went to his family, my second went to the skate park in Callicoon.
Oh no, I thought, when I was still operating on rumors. Please tell me they won’t close that place.
Because kids who don’t have an outlet are some of the worst kids I know. They’re frustrated. They’re angry. And they cause trouble.
They do stupid things, like skating in the street, and getting some air doing a 180 off a guardrail in a private parking lot.
There are stupid kids. And then there are kids who are just kids, kids who want to do something good. They just need our help.
The obituary for a child asks for donations in his name to the local skate park. Is this the way to bring good from a tragedy?
We’ll only know if we try.

You say tomahto, I say I'm hungry

I can’t face a summer without tomatoes.
Tomato, basil and fresh mozzarella – drizzled with a little olive oil. Tomato on crunchy bread slathered in mayonnaise and sprinkled with a little salt. Tomato in bite-sized chunks scattered on my garlic bread.
The salmonella scare hit while I was on vacation a few weeks back, and I laughed off the news in the Virginia papers proclaiming the state’s fruit safe.
Really, I didn’t expect to ask my waitress if the tomatoes in my salad were local.
Then I came home.
To savor relaxation mode for just a few more hours we stopped for heroes in Honesdale. Jonathan placed his order, and I stepped up to the deli counter. I wanted my usual.
As a vegetarian, my usual is heavy on cheese and veggies. Tomatoes are a must.
I was about to be disappointed. No one’s stocking tomatoes. No one.
The guy taking our order was apologetic, but I was bummed. A sandwich just isn’t a sandwich without tomatoes.
For that matter, a summer just isn’t a summer without tomatoes.
I like ‘em red, green, orange, striped and spotted.
I like the funky-shaped meaty heirlooms and the zesty little cherries.
The minute I was home, I went online. I traced the salmonella along with the FDA to Mexico and Florida.
Pheww. It’s a handling problem, not a growing problem.
Farmers’ market here I come.
I’d be heading there anyway, to be honest. Once summer comes to town, I steer clear of the produce aisle at the supermarket in favor of fruits and veggies that boast a little flavor, the kind I can only find fresh grown. The kind I’m not going to find fresh off the truck from Mexico or Florida.
The folks who promote the farmers’ markets here in Sullivan County talk about the importance of knowing your grower, and they’re right.
They talk about supporting the local economy, and I’m right there with them.
But my trips are fueled by an even more basic need – the need for real food with real taste.
I want my tomatoes – the meaty ones, the sweet ones and the tangy ones. I can’t face summer without them.

Mah haid hurts just thinkin' 'bout it y'all!

I wondered if I should duck as Jonathan drove us back over the line into New York on Sunday afternoon.
Raised here in the Yankeeiest of Yankee states, I’ve got a confession – less than a week back in the South, and it was back.
My Southern accent.
It’s nothing a good dose of “My Cousin Vinny” and a “Yankees” game won’t fix, mind you, but it’s there all the same.
The “Aahh” instead of “I.” The “way-ell” instead of “well.”
I called my poor little cousin “darlin’” three times before I remembered to call him Alex. Scratch that. I called my “po lil’ cuzin” . . . well, you get the idea.
Almost seven years after I moved back to New York (or, as any good Yankee says it, Noo Yawk), we took our second vacation last week to Jonathan’s hometown.
And people looked at me funny. They told me I talked too fast. They asked me to repeat myself.
I realized I’d spent the past seven years working my way back to where I’d started the day I moved to Franklin, Va. The place I spent my year and a half in the South trying to escape.
They thought I was plumb crazy. And if they didn’t, Mark Twain was right. The minute I opened my mouth, I removed all doubt.
The trouble is, I can’t keep my Yankee trap shut for long. So I adjusted. I slowed everything down.
In just a few days, I could match my husband twang for twang. If either of us could sing, we’d have fit right into a country music video.
I could blame the heat or the humidity, but it was just too easy to let it ride. I let the words flow off my tongue like molasses.
“Y’all,” was first. Then “cain’t.” And, well, I was “fixin’” to do something when I heard myself. Oops.
I tried. I really did. I wore my Yankees t-shirt and flashed my New York driver’s license to the store clerks. I told Jonathan we should get heroes for lunch – not subs – and moaned that we’d never find a good bagel.
But every friend I ran into, every old stompin’ ground I visited, made me too darn comfortable. I’d test out my tongue and let loose.
“My haid hurts,” I’d say. “It mus’ be the heat. Or maybe Ah’m jus’ tarred.”
It could have sounded put on. I didn’t care. It was as comfy as my holiest pair of blue jeans, the set I don’t dare wear outside of the house.
The Southern drawl has sent many an actress off to the speech coach – afraid she won’t get roles because she sounds uneducated.
But the most recognized of all American accents is the one I’ve always secretly wished was my own. While my speech is marked by the long “e” in creek and the “sneakers” on my feet, I’m not afraid of “y’all” or a drawn out word or two.
So I reckon I’m stuck – a Yankee with an identity crisis until her next Southern vacation.

