Alplaus Home Town News March 2002
This March is very different;
It's filled with special days.
An Irish festive dinner
Is fun in many ways,
And as the month continues,
Each day until the last,
Easter comes upon us as
The time goes by so fast.
Have a happy St. Patrick's Day and a joyous Easter celebration
Your HTN Staff
So much for the famous groundhog's prediction of six more weeks of winter! It doesn't seem like we've even had six weeks of winter, as we think of winter in upstate New York. Things will definitely be dicey for area farmers and gardeners if we don't get a lot more snow and rain in March and April.
The work on the Glenville sewer lines along Freeman's Bridge Road, Route 50 and Maple Avenue has benefited greatly form the mild weather this winter. Look for some lively discussion at the Alplaus Residents Association meeting at the firehouse on Wednesday evening, the 21st of this month. With both Clarence Mosher, town supervisor, and Mark Kestner, of Kestner Engineering due to be at the meeting, your questions should get good answers.
Judy and I will be leaving for a short holiday on Saturday, the 2nd of March so this newsletter will go to press before we have the details on February's weather and AFD emergency calls. We hope to escape the last dregs of winter and enjoy a preview of spring.
.AWH
The annual meeting of the ARA will be held on March 21st at the Alplaus Firehouse at 7:30 PM. it will include annual reports, election of officers, and discussion of current events in the village. Also, Glenville Town Supervisor Clarence Mosher and Mark Kestner, of Kestner Engineering will be there.
This is a call for help to all who can answer! We began demolition at Samuel's on Tuesday, February 26th. We will continue with this work on Wednesday nights (6:30 9PM) and on Saturdays (8AM until noon). Please bring the following tools if you have them ... pry bar, sledge hammer, Sawzall, or any other relevant tool of destruction. Please watch for news of further activity posted in the very large front window. We'll keep you posted by e-mail and the HTN, too.
Thanks in advance, Lorie Esposito
I would like to extend my sincerest thanks for the wonderful farewell party
at the Post Office. It was filled with so many loving friends and fabulous
treats. The highlight may very well have been the surprise visit from Don
the Mailman. He was touched by how much everyone has missed him and the
warm reception that he received.
A special thanks for the beautiful gift. It is certainly a lovely addition to my wardrobe! When I wear it, it reminds me of the family of friends we have made in Alplaus.
Please accept my heartfelt thanks to all of you. God bless,
Lorie
At sporting events, during the playing of the National Anthem, Old Geezers hold their caps over their hearts and sing without embarrassment. They know the words and believe in them. Old Geezers remember World War I, the depression, World War II, Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Normandy, and Hitler. They remember the Atomic Age, the Korean War, the cold war, the Jet Age, and the moon landing, not to mention Vietnam.
If you bump into an Old Geezer on the sidewalk, he will apologize. If you pass an old Geezer on the street he will nod or tip his hat to a lady. Old Geezers trust strangers and are courtly to women. Old Geezers hold the door for the next person and always, when walking, make sure the lady is on the inside for protection.
Old Geezers get embarrassed if someone curses in front of women and children and they don't like violence and filth on TV or movies. Old Geezers have moral courage. They seldom brag unless it's about their grandchildren. It's old Geezers who know our great country is protected, not by politicians, but by the police and the young men and women in the military serving their country.
This country needs Old Geezers with their decent values. We need them now more than ever. Thank God for Old Geezers!
The Alplaus Resident's Association will hold its annual meeting March 21st at 7:30 PM. The meeting will be held at the Alplaus Fire House. The proposed Alplaus sewer district and the potential upgrades to the existing system will be discussed. Guest speakers slated to appear to answer your questions are Clarence Mosher, Town Supervisor, and Mark Kestner, of Kestner Engineering.
All residents of the Alplaus area are encouraged to attend our annual meeting. This is your best opportunity to voice your concerns and opinions on a wide range of subjects. In addition to the sewer proposal, we will also be seeking resident input in regard to the possible placement of a traffic light at Maple Avenue. We seek your input before deciding whether to proceed with submission of the circulating petition to our town officials.
Another component of the annual meeting will be reports from our community groups, secretary reports, financial reports and the announcement of this year's Citizen of the Year. These are always special events as we get to hear about all of the wonderful things that happen in Alplaus and learn about potential volunteer opportunities for residents.
