FEATURING
Stories
Gathering Honey From Every Opening Flower (4/13-4/20)
- Details
- Written by George L. Nitti George L. Nitti
- Category: Week in Review Week in Review
I like to settle into routines. Like most adults, each week I have an idea of what I’d like to get done. Usually it revolves around some routine. Discipline is inculcated at an early age as we learn to do things around schedules, plans and deadlines. April 15 is one such deadline some of us may have encountered this week.
A second grade class I taught this week at one of the elementary schools reminded me of this fact – how important routine and structure is to the fabric of our lives. Even at the age of 7 and 8 years old, kids operate within a set of routines. It was nice to see second graders take out their homework and perform other tasks throughout the day centered around their routines.
My teaching routine generally does not cover second grade – I prefer well disciplined AP Physics students at the high school level who are all engaged on an independent project. But I don’t always have control over my teaching assignments. They come and go, each one different, and I must adapt myself to circumstances.
Second grade is an age group I don’t prefer to teach. I much prefer fifth and sixth grade if I’m teaching on the elementary school level. Second graders have to be kept on task. Second graders ask a lot of questions. Second graders demand much more of my time. If you need your shoe tied, don’t ask a second grader because they will ask you.
If I had known that I would be teaching second grade this week I don’t think I would have accepted the assignment. Sometimes we find ourselves outside our routines. If you had been training for the Boston Marathon and entered the race this week how could you have foreseen the tragic outcome?
As I regularly look over Warwick Valley Living’s events calendar, this time I chose to go to an event that fit perfectly into my routine. On Saturday I regularly go to Gold’s gym in Monroe and so I knew I could squeeze in a trip to Museum Village located just up the road for their Grand Opening.
The museum was founded in 1950 by Roscoe V. Smith and is one of Orange County’s prized cultural institutions, drawing many visitors yearly, including caravans of school children who come on field trips. The Museum offers lessons on what it was like during a specific era in history, circa 1850’s, just before the advent of the industrial age.
At the museum I took a self-guided tour, engaging with a number of volunteers who came out in full force. I met woodcarvers from the Mid-Hudson Woodcarvers Guild, and stopped at a candle shop, broomshop and blacksmith shop, where I was given several demonstrations on each of these crafts. Then I went to the old school house where I reviewed the lesson of the day, written on the blackboard:“How doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour and gather honey all the day from every opening flower?”
{besps}education/Museum_Village{/besps}
What I love about school, inside or outside a classroom, is that each day we have opportunities to improve ourselves. This is one great gift of life. We are allowed to make mistakes and learn from them.
Education is an exciting proposition worth supporting. Keeping cultural institutions alive like Museum Village, or nurturing second graders along a pathway of good routines leads, I think, to a better civilization. Cherishing each person for their self worth and unlimited potentiality is a right for all.
Finishing up my day in that 2nd grade classroom, I read from Charlotte’s Webb. The students were rapt in attention and I brought to conclusion what turned out to be a wonderful day inside the classroom.
Young minds were turned on. And then I realized, I was “gathering honey all the day from every opening flower.”
.
‘Springing’ Out of the Gate (4/5-4/12)
- Details
- Written by George L. Nitti George L. Nitti
- Category: Week in Review Week in Review
We started our week on a music note, meeting up with friends last Thursday evening at the Dautaj Restaurant in Warwick. Meeting once a month, jazz musicians throughout the Hudson Valley have an opportunity to play amongst each other. It’s fruitful ground for musicians looking to develop their music chops and also makes great entertainment for spectators like us. Top musicians play, reminding us how lucky we are to be amidst high caliber talent right here in Warwick. For more on this new series, click here. On April 26, don't miss the Gabriele Tranchina Quartet, who will perform jazz and world music at Silvio’s Italian Villa. For more on that special show, click here.
Last weekend we attended the Warwick Valley Community Expo where we met up with lots of business owners. Visit our photo album on facebook to see who we chatted up. It was nice to see familiar faces like Betsy Mitchell from Track 7. Speaking to her briefly, she told us that they were embarking on their seventh year in business and were appreciative of all of the support their business has received from the community. Always busy, their growth reflects their positive spirit and energy. All of the work they have done for the Food Pantry in Warwick has not gone unnoticed, either.
At the expo we enjoyed a pleasant conversation with representatives from Certa Pro Painters. Fans of our website, they gave us a few tips about our music calendar before we stumbled onto the subject of favorite eating destinations. At their booth, they were raffling off a $100 gift certificate to the Landmark Inn, which then launched us on a long conversation about food. We really hope we win that raffle as the weekend is here and we are hungry for something good to eat.
