The Hudson Independent: News for Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow, NY

Be Our Guest: Race in America — Witness to Change

I consider it a privilege to have lived at such a time that I might witness and participate in far-reaching social change regarding race in America: the 75 years from my birth in the segregated South, through the election of America’s first African American president.

I was born into a black middle class family in High Point, North Carolina and lived in the headmaster’s cottage on a 5-acre campus of an industrial school for blacks, founded by Quakers in 1894. In 1922, it became the black high school. Insulated and protected by my college-educated mother who taught in the school, I was 8 years old before I became cognizant of the restraints and restrictions that were to be placed on me because I was a Negro, as we were then called.

Giving Back and Giving Thanks

Homeless and poor 20 years ago, Dale Williams  was helped by Midnight Run; now, he runs it

Dale Williams
For The Hudson Independent

Like most of us, I complain a lot. Like most of us, I actually have a lot to be thankful for. I have a loving family: a beautiful and talented wife, a stepson doing well in college and a happy basset hound. I have a home with a nice dinner on the table each night. I have a job I love. I have a community of friends. And I am surrounded every day by people who care about others.

I’ve also experienced what it was like to not have any of those things — no home, no food, no job and no one.

I’m the executive director of Midnight Run, Inc., a consortium of more than 100 churches, synagogues and schools in the New York metropolitan area. We have about 20 groups of volunteers that travel into Manhattan each week where they seek out the homeless poor. These volunteers deliver clothing, food, blankets and personal care items. They also meet the homeless without the usual barriers that can separate us.

The Play’s the Thing

Cagle McDonald is a gentle tour de force for community theater

Marcy Gray

If you or someone you know has been involved with community theater in the rivertowns during the past 15 years, the name Cagle McDonald is probably familiar.

McDonald, artistic director of the Clocktower Players, Irvington Town Hall Theater’s resident company, has been a driving force behind the quality and quantity of shows put on in the area.

Be Our Guest: Getting a Word in Edgewise

A writer from the South continues her family’s tradition
of telling stories at the dinner table.

DeLauné Michel

There seems to be a lot of talk lately about the different ills that family meals can cure, but every time I read about this, all I think is, “What about just wanting to hear each other’s stories?” Because now that I am a mother, and am raising two small sons — a 4 year old and a toddler — with my husband here in Irvington, it is very clear to me that telling stories at the dinner table is part of the way that we form a self. 

In the French Catholic world where I grew up in South Louisiana, there was only one event more important than Sunday Mass, and that was the dinner hour. It was the highlight of the day, partly for the food – my Momma’s incredible Creole cuisine – but mostly for the conversation. Or should I say storytelling. Because that’s what it was: long, funny and illuminating stories. And God forbid you didn’t have one. 

BE OUR GUEST: Off (Off) Broadway on Main Street

Dennis Edenfield

In 1990, I was driving through Tarrytown and I saw a theater marquee on Main Street. I decided I had to stop and check out the theater in this charming village. It appeared “dark,” closed. The marquee looked as if a truck had backed into it. In all, the theater looked a bit broken. But I instantly felt an attraction for the place. I took a photo and went along my way.  

The New American Garden Design

Mark Gilliland
For The Hudson Independent

Just about everything we know or touch in our daily lives is being transformed by macro forces such as globalization, the Internet, global warming, mass extinctions, water shortages and peak oil. Is it any wonder, then, that our approach to gardening and landscape design would also be undergoing rapid metamorphosis?

Summer’s Here and the Time is Right for . . .

Hidden Dangers to your Dogs and Cats

Brian Green
For The Hudson Independent

During the summer, most people find themselves seeking the many ways that the warm weather can be enjoyed. Often, the family pets are included in the fun. But, some very serious problems can be overlooked or unknown to many, and these can often turn deadly if unrecognized and untreated.

Heat stroke: Perhaps the deadliest of all dangers to pets in the summer is the most obvious one of all. Despite the heat, dogs seem to be able to run and play endlessly. But what is frequently forgotten is that they do not sweat; more than 95 percent of internal heat loss is through panting. 

Editorial: Volunteering for the Common Good

“Just being out there helping my community whether on the fire truck, the fireboat or driving the ambulance, I do it because I want to help people.” Those were the words of Kelly Murphy, a young Tarrytown woman, quoted in the April issue of this newspaper. Murphy exemplifies the contributions made to our communities through volunteerism.

The degree to which voluntary service, in its many forms, has enriched our villages is almost inconceivable.

BE OUR GUEST: Youth of the Year

Sleepy Hollow High School graduate looks back as he moves ahead

Nnamdi Anuforo

My name is Nnamdi Anuforo and I am truly blessed. I am 17 years old and a senior at Sleepy Hollow High School. I dream of one day being an entrepreneur or a CEO of a major corporation, and I hope to attend SUNY Albany in order to make my dreams a reality.

Many have said that I possess the qualities needed to accomplish these goals. My parents have taught me the importance of respect, diligence and responsibility. However, it has been very difficult.

BE OUR GUEST: My Mother’s Gift: The Freedom to ‘Just Be’

Jenifer Ross Schumacher

I can still recite it as if I’m still in ninth grade preparing for the weekly vocabulary quiz: Zeal — enthusiastic or diligent devotion in pursuit of an ideal, cause or goal.

That was my mother in a nutshell. A woman who started her business when I started kindergarten, and who is today a full-time and very successful interior designer. I used to joke that I knew words like “gala” and “workaholic” before I knew “ball” or “bottle.”

Despite her busy work and social life, she was also always there as a mother: baking my birthday cakes, letting go of the handlebars, complimenting my “flower child” attire, driving me up to college, welcoming me back home as a young adult, in the delivery room for the birth of my first child or just making sure that the funny tone she detected in my voice wasn’t anything I might need to talk about.