Front cover: One of the extraordinary sunsets we seem to see even more often in December.
Inside front cover: The Tappan Zee bridge across the Hudson in the late-afternoon sun.
Inside back cover: Kendal terrace tables, chairs, and trees after a light snowfall.
Outside back cover: Time exposure photo of the moon and the Tappan Zee bridge.
All cover photos were taken by Caroline Persell.
Photo with “Comings and Goings at KoH” by Tom Wolzien, with “The Accidental Colt” by Hubert B. Herring, with “Sailing” by Anne White, with “Getting the Message Out” by Harry Bloomfeld. All others by Art Brady.
KENDAL VIEW STAFF
Editors
Llyn Clague and Pat Taylor
Managing Editor Hubert B. Herring
Editorial Staff
Laura Burkhardt, Doris Eder, Muriel Fox, Edith Litt, Norman Sissman, Valerie Wolzien
Photography Editors
Harry Bloomfeld, Arthur Brady, Caroline Persell
Advertising
Emil Bahary, Peter Roggemann, Ad Directors
Carolyn Klinger, Coordinator
Founder Ed Hanin Is Still Teaching Us
Muriel Fox
There’s a lot we can learn from Ed Hanin.
As a KoH founder, and a trailblazer in several of our most important improvements, Ed has taught us again and again how to create a more meaningful life for Kendal residents. Today, in a new phase of his biography, Ed is teaching us something equally valuable — how to transcend loss. Loss of loved ones and loss of personal strengths, as we step away from leadership roles and enter a new phase of “old age.”
Leadership was a way of life for Ed. In his profession as a psychiatrist, he served as Medical Director of the Westchester Branch of St. Vincent’s Hospital. He was president of the New York State Psychiatric Association and speaker of the American Psychiatric Association Assembly. Here at Kendal, he served three terms on the KoH Board of Directors and chaired the board for two years. He chaired the KoH Board’s Health and Wellness Committee. and later served on the board of our parent Kendal Corporation. He chaired the KoH committee that supervised our last major renovation, Project Renew.
Today life is quieter for Ed. He no longer holds any chairmanships, though he still performs valuable service on our Library Committee and Opera Committee. He has found ways to cope with the August, 2023, loss of his partner of 70 years, Jerry Gold. He survived a November, 2023, fall that left him with a concussion and temporary loss of several abilities. This led to four months in Clearwater. At the age of 90, Ed has gradually recovered from that fall. But he confesses with a resigned smile: “We face the fact that we can’t do certain things. We have only a fair amount of energy to do things that used to be automatic. Like putting on our pants.”
Ed always possessed an admirable memory. But he admits that today, occasionally, some memories take a bit longer to retrieve. A pragmatic person, he muses: “Minor things give me satisfaction these days – a good book, watching a Netflix series or a political convention on television.” He doesn’t nurture a bucket list of unfulfilled wishes because he has already done so much in his lifetime. “Now my world has shrunk. Travel is difficult. I have good memories of many good trips, though I was always glad to get home.”
Ed and Jerry met in 1954. They were married officially in 2011, as soon as it became possible in New York State. They were among the first residents to move into KoH in May, 2005. They signed up with the understanding that they’d leave after six months if they felt uncomfortable as a same-sex couple. No problem! Their lives here were active and appreciated. An exceptionally popular couple. Today Ed reflects: “Losing a partner changes one’s life dramatically. It takes energy to adapt to new ways of living that don’t involve
Ed Hanin
someone else.” He says the pain of loss can be mitigated by the comfort of a supportive community such as Kendal. “I don’t want dinner in my apartment. This is a time when socialization is important to me. It’s a valuable part of life. Routine is important. So is touching other people.”
Ed believes that many Kendal people share these outlooks and are ready for new phases of life. “People blossom here. The Quaker influence is still important.” He says KoH has evolved. “We’re no longer a startup where we got to know everybody. But the place runs fine. We do understand that everything we’d like to add or change has a cost.” As KoH approaches its new renovation under Project Campus Refresh, we asked Ed about the benefits of Project Renew, which he spearheaded. The design of both projects involved two years of inconvenience for residents and a major financial expense. Everyone agrees that Project Renew was a huge success. It gave us Sunnyside, our necessary memory support unit. Also, it gave us ten needed apartments in Adirondack; and it greatly improved and expanded our Clearwater facilities. It created an enhanced Gathering Room and Residents Lounge. Ed says our upcoming Project Campus Refresh emphasizes the future. The renovations will benefit future residents and keep us competitive in recruitment. Ed’s interesting life began with his birth in Tianjin, China. His parents, both Russian immigrants to the United States, were living there in 1932 for his father’s business as an importer and exporter of furs. The family later resided in Florida, San Francisco, and the Bronx. His father, during a solo return trip to China, was seized by the Japanese for a harsh internship during World War II.
After Ed’s graduation from City College, he obtained an M.D. degree from NYU Medical School. He took a psychiatric residency at St. Vincent’s Hospital, and returned there after a military tour as an army psychiatrist. During his 20 years of leadership as Medical Director of its 130-bed psychiatric facility in Harrison, innovative programs helped patients live productively in their community after their discharge from the hospital. In effect, Ed helped to transform the Westchester hospital into a multidisciplinary active treatment center.