Their raffle gave us an idea: To focus energy on the variety of ways vendors promote themselves through what they giveaway at their booth. Opening up our plastic tote bag courtesy of Edward Jones Financial Services, we took up a large collection of company pens, frisbees, stressballs, and chocolate from as many vendors as we could gobble up. We enjoyed all of the food, devouring it immediately. Thank you to all of the vendors for the abundance of new office supplies you furnished. And that nifty beer opener, free photography session, back massage and stress test. The book on insurance tips will come in handy. We will continue to nurture that small plant we received from the Warwick Valley Community Center. All the raffle contests we entered give some hope too that we might be winners of a host of prizes, like a mini-ipad. And we are looking forward to our Discover Warwick Valley T-Shirt, which has arrived. Thank you again for the gifts!
Believe it or not it was a frivolous bag of popcorn that engaged us most at one of the booths. A harmless giveaway, I thought to myself. The man giving out the popcorn, Bob Bogert, was the owner of Alpine Air Heating and Air Conditioning. The popcorn was a big hit, not just with me but amongst a line-up of kids, who had one thing on their mind and it wasn't related to heating and air conditioning. An hour later, I didn’t know that bag of popcorn was going to lead to a long conversation about geothermal energy, a technology the company was promoting to showcase its cost savings.
It looks like spring has finally broken loose like a race horse sprinting out of the gate. Find out in the next couple of weeks how the horse race fares amongst our nursery brethren as we preview the area to see what’s springing forth on their lots.
This week we have some spring clothing that’s been out for some time as we look at some of what's fashionable. We also have a few other stories for you to check out and we've dug deeper into “Letters from My Father,” this time focused on living a life of relevance. That's a great story, I must say so myself. Click here for the latest letter.
Remember he who is first out of the gate is not always first to the finish line (Got that one from a Chinese fortune cookie). But gaining good track position is advantageous. So…having said that….on your mark, get set………..Happy Spring!
The Food on our Table (3/30-4/5)
- Details
- Written by George L. Nitti George L. Nitti
- Category: Week in Review Week in Review
Can you eat the delicious looking black dirt and drink the glistening waters of Greenwood Lake? Our neighbor’s boat is already in the water. And the tractors are plowing the fields. Some say you can’t eat the scenery. I say you can.
Around the area we go, from Greenwood Lake to Pine Island, from water to black dirt, as far north as the city of Middletown to the denser fringe of Suffern, even as far south as Bergen County. You can bet you will find us somewhere in between. If not we may be on the road to Maine. Or a favorite monthly excursion. In our dreams it’s St. John, San Francisco, Italy….
This month we will go to Ridgewood, NJ getting a scoop on what’s happening there and sharing it with you in May. We love to go places, both in and out of the Warwick Valley, and that’s just the way it is. Since I grew up in Ridgewood, I enjoy returning, reminiscing and seeing how things have changed. And then reporting on it.
As far as what is happening here, we are happy to say – way too much. Spring starts out with much hope, slow going, and then accelerates, blossoming out of control. The farmers are now preparing the ground for planting, as we discovered enroute to Rogowski Farm in Pine Island last week.
At the farm, we picked up a loaf of wood-fired rustic sourdough rye from Bobolink, listened to acoustic guitarist and singer/songwriter Sarah Morr perform live (these days she's been very focused writing new material) and visited with vendors from around the region who were selling cheeses, organic grass fed meats, vegetable seedlings, local wine, honey, lotions, and much more.
Cut me a nice sliver of local cheddar and I’m in heaven!
At the market, I ran into locally grown photographer Francesco Mastalia, who is working on publishing a unique series of photographs on farmers and chefs around the Hudson Valley in a project entitled Organic, catching the attention of both Table and Orange Magazines, where it has been featured. “Organic is not what you think it is,” he says. “There is “organic” and then there is “organic.” That’s one thing I discovered after talking to over 120 farmers and chefs for this project.” Visit his website and take a look at his fascinating project. Click here to view project.
This week, we will focus on the fashion scene, visiting 3 clothing retailers to find out what’s currently in style for women. Just as winter gets underway, these retailers already have their spring line-up on display. Talk about planning for the future. I would never have made it in the clothing retail business, as I’m usually trying to catch up to the last season.
