Catskill Volunteer Fire Departments Show Their Stuff

Yesterday we attended the annual Open House of the Mountaintop Historical Society at their beautiful campus in Haines Falls. Held each year on the last Saturday in August, the Open House is a great opportunity for anyone to visit the MTHS campus and its buildings, learn about the Society's work in researching, preserving, and disseminating the history of this area of the Catskills, enjoy some entertainment, and meet the artists, craftspeople, and frmers who display and sell their work. Anton and I met fellow photographers Francis X. Driscoll and Larry Gambon and caught up on their latest news, and we also had the pleasure of meeting Nina Lawford-Juviler, publisher of the lovely regional magazine Kaatskill Life.

  Each year's Open House features some interesting novelty, in the form, for example, of an art exhibit or a particularly significant lecture. This year visitors were treated to an outdoor exhibit of vintage historic fire engines from the fire departments of the neighboring towns. Some of the engines really did look "historic"--remnants of a bygone era--while others were from more recent times. According to Roger Benjamin, the amazingly knowledgeable volunteer who was only too pleased to tell visitors all about these engines, all of them were built with a quality to be envied by vehicle manufacturers today. These were times when built-in obsolescence was unheard of and things were made to last.

  Mr. Benjamin is a member of the H.D. Lane Volunteer Fire Department in Phoenicia--the newest fire department in Ulster County--and he told me about how dificult it is to recruit volunteer firefighters these days. Residents moving away, the increasing proportion of second-home owners to full-time residents--these and other factors all take their toll. Consequently, the individual fire departments frequently depend heavily on mutual aid, where several departments come out to help.

  I'm posting some of my photos from yesterday in hopes that they may inspire some readers to consider volunteering their services for these incredibly dedicated fire departments.

Farewell to a Woodstock Icon

I took a ride up to Woodstock yesterday to check out possible photographic subjects for my book on the Hudson Valley and Catskills and, at the same time, to enjoy a walkabout lecture by local historian and author Michael Perkins on the history of Woodstock and its buildings. Thanks to the Catskill Mountain Club for advertising this very interesting event! Michael is knowledgeable and speaks with an obvious passion for his topic. For me it was particularly amazing to see a building that had been relocated to Woodstock from one of the villages that had been flooded to create the nearby Ashokan Reservoir, which supplies water to New York City.

Alas, it was also an occasion to bid farewell to Woodstock's independent bookstore, The Golden Notebook. In an era when megachains and the Internet rule everything, it's great to see an indie bookstore flourishing and sad to note when one closes its doors forever, especially when it's located in such a uniquely individualist town as Woodstock. Well, possibly not forever? Barry Samuels, who owns The Golden Notebook with his partner Ellen Shapiro, says it's been a good run and hopefully someone else will pick up the mantle and continue the tradition of an independent bookstore in Woodstock. In the meantime, The Golden Notebook will close at the Labor Day Weekend after more than thirty years of serving the residents of and visitors to Woodstock. Thank you for the thirty-two years, Barry and Ellen.