Ed and Jerry continued to reside in Manhattan until, in May, 2005, they joined the other first residents at Kendal on Hudson. In addition to the KoH committees mentioned above, Ed also served on our Transportation Committee, Advocacy Committee, and Loss Committee. Although his tenor voice has aged out of the Kendal Chorus, he still joins in with the Kendal Singers for our New Year’s Eve and Fourth of July celebrations. Until recently he led backstage tours at the Metropolitan Opera.
Any regrets? “Apart from not being an operatic tenor, I wish I’d been more open with my parents.”
What is he proudest of? “I think I am a decent person. Far from perfect, but fair. I don’t need achievements to know who I am. That’s never defined me.”
Ed continues to teach and inspire us with the productive life he leads at Kendal on Hudson.
Comings and Goings at KoH
Valerie Wolzien
Just how much does it take to keep Kendal-on-Hudson functioning? The answer became clear when we – my husband, Tom, and I – started exploring the resources needed to operate our 550,000-squarefoot home. There are water, sewer, natural gas, electricity, food, trash, and on and on. Huge amounts every day. But where does it all come from...and where does it all go?
With the help of Director of Facilities Bob Michael, we have explored the warren of underground docks, hallways, and pipes trying to get a sense of Kendal’s scale. It’s big. Here’s some of what we found, along with explanations and comparisons from public records. (For per-resident averages we used 400 “resident-equivalents,” which includes 330 residents at all levels, plus 230 employees, and an estimated 50 outside aides, counted as though they live here 24/7.)
Power: It takes a lot of energy to run KoH. Electricity comes down the big feeder lines on US 9 and then goes underground through Phelps. We consume 4.5 million kilowatt hours (kWh) a year—averaging 31 kilowatt hours per day per resident—about the amount of electricity an iron would use if you were to iron clothes 24 hours a day. That 31 kWh per person compares with the national average of about 30 kWh per household, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Divided by 2.6 people per household, that’s about 12 kWh per person. We use 2.5 times that. But the KoH number includes lighting for public areas, huge pumps for heat, cooling, water, sewage and the swimming pool, motors on the cooling towers and elevators, plus an all-electric heater for pool water. All that is in addition to what residents use in their personal space. Group living is not simple living, at least at a mechanical level.
When the power doesn’t flow, Kendal’s million-watt generator is ready to deliver backup power, which will be campus-wide next spring when the current rewiring project is completed. Next step, Michael says, are pollution controls for the generator, which will allow KoH to be paid $100,000 a year by ConEd just to have our generator available to boost power to the grid during peak periods when we don’t need it.
Heating and Cooling: KoH has a high-end heating and cooling approach, called a “fourpipe” system, typical of hotels and sophisticated buildings designed at the turn of the century. With separate outbound and return pipes for cold and hot water, residents can have access to both heating and cooling in their apartments year around. Many buildings, particularly older institutions, have “two pipe” systems where cooling is shut down and heating starts at
Power Hungry
the end of October, and vice versa in the spring. If you want cooling during warm fall days in those places, or heating during colder summer days, you are out of luck. You would be similarly out of luck if your apartment has hot sun in the morning and you need the AC, but a riverside apartment is in the shade on a chilly fall morning. Not so at KoH, where you can turn up your AC while your neighbor opts for heat.
Kendal has five boilers, two for heat and three for domestic hot water. Natural gas powers both sets of boilers which serve all the apartments and public areas. Our gas is billed in a unit of measure called dekatherms, one of which equals around a million BTUs or a thousand cubic feet of natural gas. Gas use across all of Kendal averages about 48 therms per resident per year, just under double the per person residential average in the Northeast.
There are both efficiencies and inefficiencies in the KoH system, Michael says. The KoH system efficiently uses outside cooling to make chilled water when the temperature goes below 30 degrees, but the big heating boilers, inefficiently, run year-round, though at somewhat reduced levels in the summer. Kendal was not designed with a “summer boiler” to handle the smaller heating load when demand is low.
Water: We use water like a big institution — nearly 21 million gallons of water this past year. That’s around 144 gallons per day per resident-equivalent, 1.7 times the nationwide average of about 85, but well below the average hospital use of 250 gallons per bed.
Our water drops 400 feet from the 800,000-gallon Sleepy Hollow reservoir up in the Rockefeller Preserve. It is purified using chlorine at the Tarrytown treatment plant at Tarrytown Lakes, behind the old St. Mary’s college. Before that, our water has visited the big Kensico Reservoir in Valhalla and the Catskill/Delaware Aqueduct.
For residents who prefer non-chlorinated water for their plants, there are five 55-gallon rain barrels. One is located on a downspout at each building, and a fifth is in the Healing Garden.