Speaking of volunteer opportunities, this will be my last writing as President of the ARA. The last three years have been exciting and very gratifying. I have met many people from the community and have been honored to represent Alplaus. I will continue to assist the ARA in the role of Past President and look forward to assisting the incoming officers. I wish to thank many people for their help along the way, but I hesitate because I am sure that I would forget someone. I will always treasure the experience as much as I treasure living here in Alplaus, a great place to live!
Sincerely, Rick Fleming
Andy is once again willing to hold this celebration providing that he receives at least 40 reservations. It will be held on Sunday, March 17th, the authentic day for the festivity. His traditional Irish dinner of corn beef, ham, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, etc. will be served from 3 - 5 PM. The cost of $ 7.00 remains the same as other years. Reservations can be made by calling Andy at 372-1124. Leave your name and number to attend on his tape. Be sure to mark your calendars and call in your reservations.
This is a very special event with delicious Irish food
and warm fellowship with Andy O'Coppola. We want to make sure we get at
least 40 or more people there.
As we look at the calendar for March we see that the Meal Center will be celebrating their 28th anniversary on Thursday, March 7th. The celebration will include a special meal and entertainment. Reservations can be made by calling 393-1946 in the morning of the day before.
A program of Irish entertainment will be held on Friday,
March 8th at 1:30 PM. You can enjoy an hour of laughter with Batt Burns,
a famous Irish story teller whose wit, style and charm have delighted audiences
in Ireland and here in our own country. Admission is free and refreshments
will be served.
Community Luncheon - Tuesday, March 12th, at noon at the Alplaus Methodist Church. Everyone welcome.
Holy Week
Palm Sunday Festival of Palms at both churches: Alplaus 9:30 AM Rexford 11 AM
Maunday Thursday - Alplaus Church - The Seder meal at 6:30 PM. Menu for the meal to be published.
Good Friday - Alplaus Church will be open for meditation from noon until 3:00 PM. Service of prayer and meditation at Rexford 7:00 PM.
Easter Services for 2002 - 7:00 AM Sunrise Service at Rexford Church followed by breakfast at 8:00 AM.
10 AM Service of Resurrection and New Life to be held at Alplaus Church. Everyone is invited to either or both services.
Rexford Church will hold Wednesday evening Lenten Services at 7 PM. through March, except March 13th when the service will be held at the Alplaus Church.
Actual Doctor's Notes (unedited from patient's charts):
Harry Casey has scheduled his March clinic Thursday, the 14th from 3 until 5 PM. Be sure and stop by and chat with Harry while he checks your blood pressure.
Alplaus Fire Station
We held our first business meeting Monday night at the newly refurbished post office. It was a cozy place to meet and we thank Cathy Boyle for her help in setting it up.
First, we discussed our holiday dinner at Brandon's which we all agreed was lovely (well, splitting the check 17 ways was not!). After that we moved onto our major topics for the next few months including updating our budget. We set the date of the Annual Garage Sale for June 1st and began thinking of ideas for our float for the 4th of July parade.
We also discussed having shirts made for the auxiliary as well as having sweatshirts made up, which we would sell as a fundraiser. We will be making decisions on the shirts at our next meeting.
Finally, we discussed the flags which we purchased and which Gary Withey has been making mighty efforts to keep flying (we never realized that Alplaus Avenue was so windy!). The feedback on them has been overwhelmingly positive but we decided that they need to come down for some much needed beefing up of the poles and brackets. Look for them to be flying again for Memorial Day.
We had a lively discussion of other activities and fundraisers that we will be considering over the next few months.
We were delighted to welcome our new members at their first meeting, Catrina Cutting, Helen Robinson and Judy Harris. We're happy to have you!
Start looking for the spring bulbs our new gardening committee planted in the fall to start popping up around the firehouse!
Our next meeting is at 7:30 PM on March 25th at the Post
Office Community Room. If you would like to join us, call Robin at 399-4911
or applications are available at the post office.
Alplaus Volunteer in WTC Disaster Relief
By Rosemarie Amendolia-Treanor
I left the collapsing towers going down over and over again on my television screen in Alplaus. A combat vet had brought me a photograph of his large hands holding a baby robin, just before the second tower was hit.