Which brings me to a winter’s day in Florida, NY, when I learned all about the metal arts. The tale about the iceforge was not easy to write; there was so much to take in and learn that I found it challenging to assimilate all of the new vernacular. But who says we don’t grow. Even in the dormancy of winter we are preparing for rebirth. Now the story has emerged and I’m wearing it more loosely. Please take a look, especially at the fabulous photos by West Milford photographer Carol Moran. Suffice it to say, there is so much abundance – from metal to earth, water and fire – that there’s plenty for everyone. Read More
On a personal note, we had a death in our family, our cat Sydney passed away and we hope he is somewhere in cat heaven. I shared my story with a group of 3rd graders this week in one of Suffern’s elementary schools where I substitute teach. The subject of the lesson – what I did over springbreak. It was nice to learn what they did as well, as they read me their more uplifting stories of fun and adventure while Kerryl and I buried our cat.
Finally, when you thought it was over, I came up with one more project to sink my teeth into and share amongst you all. Last spring brought the death of my father. The letters he sent me over the last 30 years away from home are now resurfacing, as I’ve decided to reread them to rediscover how much he impacted my life. I will imbibe the letters slowly, ruminate over them, write reflections and respond to his thoughts from another perspective. Join me in this other journey, a memoir called "Letters from My Father: Lessons I've Learned." Read More.
Take your pick of what you want to eat. Broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, brussel sprouts.... Take what you want. Leave the rest. There is a lot of good food on the table and you are welcome to it all.
Gathering Honey From Every Opening Flower (4/13-4/20) (2)
- Details
- Written by George L. Nitti George L. Nitti
- Category: Education Education
I like to settle into routines. Like most adults, each week I have an idea of what I’d like to get done. Usually it revolves around some routine. Discipline is inculcated at an early age as we learn to do things around schedules, plans and deadlines. April 15 is one such deadline some of us may have encountered this week.
A second grade class I taught this week at one of the elementary schools reminded me of this fact – how important routine and structure is to the fabric of our lives. Even at the age of 7 and 8 years old, kids operate within a set of routines. It was nice to see second graders take out their homework and perform other tasks throughout the day centered around their routines.
My teaching routine generally does not cover second grade – I prefer well disciplined AP Physics students at the high school level who are all engaged on an independent project. But I don’t always have control over my teaching assignments. They come and go, each one different, and I must adapt myself to circumstances.
Second grade is an age group I don’t prefer to teach. I much prefer fifth and sixth grade if I’m teaching on the elementary school level. Second graders have to be kept on task. Second graders ask a lot of questions. Second graders demand much more of my time. If you need your shoe tied, don’t ask a second grader because they will ask you.
If I had known that I would be teaching second grade this week I don’t think I would have accepted the assignment. Sometimes we find ourselves outside our routines. If you had been training for the Boston Marathon and entered the race this week how could you have foreseen the tragic outcome?
As I regularly look over Warwick Valley Living’s events calendar, this time I chose to go to an event that fit perfectly into my routine. On Saturday I regularly go to Gold’s gym in Monroe and so I knew I could squeeze in a trip to Museum Village located just up the road for their Grand Opening.
The museum was founded in 1950 by Roscoe V. Smith and is one of Orange County’s prized cultural institutions, drawing many visitors yearly, including caravans of school children who come on field trips. The Museum offers lessons on what it was like during a specific era in history, circa 1850’s, just before the advent of the industrial age.
At the museum I took a self-guided tour, engaging with a number of volunteers who came out in full force. I met woodcarvers from the Mid-Hudson Woodcarvers Guild, and stopped at a candle shop, broomshop and blacksmith shop, where I was given several demonstrations on each of these crafts. Then I went to the old school house where I reviewed the lesson of the day, written on the blackboard:“How doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour and gather honey all the day from every opening flower?”
{besps}education/Museum_Village{/besps}
What I love about school, inside or outside a classroom, is that each day we have opportunities to improve ourselves. This is one great gift of life. We are allowed to make mistakes and learn from them.
Education is an exciting proposition worth supporting. Keeping cultural institutions alive like Museum Village, or nurturing second graders along a pathway of good routines leads, I think, to a better civilization. Cherishing each person for their self worth and unlimited potentiality is a right for all.
Finishing up my day in that 2nd grade classroom, I read from Charlotte’s Webb. The students were rapt in attention and I brought to conclusion what turned out to be a wonderful day inside the classroom.
Young minds were turned on. And then I realized, I was “gathering honey all the day from every opening flower.”
.