The water comes and it goes...as sewage. You may have seen the cement caps on the settling tanks behind Mary Powell. Those tanks separate out stuff that doesn’t belong in the sewage stream and are cleaned out by a septic tank company two or three times a year. What has been purified is pumped into the vast Westchester County wastewater system. It ends up being processed at the Yonkers Joint Treatment Plant. That giant plant handles almost 150 million gallons of sewage every day.
The Dock and Trash: Tons of food come into the loading dock on the P level of Mary Powell every month, along with medical supplies, and packages from Fedex. (Amazon and UPS packages arrive at the front door.)
Some 350 tons of trash leave the same loading dock each year. That 700,000 pounds of refuse is broken into four types — municipal waste, recycling, medical, and bulk waste.
Sixty percent of KoH refuse, 18 tons a month, is municipal waste. It goes into the big trash
compactor in the loading dock and then to Westchester’s controversial Charles Point Resource Recovery Facility (aka incinerator) in Peekskill, which also serves Rockland County, parts of Connecticut, the Bronx, and the Waste Management transfer station in Yonkers.
Recycling by Kendal residents and staff accounts for another five tons of refuse a month, about one-sixth of the total. Four tons of cardboard go into a separate compactor, and a ton of plastics and glass are split into smaller bins for delivery to the Westchester County Household Material Recovery Facility on the Thruway across from Costco in Yonkers.
Medical waste accounts for a tiny 30 pounds a month. That’s not much, but it needs special handling by a specially licensed disposal company.
Then there’s the big stuff — couches and furniture thrown away or left behind by residents as well as construction materials as apartments are remodeled. Commercial haulers take 50 tons of Kendal’s bulky waste to landfills each year.
And recently residents have begun to collect soft plastics. The latest recycling project is supported jointly by residents and the KoH Facilities team. Residents will be hauling the clean plastic to local grocery store collection points. Every 1,000 pounds will get KOH a bench made by Trex using recycled plastic.
The Grounds: Rainwater and snow melt might want to escape Kendal as fast as they can, but that’s not allowed. Runoff from acres of rooftops, almost a mile of paved roads and the 25 acres that KoH is responsible for under the land lease with Phelps Community Corporation is all headed for the river. But before that can happen, the runoff is slowed and impounded in the two huge pools on the far side of the retaining wall between the ring road and the river. If the water ever rises high enough, it will be released through drains several feet below the tops of the pools.
Those 25 acre require a lot of maintenance, mostly under contract with Brightview Landscapers for lawns and plantings, and with Bartlett Tree Experts. Trees define a lot of the KoH campus, and there are many of them on the 25 acres. Some 133 trees representing 22 species were identified in the 2019 inventory by the certified arborists from Bartlett. Many were planned and planted, some were already here, and others are unwanted non-native species, aka weed trees.
As we looked for comparisons to help put these statistics in perspective, we realized this isn’t a hospital, or a nursing home, or even a private residence. It is not a dorm, or an apartment building, or a workplace. It is a community of residents and the people who support them. While all those averages can be used for references to bracket the usage and efficiency of the twenty-year-old KoH plant, we found it pretty hard to compare a four-level CCRC to just about anything.
However, isn’t incomparability at so many levels why we Kendal residents choose to live here in the first place?
Nothing so Nice as Seeing the World From a Sailboat
Anne White
“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”
Reading this passage from The Wind in the Willows was an essential ritual as our family began the first cruise of the season on our 33-foot sailboat, Northstar. This tradition, begun by my parents and handed down to me and my sister, reflected the sense of delight and excitement we shared with Rat and Mole at being on the water, our travels dependent on wind and weather, seeing the world from a different perspective.
It was my father, at the age of 30, who first became smitten with sailing. Beginning in a tiny boat with a single sail, he quickly mastered the craft of keeping the sail full, hand on the tiller, responding to shifts in the wind and sudden gusts as he set off from our summer cottage perched on the shore of an island in Maine.
Anxious to test his skills against those of other local sailors, he bought a small dinghy and started racing. “Who’d like to crew with me today?” he’d ask, and my hand would shoot up. Unfortunately, our boat was one of the slowest in the fleet, and we often came in last, looking at the stern of our neighbor’s dinghy, C U Later.
It was crewing for my father as a teen that began my passion for sailing, and eventually led to cruising vacations around the world, first with parents, then with my husband, and later on my own, with children as crew.
It’s easy to fall in love with cruising when you begin on the coast of Maine, with its rugged islands, deep harbors, pristine waters and bold granite shores lined with hardy spruce. Nothing like tacking upwind in a brisk, steady breeze…surging downwind with spinnaker flying… or navigating through soupy weather, listening for the clang of the bell that marks the ledge at the entrance to the harbor. Then tucking in for the night, dropping anchor and rowing ashore to enjoy a church supper with local folks on a Saturday night.
Over the years, I’ve always sought out opportunities to sail, often serving as racing crew for friends. In New York Harbor, by the South Street Seaport, the wind was sometimes so fluky and the tide so strong, some boats never reached the starting line. Meanwhile, in San Francisco Bay, with its choppy waters and variable winds, going up on the foredeck to lower a spinnaker was often a challenge, requiring agility and balance, and always a hand on the mast or lifelines.