Too many questions for this good samaritan

It’s not easy being a good Samaritan these days.
It was less than 10 minutes after I’d bid my friend Cat a good night when I heard a voice downstairs.
After a lengthy doggy cupcake making session for Jillian’s birthday party, we were pooped. And 2 a.m. was a little early even for party goers who want to beat the crowd.
Half dressed in my PJs, I craned my neck around the door jamb.
Phew. Just Cat. I figured she’d left something behind. Or maybe she wanted first crack at those cupcakes?
Not quite. Her trip home had been interrupted by a giant tree taking up the entirety of the roadway. Driving carefully because of the settling fog, she was lucky to avoid a crash.
She was afraid other people wouldn’t be so fortunate.
So I called the Sheriff’s Office. The dispatcher was honest. They were tied up. Try the State Police.
He started to give me the appropriate phone number, but I stopped him. In my line of work, these are the kind of numbers you store in your head.
Knowing the Roscoe barracks was likely shuttered by now, I called straight to Liberty and started my spiel.
The trooper was dumbfounded. “Where is this Ma’am?” he asked.
I thought I’d just told him that. But I was half asleep. So I said it again. “Callicoon Center.”
“Can you spell that for me?” he asked.
Ah. A rookie. Just shipped in from out of the area, he evidently didn’t have the foggiest idea what I was talking about.
So I spelled it. Then I spelled the names of the roads. With Cat’s help, I pinpointed the tree’s location down to the number of miles past the Callicoon Center Firehouse.
I figured he was all set.
He asked for my name. OK, I figured, why not? “Jeanne, that’s J-E-A-N-N-E. Sager. S as in Sam…”
“Middle initial?” he asked. Now I was a little miffed. I just wanted to report a tree down and get back to bed. But I supplied it, along with my date of birth and phone number.
When he came to my address, I couldn’t help it. “Do you want my mailing address, my physical address, or both?” I asked, in my sweetest sugar pie voice.
“Physical, Ma’am.” I couldn’t get him to laugh. I just answered. But I wondered, what else would he want? My vaccination record? My mother’s maiden name?
It was 2 a.m. I wanted to go to bed. And he wanted me to share my life story. For a tree. Not a murder. Not a domestic dispute. A tree in the road.
I understand rules are rules, but I had to wonder about the people headed down the North Branch Road at 55 mph. The people who would have been warned of a tree up ahead if he’d alerted the fire department right off the bat.
Couldn’t he have asked me to hold on a few moments then come back and explained, well, we need to ask a few questions in case we get lost on the way and need to contact you?
I wasn’t expecting him to tell me he was filing my information so I could be charged with a false report if I’d made it up. But when he asked me how big this branch was, I had to wonder – should I have bothered?
“It’s not a branch,” I repeated, launching into my story for the third time that night. “It’s a tree, a really, really big tree. It’s blocking the entire road. And it’s foggy. And it’s a 55 mph zone. Someone’s going to get hurt. There’s going to be an accident.”
I sighed and hung up the phone.
I needed a cupcake.

‘Roughing it?’ Sorry, I can’t tough it out!

I would have made a pitiful pioneer. I went two days without hot water last week. Two looooong days.
I whined. I moaned.
I wasn’t a happy camper.
Which is exactly why I don’t go camping.
We all have our essentials, the little things we need to get by. A shower ranks near the top of my list.
I have gone without – I am a mother after all. I’d like to meet the woman who claims she showered daily in the weeks after giving birth. I’d shake her hand. Then I’d shake her. Those delusions – they’ll get you every time.
But now that Jillian’s nearing her 3rd birthday, I don’t just want my showers. I need my showers.
I am, after all, the canvas on which we test markers to ensure they haven’t dried out and the shoulder on which we drool, sniffle and smear a mouth full of chocolate milk.
I shower for me – and for the rest of the world. I promise you, it’s better this way.
That’s why I hid inside my house last week, on day two of a shower strike imposed by the hot water heater that drank its last slug of overpriced oil.
Just in time to give me an ice cold introduction to the day, our water heater shuddered to a halt on Wednesday.
Still shivering, I ran downstairs and held fast to the restart button, giving it just enough juice to squeal back to life.
Then I headed across the basement. Ah, low on oil, that’s the problem.
I gave my checkbook a stern talking to and called for oil. A week’s wait, and it’s going to cost me.
OK, I thought, but I’ll throw a little fuel in to get me through a few days. I just want my shower. Just one long, hot shower to wash away the worries of the world.
All day I waited, thinking about a nice, relaxing shower under a jet of steamy water.
That night I spun the dial on the wall. I was ready.
And out came an ice cold stream of water. I was desperate. I went running back downstairs, taking the open steps two at a time.
This time Jonathan hit the bright red button. The heater charged up… and then it was dead… again. The nasty old thing played one last trick before it was gone.
Huddled under the blanket, bundled in an over-sized Virginia Tech sweatshirt and a ratty pair of sweatpants, I realized I’m an easy mark.
I’d been beaten by an oil-guzzling behemoth, a shower-depriving hunk of scrap metal.
Where was my pioneer spirit? Where was the get-up-and-go that got Mommy and toddler through a cold shower on a Wednesday morning?
It was there, waiting. Waiting until a new hot water heater was installed on Friday evening.
Waiting, because, in the immortal words of the Rolling Stones, “You don’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find… you get what you need!”
After two days, I needed a shower.

