This summer I joined road runner for both faster internet and cablevision. We must get over 200 channels now, but there still is nothing to watch that's worthwhile. Timmy and I got so that we could see the first two seconds of Raymond or Seinfeld and say, "this is the episode where..." like Name that Tune only there were no winnings involved. So we started to listen to tapes. I found two Harry Potter tapes in the Thrift Shop for $1 each and we were hooked. Right now we are waiting for the last Harry Potter book on tape. This one is popular and we were number 36 of people waiting for the audio book from the Tivoli Library, and last I heard we had come down to 26. In the meantime we have been listening to Garrison Keillor and his Lake Wobegon stories. Right after supper, I get settled on the couch under the afghan my mother knitted for me when I graduated college in 1985. We turn the gas stove on and I shut off the living room light. The stove throws off shadows much like a fireplace and we listen to the smooth voice of Garrison Keillor as he tells his stories of life in Minnesota. With his entertaining tales and the lights flickering we could be in a prehistoric setting, sitting in a circle with the clan leader telling us about the saber toothed tiger that got away or the people that live in the cave across the river that really aren't very nice. It's in our blood, story telling and listening, in our DNA. My mother, we called her Bucky, was a story teller. Oh, she would tell us about when Grandma and Poppy moved from the city in the 20's, they bought their house really cheap because the previous owner's daughter had killed herself by jumping into the well after being jilted. Or, the neighbor Nellie Chase, her only child had died after eating one of the first jars of processed baby food. And Nellie's husband was a gambler, and when he won he would hide the money in the stone walls that separated our house from the Chases. Grandma's sister Aunt Ana married Uncle Arnold whose mother came to live with them...a crazy little woman, who couldn't speak English and had a tendency to run away, so they locked her in the cellar, bars on the windows and everything, but she still would escape. One time after breaking out she found ripe berries, and ate so many they gave her diarrhea and when Uncle Arnold found her, she threw her poopy underwear right at his head! Oh, how we loved her stories. Horrible though they were, we grew up on them, mesmerized much the way the kids look today with their gameboys under their noses. My grandson lives next door and he often comes over for SLT - Special Linny Time. One of his favorite things to do is tell stories. We take turns, often using props from the toy box, reversing roles of listener to teller. Last week, I was doing a version of Goldilocks and he stood up and interrupted:"You've given me two MORE ideas." I enjoy this time as much as he does. During the last week as part of my usual short lived January resolutions, I have been sorting family letters...hundreds of them saved over the last 40 years. They too are stories, silent, but when I read them I can almost hear the writer's voice. My mother, always thrifty, would write down to the last piece of the paper. At the end of one of her letters she wrote: "Well, Linda, no news is good news, so they say. What the hell does that mean anyway?" My sister Maureen's letters are so funny, I laugh out loud reading some of them. We both went through divorces at just about the same time, so we often exchanged war stories of our dates and selection of men. Maureen's support group of women were having the same problems and she wrote that one woman stood up and said,"I don't know why I don't just go the local prison and tell them to send me out the worse, hardened cases, because I seem to be finding them anyway." I guess you could say that blogs are now the story tellers, instead of the flickering fire light, it's the flickering monitor as we follow the stories and lives of strangers that seem like family. People we've never met, but who reveal themselves to us as personally as any lifetime friend. And so I leave you today fellow blog readers, that's the news from Clay Hill Road, where all the women are strong, the men are good looking and the children are above average.