On the High Seas
While living in Minnesota, I joined the University Yacht Club and succeeded in sailing on three different lakes — in dinghies on Lake Harriet in the city of Minneapolis, in mid-sized day-sailers on Lake Minnetonka in the western suburbs, and in a chartered 40-foot yacht, exploring the Apostle Islands on the southern coast of Lake Superior.
One thing I love about sailing is the sense of adventure, the attention to wind and tide and compass required as you chart your course, preparing for fog or even a hurricane blowing in. You’re on your own in this floating home. And it’s up to you and your crew to figure it out on the fly when challenges arise.
Once, setting off on a chartered boat from St. Thomas in the Bahamas, with a powerful wind on our beam, we made excellent time heading east. But as we approached the next island, St. John’s, we entered British waters, which required that we go ashore to secure papers allowing us to proceed. Attempting to set the anchor, we kept dragging on the rocky bottom. So I decided to remain with the boat and sent my teenage children ashore to deal with the authorities. Despite their young age (under 18), they were successful, while I was able to fend off another boat that threatened to crash into ours.
I also had the good fortune to go sailing in three locations in Europe — along the south coast of Brittany, the west coast of Sweden, and the southwest coast of Turkey. Of these, the most memorable was the Turkish cruise, with my parents, on a 36-foot sailboat, as part of a flotilla.
There were ten boats in all, including the lead boat, familiar with local winds and waters, and ready to come to our rescue if we got into trouble. Amongst the other boats, there were Canadians, Germans, French, and British. We were the only Americans.
On alternate days, all ten boats would meet up for the night at a designated location and tie up together for drinks, then go ashore for dinner at a local restaurant. In the tourist town of Marmaris, we found nightclubs with music and dancing, as well as historic sites to visit and shops to buy souvenirs and groceries.
Another evening, we gathered in a small cove with just one farmhouse on the shore, with goats and chickens running free in the yard. There were tables outside to serve us dinner. And when we heard a loud squawking after someone ordered chicken, we knew it would be fresh. On alternate days, we were on our own, free to explore the many small islands that lined the coast.
It took us ten days to make our way along the coast of Turkey from Fethiye to Bodrum, a trip that would take just six hours by car. But that’s one of the delights of sailing, taking your time, in a world where everyone’s rushing… gliding along with just the swish of the water, the hum of the wind in the sails, far away from the cacophony of daily life.
If you ask me, as Mole asked Rat, in The Wind in the Willows, “Is it so nice as all that?”, I would reply as Rat did: “Nice? It’s the only thing!”
Peter Sibley
The Old Windmill
Peter Sibley
It was 1954, toward the end of August. The days were long, the neighborhood was safe, and the three of us: Rick, John, and myself, in our early teens, usually found ourselves free to do whatever we wanted. John‘s mom, as it turned out, was usually inebriated, Rick‘s was distracted, and mine had disappeared a few years earlier. We were too young to get what alcohol and indifferent parenting were all about, and our dads were too overwhelmed at making ends meet to be that involved with us kids. All in all, not a bad deal!
Anyway, in our totally unmonitored explorations one day, we decided to take a closer look at “The Old Windmill,” a half mile or so up King Street. This was a heavily built masonry structure on a wooded hilltop probably built in the mid-nineteenth century. Roughly a hundred feet high, plus another thirty feet if you counted the partly degraded wind blades. There was a boarded-up opening at ground level and a few small windows at different heights. Near the top, a catwalk stood out just below the pitched roof and the wind-vane spindle. Even more exciting, there appeared to be a short ladder from the catwalk to the roof above.
The boarded-up opening gave way easily enough, and once our eyes adjusted to the dark interior we found it largely empty except for a spiraling stairway of thick planks set into the outer wall, the few small very dirty windows providing dim light. I don‘t remember a handrail. Forty or fifty feet up, and on very heavy supporting timbers, was a wooden tank built to hold a lot of water. A large pipe descended from the tank and was driven into the dirt floor. The dank and musty smell of something old and untouched lingered in the air. John, a year older and bigger than Rick or myself, who was also the lead instigator and least cautious, was encouraged to be the first up the stairway. It remained unsaid that if it held his weight, well then....
And so up the three of us went, with John in the lead. When we finally reached the bottom of the tank, the stairway narrowed into the space between the tank and the outer wall. We squeezed our way to the top and there before us, across the tank, was the door to the catwalk. The tank’s metal cover, long neglected, was now mostly torn and sagging into the pitch-black interior. A piece of debris dropped in and splashed, indicating a few feet of water. Terrified, although not willing to admit it, we figured we could cross the top one at a time if we stayed near the intact edge. John went first, of course.
Once through the ill-fitting door and outside on the catwalk the experience can only be described as other-worldly compared with what we had just gone through. It was a sweetly scented, breezy summer day, and we had taken flight over the trees. My senses heightened at
the variety of greens below and the gradations of blue and brilliant white clouds above. Even at twelve years old my impression of the light and color was deeply affected.