No Matter How Small

It was nearing 9 p.m. when I left St. George’s Roman Catholic Church in Jeffersonville last Thursday.
People were still walking in the doors, settling down to read the official rules for donating to the DKMS bone marrow drive.
It was dark. On a school night. And there were no free gifts involved for donating. No car to win or even a guarantee that the life they’d change would be living down the road.
I was proud.
Proud to live here.
It was one of those weeks that pulled me up out of the drudgery of reporting in a small town.
In the past few months, I’ve written some truly awful things. I’ve been reminded too many times since January of 2008 that bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people.
By February, I’d brought back out the armor I wear when it’s too much to bear, the steel-plated shield that won’t let anything in.
The sad thing is, it doesn’t let me out.
Until something busts it loose.
Something like the 3rd anniversary blood drive at CRMC Wednesday afternoon. Or the bone marrow drives in honor of Regina Wagner on Thursday evening.
So they’re not world-changing in the way that a donation from Bill Gates can be. And they’re not grand scale in the way that a Live Aid concert is.
But I tend to adopt the Dr. Seuss’ way of looking at life, and with “Horton Hears a Who” topping the box office numbers of late, I can’t help but thinking of a quote that echoed throughout my childhood.
“A person is a person,” my mother would remind me, “no matter how small.”
She was trying to teach a tot-sized me to be accepting, to embrace other races, creeds, colors and of course sexual preferences.
OK, Mom, I got it.
I’d also like to think her lessons meant a little something about the mark that one person – race, creed, color, sexual preference notwithstanding – doesn’t have to make the world of difference. They just have to do something for someone else every once in a while.
It’s corny. It’s cheesy.
And it makes life worth living.
Heck, it even puts a smile on the face of one down-hearted reporter.

Burn ban’s burning me up

Leave it to the state.
The cost of trash removal is rising.
Heck, the cost of everything is rising!
But the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is moving in on the small towns to ban all outside burning – with, they say, limited exceptions.
After a lengthy trip through the DEC Website, I finally found those exceptions.
Cover crops, grape vines and orchard trimmings. That’s all we’ll be able to burn outdoors if the law goes through.
No more yard waste. No more paper.
Nada. Nothing.
I’ve heard a rumor that we’ll be allowed to keep our campfires, although the complicated DEC site says nothing about keeping up with traditions.
What makes this proposal so rich is the assertion that it will drastically reduce the pollutants in our air.
Have they been to a small town in New York State?
Our air may be filled with toxins, but last time I checked the biggest complaints lodged in Sullivan County about air quality came from the folks living… wait for it… near the landfill!
You know, where we’ll be putting all the non-burned products we now have to dispose of thanks to the powers that be in Albany.
Of course, we’ll have to get that trash to the landfill. And that means garbage trucks. Lots of ’em.
According to a study by national environmental research organization INFORM in 2002, garbage trucks rank as one of the worst air pollutant offenders in the nation.
“Garbage trucks use more fuel than any other type of vehicle – averaging 8,600 gallons per year – except for tractor-trailers and transit buses (which use 11,500 gallons and 10,800 gallons on average per year, respectively),” according to the folks at INFORM.
What’s more, the researchers concluded, “While heavy-duty diesel-powered vehicles, including garbage trucks, make up only seven percent of vehicles on the road, they contribute 69 percent of on-road fine particulate pollution and 40 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions.”
Ah yes, but the DEC claims the decrease in health costs generated by their new plan will make up for any costs the rural areas are going to suffer from a burning ban that goes across the board.
We’re trading one pollutant for another, increasing the stress on folks living hand-to-mouth, and we’re going to see a dip in healthcare costs?
Yes, they live in Albany. We live here. And, as the DEC’s Website says, “The proposed revision may have a greater impact in rural areas.”
We have until July 10 to officially lodge our complaints with the state.
I’ll keep you posted. Until then, I’ll be stocking up on marshmallows.