Letter 3: Live a Life of Relevance
- Details
- Written by George L. Nitti George L. Nitti
- Category: Letters from My Father: Lessons I've Learned Letters from My Father: Lessons I've Learned
September 1987
As I was pursuing my new acting ambitions after I graduated from Michigan, I could not help but desire a taste of greatness. I surely had much to prove to the world and myself, as any graduate might with bright hopes for their future. The idea of being a great actor, when I chose acting, superceded the idea of being a “good actor” or a “good anything” for that fact. Who wants to be good when they can be great?
My father had instilled that desire for greatness, not by beating it into my head, but by imbuing it through rewarding good actions. A winning touchdown pass that I threw as an 8th grade football player in the last moments of a football game was a defining moment that said to me such feelings were worth pursuing. How wonderful were the rewards that came from winning and/or receiving that special something from Dad, even if it was just a pat on the back and encouraging words like “Great job.”
After that ecstatic junior high school football victory, my father rewarded me with a twenty dollar bill and treated me and my friends to pizza. Extrinsic rewards worked well for me as I found that pleasing my father always worked to my benefit like following the law pleases our justice system.
When I received a trophy for Most Valuable Player on the high school football team several years later in 1981, I realized the road was few and far between those fleeting moments of great, heroic acts like throwing winning touchdown passes in the last seconds of a game. Unfortunately, there weren’t too many moments like that day. Dad reminded me that the rewards of glory are few and far between and not to count on them for the fulfillment of one’s destiny, pointing to a few former high school star athletes from his hometown who graduated and were still hanging out on a park bench reminiscing about their glory days.
My glory was a different kind of glory, but more sustaining. I learned it was through steady discipline, consistent action and riding the ups and downs of the rocky road ahead, for better or worse, over a long period of time, that was the way to greatness, if it were to be achieved at all. Sticking to it, like my father had done to become a doctor, was the way to a more successful future. Over the years Dad would point to that trophy, encouraging me that I could do anything if I set my mind to it.
This “greatness” thing was hanging over me like a huge cloud that defined my being. That I had to be something was culturally rooted in such films like On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando’s character telling his brother about his desire to be a contender or Rocky Balboa waking up one day to realize he’s not lived up to his potential; in sports with role models like Michael Jordan winning championship games for the Chicago Bulls and John Elway winning two Super Bowls in the twilight of his career; or maybe it came from just being an American where we are instilled with the idea that we are the greatest nation on earth. Wherever this idea of greatness took root, from great civilizations of World History to our great forefathers of America or in the great characters of the plays of William Shakespeare, the bug bit me hard and I wanted something more out of my life than mediocrity.
My father must have picked up on my anxiety when I told him about this desire for greatness.
Dear George,
To say “I want to be great” (at what I do with my life) is an admiral character trait. Great for what? Glory? What will be the relevance of such greatness? How can one’s life be relevant? Relevance is the oft forgotten attribute missing in many so-called greats, in the tragic heroes and their flaws.
Greatness is too broad a term. All Ruth’s homeruns, the many movies of a Woody Allen. So many famous people, so many accolades. Yet, each must ask despite his so called greatness, what is it that makes my life relevant.
Each of us has a capacity for relevance because relevance relates usually to the society, friends and family around us.
So after one becomes great, it is also important that such a life is indeed relevant. And should it fail to be relevant, such a life will be like a very beautiful but empty cup. It is great for its beauty, and empty of relevance. So if you do not have enough to strive for, I have reminded you of this other burden of relevance. This, however, is an easier more natural one because it is an easy habit to get into and measure everyday.
If a thing is irrelevant to you, then it must be avoided. Everyone’s life can be relevant and therefore great.
My father, as much as he talked about “greatness,” through his heroes like Winston Churchill and other political leaders, contemporary and historical, reiterated the necessity of relevance over the course of my life. When I got my first teaching position as a social studies teacher at a high school in Newark, NJ from 1990 to 1992, I realized that the way to my students’ hearts and minds was in making subject matter relevant. Textbooks that were dry coupled with tasks that were boring had very little relevance to the lives of black Americans, forcing me to find other ways to reach them. Spending extra hours at the library to learn African-American history and their key role models throughout history would bring greater esteem upon me than almost anything I had done in my life, including winning a football trophy.
I would become a much better teacher when I worked on the attribute of becoming relevant rather than focusing on greatness.
At the end of my father’s letter he advised me to keep writing and to keep a diary, which he had first encouraged when I went to Japan. It was an affirmation that he asserted throughout my life and he really did help me become a better writer, first through the confidence I gained in letters I wrote him and the several daily journals I kept for myself over several years and then later when I became a graduate student of writing, an English teacher and practicing writer myself.