And our euphoria lasted about ten minutes before a police officer squeezed his way through the small door and asked us what we thought we were doing. Struck dumb for want of an answer to that question, we were guided back to firm earth and sent on our way, undetained and unlectured. Thinking back to that adventure now, I like to think that the cop was mildly bemused, recalling similar adventures he’d undertaken in his not-too-distant youth.
It also turned out, to our surprise, that an interior catwalk skirted around the tank to the little upper door, making our harrowing crawl across the torn and sagging top completely unnecessary...
The next chapter to this particular saga turns out to be this very essay.
Getting a Timely Message Out
Pat Taylor
It’s a given: nonprofits like Kendal must stay above partisan politics. So how do you channel a group’s desire to do something during a crucial election? Ask Anne White.
Along with Carol Monteleoni and Mimi Abramovitz, she came up with the idea of sending postcards to undecided voters in three states. The program became the focus of four late-afternoon ”Post Card Parties” for Kendal residents last fall.
Using preprinted cards purchased from a nonprofit company that concentrates on voter data, one group of residents wrote a short message (like “Be sure to vote” or “Request an absentee ballot now”) while another group affixed address labels and a third slapped on stamps.
Two “Postcard Parties” in August saw a total of 2,000 postcards mailed to voters in Pennsylvania. In September, 50 volunteers showed up in the PDR to prepare another 2,000 postcards, this time to Nebraska voters. With 1,500 completed, individual residents took home 60 each of the remaining 500 cards to complete and mail.
As we go to press, another 2,000 postcards (to Michigan voters) are being mailed. Once again, an aura of a joyful communal effort – with participants doing SOMETHING — pervades the PDR.
Postcard Party
I Didn’t Sleep With Bill Clinton
Barbara Bruno
Some weekend in the late 1990s, during Bill Clinton’s presidency, Joe and I participated in a champagne-and-chocolate event with our dear old friends Francie and Mario at a hotel in Connecticut. This occurred at a point during Clinton’s term of office when several women were coming forward to say that Clinton had been overly sexy with them.
During that time, we and the economy were all doing well. We liked Clinton. We were greatly enjoying each other’s company, as well as the champagne. We talked about all the accusations. One of us said, “Why don’t we make shirts that say, ‘I didn’t sleep with Bill Clinton’?”
We decided that that was a good idea. We would express our satisfaction with the president, while countering this stream of accusers. Francie and Mario would design the shirt, and we would look into supplies and costs of making them. This took place during perhaps the busiest time in my career. The shirts, which came in a range of sizes, were finally ready. They were printed in red, white, blue, and black, with the words forming an arc around the image of an American flag. We decided that we would sell the shirts packaged with marker pens — in case the purchaser’s status were to change (e.g., from “didn’t” to “did”).
I had a client who kept inviting me to come to the David Letterman Show, which broadcast from New York City. When I told my mother about our publicity plan, she blanched with disapproval. I had figured I wasn’t advertising sexual misconduct on my part, but Mom’s look was powerful. So I nixed the Letterman idea.
Francie saw a notice that Clinton would soon be coming to Westport, Connecticut — her town — to speak at a $10,000-a-plate fundraising lunch. That seemed like a perfect opportunity to advertise, make back our investment as well as to support this president. The shirts came in a range of sizes, so Francie and I, as well as Joe, could all wear them. We figured other Clinton fans and supporters might also buy some of the shirts.
There were some problems to overcome. Clinton was committed to the lunch and giving a talk there. Westport was packed not only with Clinton fans, but with scuba divers in the river, sharpshooters on rooftops and possibly in helicopters, many police, and many Secret Service men wearing earphones and lapel buttons, spread through the streets near the restaurant. I had explained our presence outside and was being closely watched by a couple of those Secret Service men. One of the large number of Secret Service and other guards told us that Clinton might or might not be inclined to meet the crowd of supporters waiting outside to greet him, after the luncheon.
Barbara Bruno
The March weather was freezing, so we would have to find a way to wear the T-shirts and yet stay warm. Mario would be working in another location on that date. Joe was involved in a business-related program, so he could stay in Westport only during his lunch break. Francie had forgotten to bring film for her camera, so she would have to go back home to get some and then return. It turned out that once a member of the crowd left the large circle of supporters waiting on that cold street, they would not be allowed back in. So instead of a small, mixed-gender group wearing our shirts, it was left to me to be the only advertiser, and the shirt was covered by my coat.
I waited. I was wearing my T-shirt over a long sweatshirt dress and under a warm coat, with gloves, boots, and a hood. I looked at all the guards, divers, sharpshooters, and helicopters, and wondered who in her right mind would want to be involved with a man with so much baggage!
About a chilly hour and a half later, Clinton emerged from the restaurant, and indeed was inclined to meet and greet the crowd of supporters waiting outside. By that time, we formed a large circle on the sidewalks surrounding the restaurant. Clinton walked through the crowd, chatting and shaking hands with many of us. The Secret Service man across the street from me was watching me carefully.