Does anybody remember the song, "June in January"? Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Jo Stafford all had a version of it, and as my family had albums from all these artists, I'm not sure which one I heard as a kid. But June in January has been stuck in my head, even as I wore my socks to bed last night. Growing up, my sister Barbara and I slept in an attic room - no heat - and I can remember my mother would iron the sheets before we jumped into the bed. A few years back one of our B&B guests asked me if I had a hot water bottle she could borrow. "They're so comforting", she explained but I didn't own one. Soon after I sent away for one and sure enough she was right, it is very comforting and keeps the tootsies warm for hours. Another guest once wanted the heat on in June. I turn the Emergency Switch to the furnace "off" in June. I had to do this because people were runing the air conditioner and the heat would go on. One time I heard the furnace running, the air conditioner running and they had all the windows and front door open. My face flushed, my heart beat fast and my blood pressure went to a new high and at that point I realized I just had to shut the furnace completely off. Anyway, this one time we had a couple from Texas and I must admit it was a chilly day for June, but when we brought breakfast up, he said they needed heat. "Last night my wife was so cold I had to put her in a hot tub." I got an instant visualization....she's frozen solid, he runs to her and says, hang on, I can help, fills the bathtub to the top corner with hot water, gently carries her from the bedroom to the tub where he gradually sinks her cold, frozen blue body into the tub. I still can see this. And I did relent that time and turned the heat back on. I remember another cold night in June - June 1972. It was Tivoli's Centennial. 100 years since the people of the villages of Tivoli and Madalin were united, incorporated into one village. It was a big deal for the village - three days and nights of activity, starting with a Miss Tivoli contest on Friday night at the Legion Hall. Saturday the tenth was the big day, track and drum and bugle corps competition at Memorial Park, old time movies at Legion Hall, pie baking contest and at 3 o'clock the centennial parade down Broadway. My daughters Maria and Laura marched with the scouts and Ham Fish waved to the crowd from an open car. And the festivities continued the next day with a full day of entertainment and music. Finally at 7:00pm the Hudson Valley Philharmonic played on a large stage that was brought into town. I remember the music, but most of all I remember it was cold, cold enough to see your breath and kids were wearing heavy jackets and wool hats. Another note, the three days were planned and coordinated by Bernie Tieger, a Bard College sociology teacher, now retired and running the Village Books bookstore. I can't imagine the work that must have gone into a three-day wide celebration. My hat is off to you Bernie....even though it is January and you need something on your head.

The grayness of January and the start of a new year put me in a retro mood, thinking more of the past then the year 2008. That doesn't even look like a date to me, I have been reading old letters from the 90's and dates should start with 19..... That is what I like most about Clay Hill Road, how little it has changed in 40 years. There have only been two new houses built on the street, both tucked so far in the woods, as to be almost invisible. And the Jordan-McNally house was torn down but replaced with a module home. In the 70's Mr. and Mrs. Jordan were raising their grandchildren, three boys, Joey the youngest and the twins Mike and Frank. Their house was tiny, how they all fit I don't know. The boys would play at our house a lot and were creative and good sports so my kids liked them. Mrs. Jordan was an ancient, small Irish woman with white hair in a bun. And as I once found out, we shared a birth date - August 21st. She was a true Leo, would roar for the boys and I would advise them that Grandma is calling. They would ignore me and her and after a few minutes you would see her coming down the road, waving a big stick, calling their names. As she got closer, the excuses would come: "We didn't know that was you calling. We thought it was the chickens making a noise". This would get them all laughing, and only increase her anger until they ran before her with the stick waving at their heels. Between our house and the McNally's was Harold Moore's. Harold worked for the railroad and lived with his wife Libby and son. There is a big field between our houses and Harold would plant different crops there, trying out new vegetation that never seemed to take. The year that Bobby Kennedy was shot he was growing raspberries and had time bombs set to go off and frighten the birds. Every blast made me flinch, reminding me of the dead Kennedys. Harold would pay my kids $1.00 to fill a grocery bag full of dandelion heads that he would make into dandelion wine. Libby's sister, Mrs. Lemon lived at the end of Clay Hill, right on route 9G. She took in boarders, old people who either didn't have family or just needed a place to stay. One boarder was Ralph, a giant of a man who was known throughout the Village. Every morning he would walk through the Village to the river estate where he worked, carrying a large lunch box and giving everyone that passed in a car a big wave. Each passerby received a full salute and a big false toothy smile. Ralph would occasionally come to our house, knock at the door, and when greeted would give a big hug...a real crusher. My girls and I took turns being the human sacrifice for the hug and greeting and the folksy advise -"Know how to make a turtle soup? Pick up a dead turtle from the road....." . Mrs. Smith and her daugher Margaret lived across from the Lemons, in a large older home facing 9G. Miss Smith was then the Tivoli Librarian. The Library is now Village Books, but I can still picture Margaret sitting at the Library checkout desk in the window. Years later Margaret married Art Lemon from across the street. He has passed away but Margaret is still going strong, volunteering for the FireHouse and the St. Paul's thrift shop. The next two homes were "summer homes" of the DePauls (now my daughter Sabra's home) and Mary Jonas (now the home of Irene Staffiero and Tink Miller). Tony Staffiero is living in his grandfather's house, which is now enlarged twice the size when Nick and Mrs. Fragano lived there. Nick was our "mail man" would get our mail everyday. He would drive up playing the radio and toot the horn for us to come out and get our mail. My daughter called Mrs. Fragano "the old girl" I think because she looked so childlike, always wearing a large apron over her dress and white anklets on her feet. Nick was sometimes our babysitter and taught the kids card games and how to make houses using the cards. They were the parents of Fran who lived next door. Angelo and Fran Staffiero's house now belongs to his daugher, so the three younger Staffieros now each have their home on Clay Hill. The street hasn't changed much, but many of the people have gone to another place...Mrs. Lemon, Ralph, Art Lemon, Harold and Libby Moore, the Jordans, Mrs. Rector, Jan Barrett, Fran and Angelo, Nick and Mrs. Fragano. About fifteen years ago we had a Clay Hill Road Reunion, all of the present Clay Hill residents, plus all we could find that had lived here at one time came for a picnic gathering. It was a great success, everyone brought pictures and memories of what Clay Hill Road had meant to them. This makes me wonder if maybe there is a Clay Hill Reunion going on, with all the above people telling stories and having a good old time reminiscing about the street they all lived on. The good old days. Let's hope for the best for 2008....that number still doesn't look right to me.

