Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

I went back to Tivoli this weekend to attend a high school reubion. The school closed in 1965 and the reunion was for all the graduates ever. It will probably be the last since every body is at least 60. Although I had gone back to Tivoli fairly often over the years, I hadn't seen any schoolmates in 50 years or so. It turned out that Mary Alices's cousin had worked for IBM Kingston and built a house up Kerley Corners Road looking down on the village with the "million dollar view" of the Catskills. He retired and sold it four or five years ago and moved to Pine Plains.

About 100 people showed up at noon on Saturday for a cookout at the American Legion Hall. The old hall next to the Fire Station had burned down some years ago. The new one is a lot farther from the road. A good venue for this sort of thing. We had hamburgers, sausages, etc. The main thing was meeting everybody and finding ou t what people were doing.

I walked all over the village, reminiscing, and reliving the old days. The school is still there. It and the gym have been divided into a dozen appartments. The village has been transformed. It used to be a poor place with rundown houses and buildings. Then, the Beehive was active as a garment sweatshop. It now houses some Antique dealers. The village is now yuppified with an influx of people from Bard College. There are at least 5 restaraunts on Main Street. One is in the old Methodist Church. Wally Moore's soda shop was vacant for a lot of years and is now a Deli. Most properties are painted and fixed up with a vibrant pallette of colors. St Paul's is still going strong. The rectory has 4 or 5 apartments and the parish hall has disappeared. The field across Woods Road is a 20 house subdivision. Trinity Church closed a long time ago and is now a private residence.

Later we had a roast beef dinner with about 150 people. I sat with Vera Rifenburg, my only classmate present from 1948. There were 5 of us. Betty Downing married Bill Lasher and both have died. Bob Assanakis is in Florida and Buddy Moore is down south somewhere. I also sat with Betty Moore and Dan Takacs who were married in 1952. Dan was the Superintendent of Schools in Wappinger Falls. Lois Rockefeller was also at the table. She is quite infirm.

Other people in the class of 1949 or 1950:

Present:

Jean Pillon still lives in Tivoli. Her brother, Bummy, was killed in Korea.

Peter Sturges still lives on the family farm

Absent

Lloyd Demboski studied to be a mortician, but got into New York State politics and is still involved up in Albany. Audrey Lester lives in Virginia Veronica Lester lived in France and Belgium for many years, but is now living down south somewhere. Larry Takacs lives in Poughkeepsie, He had an accident the day before and couldn't come. Michael Teck, Rosemary (Tootsie) Coon and Mary Downing have died.

A lot of kids went to Plattsburg State Teachers. A lot of people have been priced out of living in Tivoli, but a fair percentage (50% ?) still live within 30 miles. As a group they are good, low profile, ordinary people. The salt of the earth. I'm happy to have gone to school with them.

That's about it. By the end of the evening, I was into sensory overload. If you have questions, I'll try to remember more.

Victor Dowdell

Community pride is a real thing. I believe in the potential of any town or community that understands and senses the power of community pride. Two years ago I was fortunate enough to be selected to participate in the United States Antarctica Program. I spent four months in Antarctica working with science teams establishing radio communications to support science work on the most desolate and forbidding continent on earth. During this time I learned a lot more of what “community” is all about. Having to work very closely with hundreds of other folks in an extremely remote location we absolutely had to rely on each other. Each person knew that there was no one else there to help us. We had to get every task done by ourselves. It was all work, thankless or not, boring or exciting, it all had to be done by ourselves. I believe the same is true in our town. After all, Berkshire is almost as remote as Antarctica.

It is surprising to me that today, in the United States, only three hours away from NY City, we have property that resembles third world conditions. We see property in our town that is unsafe, unstable, unsightly and deteriorating. Often times, we see several of these structures on the parcel of land and the property owner is living in a structure nearby.

In a recent visit to Kidron, Ohio, I stayed with Amish people in the heart of Amish country in Ohio. The Amish are (of course) extremely poor. In fact, most live below the national poverty level. I also noticed that their property was not deteriorating, unsightly, unstable or unsafe. Staying with the Amish people helped reinforce my understanding that there is little or no direct correlation between poverty and living in squalor.

No amount of laws, legislation, fines, or other punishments will be totally effective in making our town’s property safe, stable, attractive or in good repair. These countermeasures will in fact increase your taxes as the level of government involvement increases. It is a natural fact that the individual property owner needs to ensure the condition of their property is up to the standards of the community.

Next time, when you are driving home, ask yourself as you approach your property. “What kind of person lives in that house?”

Do you need help? Ask your community.

Charles Dowdell

888 N. Ketchumville Rd.

Berkshire