The president greeted the man ahead of me on the line, who told him, “I support you, Mr. President!” My turn. I said, “So do I!” and opened my coat so he could see my shirt. He took a step back in order to read it and burst out laughing. He stepped forward, gave me a warm hug, and said, “Well, I hope you won’t have to testify!”
He was a very good hugger! The Secret Service man relaxed, and Clinton went on down the line.
After the crowd dispersed, I went back to Francie’s house to tell her what happened. She told me to take off the shirt and put it in a dry-cleaning bag for preservation. So I did, and there it remains, in our Kendal apartment.
Summer
Philip Monteleoni (written at age 15)
I was always happy to return to Italy after nine cold months of school in New York. Once off the boat in Genoa, I would begin to enjoy the pure freshness of Italy in June, and to renew acquaintances with the little childhood pleasures I had always associated with summer vacations in my old country –the comic books, like Topolino and Paperino, Italy’s Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, all printed in Italian; the tall highway
Philip Montelioni
posters, less forcing and less blunt than the American ones, advertising products like Agip gasoline, known by its trademark, a stylized drawing of a six-legged, black fire-breathing dog; the bitter-sweet chocolate ice cream; the swarms of bicycles and motor-scooters; and the uncluttered lowness of the towns – all of which I had missed so much in New York City.
Then, getting off the train at Padua, where my grandparents would host us, my mother and I would see my grandmother coming towards us and hugging us hard in a vain effort to keep her tears away.
Again, in the ride back from the station I would become enraptured by so many familiar and evocative sights streaming past us – Testi, the fancy toy store into which I would usually coax my grandmother to take me, and from which I would return clutching a small, red-andwhite paper bag containing a miniature soldier, which I would constantly peek at on the way home; Pedrocchi, the café to which, in the warm carefree summer noons, my mother would go with me to gossip with her friends over an innocent aperitif. But these sights were soon eclipsed by the anticipation of seeing the magical portone, the tall austere oak doorway to my grandparents’ house.
The months before August I would spend at my grandparents’ home, either with my mother and them, or playing by myself, in a world known only to me, in a world where toy soldiers and comic books came alive, and where the courtyard behind our house became at once a battlefield, a desert, a jungle, a prison, and a fort. I was an only child, and I had learned very well my own world of make believe. I was happiest when alone, and naturally I was timid when I was among boys, and, even more so, girls of my own age or older.
Now it was August, and my mother and I were on a train going to Florence. She was in the compartment and I was in the corridor, my eager head full out of the window, drinking in the speed, the wind, and the cinders that the locomotive was producing. As the train went around a wide bend, I could see, way up ahead of me, many other heads protruding from the windows. Suddenly I saw a flock of hair bob out of a window a few yards ahead of mine. The head obviously belonged to a girl, an Italian girl, and as I pulled my head in I saw her down the corridor near the front end of the car. Again I poked my head outside, and I was immediately fascinated by her light brown hair, tossing, fluttering, and curling in the wind.
She turned around to look at the back of the train, and, in doing so, our eyes met. I pretended that I hadn’t been watching her, but, before I could lower my eyes, she smiled at me. I looked at her and smiled back. She was about my age – eleven, maybe twelve – and she was very pretty. I wondered how I looked to her.
My mother called to me, and I had to leave my newly acquired friend – momentarily, I hoped. I saw her draw her head inside at the same time that I did. The ringing, numbing feeling of the wind beating past my ears and against my cheeks now left only a quiet stinging sensation around my head. Still without saying a word to her, I smiled and entered the compartment. My mother had called me to make me put on a light sweater so I wouldn’t catch a cold, and, with that on, I went outside again.
The corridor was empty. I looked around, desolate, hoping perhaps to find her hidden somewhere, smiling with mischief. No. I walked up the corridor to the window at which she had been, and I looked at the compartment opposite it. The curtains on the inside were drawn over the glass on the door, but, as the train swayed, they swung momentarily away from the glass. I peeked into the compartment and saw her fleeting image nestled securely between two red, healthy farmers. She did not see me, since she was eating a sandwich. I turned and went back to my own window, hoping that she would soon come out.
But it wasn’t the same, and I soon grew tired of the hard wind against my eyes. Tears from cinders were streaking down my cheeks. I wiped them off my taut skin and went back into my compartment.
After the hot, sweltering months of July and August, it came time for my mother and me to return to New York.
The Accidental Colt
Hubert B. Herring
Our first fall in the mountains was a happy flurry of activity. I gleefully tore down walls, built bookshelves, puttered – rarely with much clue about what I was doing. This will give you an idea: After tearing down a supporting wall, I found a 4x8 beam at the dump and brought it home balanced on top of our VW bug, with Sally driving and me jogging behind, steadying the swaying beam. Some friends and I hefted the beam into place, I told them to take refuge outside, and – with some trepidation – yanked away, one by one, the 2x4’s holding up the second floor. The old house creaked and groaned, but – I’m here to tell the tale, after all – didn’t collapse. (My engineer brother would have been horrified.)
Sally, meanwhile, fulfilled a lifelong dream by buying a horse, whom she named Myrtle. We planted a garden and got some chickens, and she seemed to blossom playing at farm life.