When he left, distraught and speechless, I loaded my two collies into the RAV and headed up to our camp just outside of Corinth, so we could walk among silent trees and watch the fish ripple the surface of our small sufficient lake. I collected a few interesting slabs of wood and painted my prayers to the Great Spirit and Mother Earth in Mohawk and English. I slept that night in a quiet cabin under a skyful of stars and a canopy of pines that showed no signs of loss for my city. I wept alone in that cabin on a still lake in the crisp early autumn air.
My work is centered on helping people who have been inordinately traumatized to come back, as Zorba the Greek implored, into living "the full catastrophe". But now the city of my birth and growing pains was horribly wounded, the streets from Liberty up to Canal Street and out to the Seaport filled with an unforgiving stench of endless burning death and dust.
I needed to heal my own psychic wounds, for my life history and that of my family and many old friends, as well as that of my husband Vince, churns out whole chapters in those streets and among those people, those "city folk". I felt perhaps not patriotic enough to see this monstrous act of terrorism as a blow to our country, although one part of my brain understood that quite well. I took this deliberate act of genocidal destruction personally, as a " New Yorker" first, albeit many years displaced into the often-comforting sameness and often startling beauty of " Upstate".
When I volunteered in September to work with the survivors and rescuers as a disaster relief psychologist, I was first given debriefing and training assignments outside the area surrounding Ground Zero. I did consults which included airport and corporation personnel stress management training. All of this I knew was of value, but I was on edge every night until I was called in to work with the Red Cross at the service center closest to the World Trade Center site. For two and a half weeks every morning at eight I walked the two miles or took subways from midtown to City Hall Station and back every night after eight. Every morning before and every night after my tour of duty, where the air no longer existed and everyone was distraught, lost, destitute, tired or dead, I could see and hear and smell and touch my hometown outside of Ground Zero, full of the life and diversity of color and dialect, music and art, movement and poetry, ironically to be found only among the tall gray stone and steel canyons of New York City.
I felt life in and around me from Halloween through sometime mid-November only when I was able to do my work. with myriads of people I can never forget, in a huge building surrounded by dark gray stinking air. I cannot forget their faces, their stories, their anguish, their strength. So many of them, like my parents, came from other countries. Their accents were truly "all over the map".
When I was at the morgue at the end of my stay in the City, I listened to firefighters, cops, EMTs, and lab techs who were doing the DNA analysis used to identify the remains of the WTC and Belle Harbour plane crash victims. I recalled readily the emotional styles and humor of combat vets like my husband Vince and many I have seen in therapy. Like the civilian survivors I had the privilege of getting to know, with the intensity of circumstance due to overwhelming and unpredictable tragedy, these rescuers also "brought me home." For example, I have traveled to many places and have seen police officers guarding buildings, airports, streets, etc. Now, however, I notice even more how members of the NYPD manage to do such a difficult job while they appear to be casual, rather than standing at attention as I've seen in other countries.
So often during my tour with the Red Cross, volunteers from all over the USA would comment on how generous, friendly, helpful and open these "city folk" in fact really are, sometimes with genuine surprise. They were now working with hundreds of city regulars from FEMA as well as other "neighborhood" volunteers from Manhattan, Brooklyn, etc. Many of these workers are also survivors and family members of victims. Just as the rescuers and the civilian survivors taught me again and again what it means to listen carefully with a third ear so too did the many "locals" from the old neighborhoods across my beloved Brooklyn Bridge.
I thank all of these people, these New Yorkers, for giving gifts of spirit
and life to others as they daily snatch their moments of courage and dignity
out of the mouth of destruction. Their ways of coping with the enormity
of changes in their personal and global lives, and the stories they share,
create a superior form of communication, a bizarre play or dialogue in which
both parties leave holding something relevant, something essential, forever.
From Harry Casey's Home Page: Alplaus Weather
February 2002 Summary
Details were unavailable at press time
March Moon Phases
The Old Farmers Almanac for Mar. 2002
Forecasts for Region 6: Upstate New York
We are now sending the Home Town News to Alplaus Fire Department members who are no longer living in the community in the hope of keeping you up to date on events in the area. If you have news of interest, please send it to:
Art Harris, HTN Editor
PO Box 57
Alplaus, NY 12008.
[Not available]