I would not make the connection until much later in life about the influence of those letters - that through them, I was preparing myself for something I could not foresee. Where it was all leading, I would not know. But writing was my way of discovering my place in the world and my father gave me this confidence. Later, my knowledge of writing, both through the daily habit of doing it and the formal education I would receive would become the basis for more relevant acts in and out of the classroom.
Our lives are governed much more by positive influences than we may realize. It takes time to discover the thread of our existence and the reason why we are here on this planet and how it is shaped by very special role models such as people like my father or teachers in our schools and the great people who serve, in all walks of life, to inspire us through their presence.
The lesson of living a life of relevance would continue to play out over the next 25 years of my life until my father’s death. Nor would that lesson diminish with his passing but rather grow stronger like an orchestra band beating a steady drum to the Stars and Stripes Forever.
The Food on our Table (3/30-4/5) (2)
- Details
- Written by George L. Nitti George L. Nitti
- Category: Food & Wine Food & Wine
Can you eat the delicious looking black dirt and drink the glistening waters of Greenwood Lake? Our neighbor’s boat is already in the water. And the tractors are plowing the fields. Some say you can’t eat the scenery. I say you can.
Around the area we go, from Greenwood Lake to Pine Island, from water to black dirt, as far north as the city of Middletown to the denser fringe of Suffern, even as far south as Bergen County. You can bet you will find us somewhere in between. If not we may be on the road to Maine. Or a favorite monthly excursion. In our dreams it’s St. John, San Francisco, Italy….
This month we will go to Ridgewood, NJ getting a scoop on what’s happening there and sharing it with you in May. We love to go places, both in and out of the Warwick Valley, and that’s just the way it is. Since I grew up in Ridgewood, I enjoy returning, reminiscing and seeing how things have changed. And then reporting on it.
As far as what is happening here, we are happy to say – way too much. Spring starts out with much hope, slow going, and then accelerates, blossoming out of control. The farmers are now preparing the ground for planting, as we discovered enroute to Rogowski Farm in Pine Island last week.
At the farm, we picked up a loaf of wood-fired rustic sourdough rye from Bobolink, listened to acoustic guitarist and singer/songwriter Sarah Morr perform live (these days she's been very focused writing new material) and visited with vendors from around the region who were selling cheeses, organic grass fed meats, vegetable seedlings, local wine, honey, lotions, and much more.
Cut me a nice sliver of local cheddar and I’m in heaven!
At the market, I ran into locally grown photographer Francesco Mastalia, who is working on publishing a unique series of photographs on farmers and chefs around the Hudson Valley in a project entitled Organic, catching the attention of both Table and Orange Magazines, where it has been featured. “Organic is not what you think it is,” he says. “There is “organic” and then there is “organic.” That’s one thing I discovered after talking to over 120 farmers and chefs for this project.” Visit his website and take a look at his fascinating project. Click here to view project.
This week, we will focus on the fashion scene, visiting 3 clothing retailers to find out what’s currently in style for women. Just as winter gets underway, these retailers already have their spring line-up on display. Talk about planning for the future. I would never have made it in the clothing retail business, as I’m usually trying to catch up to the last season.
Which brings me to a winter’s day in Florida, NY, when I learned all about the metal arts. The tale about the iceforge was not easy to write; there was so much to take in and learn that I found it challenging to assimilate all of the new vernacular. But who says we don’t grow. Even in the dormancy of winter we are preparing for rebirth. Now the story has emerged and I’m wearing it more loosely. Please take a look, especially at the fabulous photos by West Milford photographer Carol Moran. Suffice it to say, there is so much abundance – from metal to earth, water and fire – that there’s plenty for everyone. Read More
On a personal note, we had a death in our family, our cat Sydney passed away and we hope he is somewhere in cat heaven. I shared my story with a group of 3rd graders this week in one of Suffern’s elementary schools where I substitute teach. The subject of the lesson – what I did over springbreak. It was nice to learn what they did as well, as they read me their more uplifting stories of fun and adventure while Kerryl and I buried our cat.
Finally, when you thought it was over, I came up with one more project to sink my teeth into and share amongst you all. Last spring brought the death of my father. The letters he sent me over the last 30 years away from home are now resurfacing, as I’ve decided to reread them to rediscover how much he impacted my life. I will imbibe the letters slowly, ruminate over them, write reflections and respond to his thoughts from another perspective. Join me in this other journey, a memoir called "Letters from My Father: Lessons I've Learned." Read More.
Take your pick of what you want to eat. Broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, brussel sprouts.... Take what you want. Leave the rest. There is a lot of good food on the table and you are welcome to it all.