Skip now to a truly bizarre event the following spring: I was awakened by Sally’s voice as she ran up the stairs. “Myrtle had a colt!” she screamed. “Come quick!”
Myrtle? A colt? Myrtle wasn’t even pregnant, and had had no gentleman callers. “Really. Come see.”
It was the kind of April morning when the earth’s energy, bottled up all winter, seems to be exploding, when buds burst from the trees overnight. It was a cool day, a fat cloud plopped
An April Surprise
on our little valley, a soft rain muddying the yard. And next to Myrtle, there was, yes, a colt. He was skinny and funny-looking, seemingly all legs, about the size and color of a midsize deer – which is what Sally had first mistaken him for.
We just stood and stared – Sally in her nightgown, I in hastily pulled-on jeans. He was like a child’s drawing, his legs so absurdly long they looked like stilts – stilts he was having great difficulty mastering. His head and back were a soft brown, fading to almost white legs. His head – too large – was long and delicate, with a white star on his forehead. He was beautiful.
It took us some minutes to get past visions of giant colt-bearing storks – to realize that, of course, Myrtle had been pregnant when we bought her, that when she’d filled out over the winter, we, in our ignorance, thought she was just adapting to the cold. Think of the preparations there would have been – the equine Dr. Spock on the bedside table etc. It was the lack of anticipation – all crammed into odd moment – that made this surreal.
Morning miracle became afternoon reality. Word spread, and visitors trooped through. Some posed for pictures with the colt in his shelter, a crude, open-sided structure hurriedly emptied of firewood.
For a day and a half, all was idyllic, with only occasional relapses into miracles and virgin births. The colt was soon galloping about, and there was no more graceful clumsiness than when he gathered his assorted legs and ran. Myrtle grazed, with the colt giddily orbiting –occasionally dropping by to nurse, never venturing far.
With the help of neighborhood children, we came up with the name Silas. We pondered a new barn. Sally looked up books on training, weaning.
Then, the second afternoon, Silas started limping. It got worse, to the extent that we had to help him up to nurse. Soon he was just lying on the ground, shaking.
The vet proved difficult to summon, and our anxiety neared the boiling point. Finally, the next day, he arrived, wearing high, mud-caked rubber boots, a tattered parka, and the slight stubble suggestive of long, busy hours. He gave off a barn smell that hovered between salty and rank, talking little but inspiring confidence with each word.
He bent over Silas, poked and prodded, gave him a shot of antibiotics, and said, “Don’t worry – just a bruise. He’ll be fine in a few days.”
Order was restored, and a tentative joy. The visitors returned. We refused to be alarmed, floating on the vet’s grizzled confidence.
Within days, Silas got worse, couldn’t stand, couldn’t eat. And once again, the vet’s arrival scattered the demons. “All he’s got is a bellyache,” he pronounced.
He was less hurried this time, and settled in and talked – Sally was laughing, happy. It was a
timeless scene, the three of us in a circle around Silas as night fell, with Myrtle’s dark bulk in the background. The vet cradled the colt’s head or stroked his side. Nothing bad could happen.
After the vet left but before we went to bed, Sally said, “Let’s check Silas once more.” In the dim light I could make out body and legs, but no head. Sally leaned over, touched Silas, and said, “He’s dead.”
Her voice was low and calm; there was an eerie truth to what she said. The colt’s life was magical, not of this world.
After a numb, awkward interlude, I picked Silas up, carried him toward the woods, and put him down well away from the shed.
Suddenly I heard a violent outburst. Myrtle must not have seen me carry Silas away, for now she became frantic. She whinnied, loud and panic-stricken, the wood of the fence splintering as she broke through. She could not see Silas, but she saw me and charged at me, blind with fear and confusion. She ran past, missing me by inches. She ran into the woods, reared violently, and returned with the same force. Terrified of that vast, charging bulk, I jumped behind a tree. She was still moving too fast to see Silas, often passing within feet of his body.
Her fury refused to run its course. She shattered more fences, tearing up corners of the garden. I had to make her see the colt. So I stood by the body, but she ran right past it several times. I held my ground, petrified. In the background, Sally silently watched this primal drama.
Finally, I picked up the limp body and planted myself in her path. I was terrified. She might trample me accidentally, or she might see me, see the dead colt, and attack me as the cause.
She came right at me, at full blind speed, eerily back-lit by the lights of the house. When she was almost upon me, I dropped the body in front of her and leapt aside. She stopped, put her head down, sniffed her dead child, and was instantly calm.
She started nibbling at the grass, at peace now, always staying within a few feet of Silas, occasionally poking him with her nose.
The next morning, given the miracle-heavy nature of it all, we half-expected Silas to be resurrected. But what we’d left in the privacy of darkness was now exposed to cold morning light. I dug a hole, and when I lifted him in, Myrtle perked up, and grew restless as I moved away. Her eyes brightened, and a trace of the previous night’s wildness coursed through her body. She pawed at the dirt, then raised her head high, ran back and forth to the limits of her rope, and whinnied plaintively. She stared at me as I put Silas in the hole, folding his stiff legs close to his body, then whinnied again, more softly, as I shoveled dirt on top of him.
