"Cornwall 275th Anniversary Interview With Catherine Palmer Paton"

www.cornwallhistoricalsociety.org/omeka/items/show/567 is the link

to an interview transcript from July 2017. I was attending the rather

elaborate festivities in this small town 

not far from where I lived as a gal (with one of my best buddies

from my freshman year hailing from the town. While we compete

d in sports for a few years and had joined forces

for swim teams and a choral group as Falls Village and Cornwall

school kids, we really bonded during our soccer and track

experiences at Housatonic Valley Regional High School

back in the late 1970s...Those were some special times,

h, family and friend circles. One of my good Vassar College

friends had her wedding reception in West Cornwall (at the

Deck where I also worked some very long weekends before

caring for elderly folks, a whole lot easier on the legs

even as an athlete.)

Roses from the table settings made their way back

to the Vassar contra dance I planned on the lawn with the

Mountain Laurel String Band of Monterey MA and

Ancram NY (which welcomed the freshmen each year

after I got them their first gig for the Back to School

Conferences at the Vassar Farm.

I ended up helping run that eventually since I really

appreciated the experience as a college freshman

myself in 1981. Turns out Lisa Kudrow was in my class,

Yes That Lisa Kudrow of Friends fame and more. 

I wanted to get a yearbook a while ago, in 2010, and were

told 'no they were all gone due to her fame.' Still I saw that

the first few pages were dedicated to that contra dance

(with people donning roses)on the chapel lawn and the

pictures were in color. So the small town of Cornwall holds

that kind of nice connection to my college days for me. My friend

and I had zipped all around the northwest corner of CT 

looking for 'just the right place' to hold a reception even though

the wedding was over at a small chapel on Route 44 past Millbrook NY.

I was her maid of honor and recall many details about that time, including

that she ran a stop sign and almost sent us along with her other friend 

also Katherine, to heaven. Thankfully we only brushed another car and 

made it safely to the rehearsal dinner. Maybe those in the immediate 

wedding party would do well to have drivers. And sober ones please as in 

no alcoholic drinks methnks is best for the drivers..

 Back tp when I went by that after 2001, I saw a huge crowd there, and thought

 a celebrity was getting married, but it turned out it was for a victim of the 9/11 tragedy.

I felt honored to see the crowd gathered and also thought for a moment that  is what

makes our area special, having a beautiful quiet place to connect during troubled

times without much distraction from noise and traffic. Our son Kaelan's service at his Sharon CT 

grade school drew a crowd of friends and family, and many from the folk music and boating world too.

With the service and reception on youtube, Kaelan's spirit and energy have touched many lives and 

serves to help people prepare and hopefully prevent problems of poor planning when youth or others 

can get carried away with the adventure of being in and around

whitewater when it isn't safe or sound to do so.

Many far and wide can  learn to make better plans for safety

to honor Kaelan's legacy of saving his friends and losing his amazing life in the process.

Still love and connection can win out over such trying life events and surrounding

circumstances which too often cause blocks in care plans.

Now that I've lived in Brooklyn NY since 2016, I have gotten to know many

more New Yorkers and others 

who have second homes or know of the quiet lifestyle of the northwest corner.

Whatever we can do to share the

beauty and invite others to appreciate and maybe put down roots in the tri-corner area, the 

better chance we'll have of more people keeping the towns going and growing

(which currently is not always clear how that will be feasible.)

Thanks for peeking into this site and into our communities, hopefully

finding inspiration to appreciate your own roots and help create more community

ties and stories to share, recorded or otherwise.