"There are three Tivoli's in the world - in Copenhagen, in Italy and here in New York", said Mr. McVitty, husband of Honoria Livingston, the last Livingston to live in the Clermont mansion. Mr. McVitty would sit on the bench outside the house talking to visitors, telling them stories of the house and the family. I went to work at Clermont in 1974 as a tour guide. Clermont is a state park about one mile north of Tivoli with a large home, walled gardens, rolling hills that face the river and mountains. At that time the house was being restored, hopefully to be fully open for the Bicentennial. But at first, just the main hallway was open to the public. As a tour guide, you had to be creative with just a hallway to show the guests. There were some family portraits hanging to be indentified, but the main attraction was the large Dutch door facing the river. I would fling the top open, saying "And this was the view the Livingston family had", and as they ahhed and oohhhed, I would add, "And they actually owned their view. They owned all the Catskill mountains you can see." This really got them going. After two years, most of the house was open to the public, so our tours became more complicated and we were urged to stick to the script, not to use any of Mr. McVitty's family stories. One rainy gray day, the doorbell rang, the signal for a tour. As it was my turn, I got up and answered the door. There stood two little black girls, all by themselves. I let them in thinking what a waste of my time, just two little girls, and I started with the portraits, and so and so Livingston married his cousin, so and so Livingston, and one of the little girls whispered to the other, "Oh, they had to marry their kin." Then and there I decided to give these girls the best tour I could. I pulled out every one of Mr. McVitty's stories, showed them all the things we usually never mentioned. They liked the holes in the book cases made by the family to let the cats chase the mice from gnawing on the books, they liked the bathtub I showed them, telling them the family would bring in the gold fish from the pond in the winter and keep them here in the bathtub until Spring. I showed them the sliding door to the servants' quarters in the attic, and told them how a watchman, new to the job, didn't realize it was a sliding door. When he pushed it to go upstairs on his rounds and it didn't move, he thought a burglar or a ghost was holding the door shut. Then I told them about the servants, young girls not much older than they were, how one was found dead on the grounds below the attic window. Was she pushed, did she jump, or did she accidentally fall? By the time the tour ended, their eyes were as big as saucers, and they thanked me and ran up the hill, holding hands. It was several minutes before the doorbell rang again, and I told John, "Your turn". John had a hangover and was holding his head. He moaned and went to the door. I looked out the window and was surprised to see the same two little girls, but now they had a whole group with them, maybe a church picnic, I thought. When John came back from the tour, I asked how it went. "Oh, " he said, "They asked all kinds of stupid questions about the bathroom and the servants quarters. They must have been talking to McVitty". I just nodded and smiled. Today, showing people upstairs to the B&B, I realize I again go into "Tour Mode". I sweep into the kitchen, waving at the coffee maker, "If you want to make coffee..", then throw upon the refrigerator, "the coffee, milk, half and half are in here...also drinks". I wave at the cabinets, "tea and snacks are in there. You can have anything you find." They follow me obediently into the living room, I wave at the dining room table, "We bring breakfast here to you. Fill out your menus and leave them on the downstairs table. " I point to the bedrooms, "Extra pillows and blankets are in the closets" and I motion toward the closet door in the living room wall, "And in the cubby, you will find the cushions for the chairs on the deck". Cubby, they stare at each other. Cubby, she must be speaking in a foreign language. Then with a Bette Davis wave and smile, I toss my head, and say, "See you in the morning". All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players....and one man (or woman) in his time plays many parts. Oh, and by the way, Mr. McVitty was perfectly correct. There are only three Tivolis in the world.