Dentistry, as with other health services, is rapidly changing. Technology is constantly improving, allowing us to deliver quality care in less time and with less stress. Most importantly though, dentistry is still an art as well as a science. As a health service, the patient care is provided not only by the doctor, but by the entire office staff. Dentistry as a health service means properly placed restorations and courteously answered phones. Rapidly changing technology will not change this philosophy of service.
The Zegarelli dental office has been located in Tarrytown since 1982. We have been serving KoH residents since the Kendal opening day in 2005.
SENIOR HEALTH VITALITY PROGRAM
Your partner in health and wellness
Please visit the Phelps website to see all of our upcoming programs and support groups: phelps.northwell.edu/events
For more information on our programs, please email vitality@northwell.edu or call (914) 366-1150.
For more information on our Caregivers Support Group options, please contact Gaby Naranjo, LMSW at (914) 366-3937 or email gnaranjo@northwell.edu.
Vitality at Phelps Hospital offers a variety of free programs and services to help you stay active and engaged as you age. We provide educational health-related classes, events, support programs, and expert care to enhance your well-being.
1. Keeping Memory Alive: Memory Care
Offers education and activities to keep your brain stimulated and your cognition sharp.
2. The Breakfast Club
Join us for monthly presentations from our physicians and clinical experts on different health and wellness topics, with time for a Q&A at the end of each session.
3. Osteoporosis Program
For those concerned about their bone health including bone loss and fractures, hear from physicians, physical/ occupational therapists, and dietitians to discuss risk factors, causes, proper body mechanics, and medication options to maintain healthy bones as you age.
4. Pain Management Support Program
This group is for adults of all ages suffering from acute and/or chronic pain who seek more information. It is hosted by our pain management physician Stephen Thorp, MD, and each session will have a presenter and Q&A session.
5. Caregivers Support Group
Our Caregiver Support Group is a non-judgmental safe space open to all community members in a caregiving role.
6. Alzheimer’s & Dementia Caregiver Support Group
Caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease can present many challenges and take a significant toll on a caregiver’s health. Fortunately, emotional support groups can provide the assistance and reassurance you need to manage stress and take time for your own much-needed care.
• Both Large and Small Chapels And we are Centrally Located
• 5-Star Google Rated Business
Reduce stress...PrePlan today
Walk-Ins Welcome
We are Available 24 hours a day. You will always be handled by our family & staff. We fully support Kendal on Hudson.
Enrico Hair Care, Inc.
Enrico Hair Care, Inc.
Yolanda is available for pedicure by appointment
MondaysEnrico cuts and styles and Tatiana consults on color
Wednesday
KIm does hair color/cut and styling
Wednesdays
Hairstyling by Kim
Friday
Wednesdays through FridaysMaria does manicures
Maria does manicure and waxing
Sandra does hair color/cut and styling
Thursday and FridaysHairstyling by Toni
Saturday Enrico does hair color/cut and styling
Fridays -
Christina does pedicures, manicures and hair.
Call for appointments 523-6382 or 922-1057
Call for appointments 914-523-6382 or 914-922-1057
FYO Accounting & Tax Services
• In-home service
914-962-5475
• Tax Preparation & Planning
• Bookkeeping
• Filing & Organizing
• Bill Paying
Seniors Transition Services, LLC
Owner: Jean Mayer, EA
strans1@gmail.com Reduce the Stress of Downsizing
Serving residents at Kendal on Hudson since its opening.
914-862-2305
jeanmayertax@gmail.com
• Assist You/Your Family in Vacating Apartments
• Pack Charitable Donations
25% discount to Kendal residents.
• Obtain Estimates from Movers
• Achieve Maximum Tax Benefit
• Work Within Your Time Frame Insured Call for Free Estimate 914-962-5475
Off-Season Tax Special: Provide your prior year tax returns and receive a free review, consultation, and fee quote. No obligation.
Owner: Marco Araujo
914-703-0501 Or 914-631-2277
Transforming Care for Parkinson’s & Dementia
At Angels on Call
At Angels on Call, we provide award-winning care tailored to those living with Parkinson’s disease and dementia, ensuring comfort, dignity, and purpose at every stage.
Parkinson’s Care: Certified Excellence
At Angels on Call Homecare, we are proud to lead the way in specialized care. We are the first and only Licensed Home Care Service Agency in the country to achieve Certified Parkinson’s Disease Care (CPDC™) accreditation. This distinction sets us apart, ensuring that your loved ones receive the highest quality, Parkinson’s-specific care available, delivered by a team equipped with advanced training and compassionate understanding.
Dementia & Memory Program: Reimagining Care
Our innovative Dementia and Memory Program honors individuality. Our Certified Dementia Care Partners empower those with cognitive changes to rediscover joy and purpose, ensuring enriching experiences and fulfilling interactions throughout their journey.
Contact us today to learn how our award-winning services can support you or your loved one in their journey toward a better quality of life!
