A video from a Halloween book… which was fun to make. It’s always the fun that seems to motivate me… although in point of fact, it’s money that’s the real motivator. The fun is just something extra… that’s not always there.
It’s hard to explain to a regular person how the freelance lifestyle can be so different. It is nothing short of amazing how I’ve managed to make a living with ideas.
Anyhow, I had an idea for a Halloween book… and I remember lots of people said “Publishers don’t like Halloween books”.
I used to live right up by the Hudson, close to where Washington Irving lived. It was the small town I escaped to after my first year in Manhattan. I totally lucked out and found an apartment in a house built when Seattle was built - 1860. It was the top floor of a house owned by an art history professor. So we had lots of art conversations… along with taking out the garbage. In Dobbs Ferry, small town life was different. Some of the people there hadn’t been to the city in ten years.
Manhattan was exciting… but it was just too much. And since I’m not rich, I couldn’t afford much. It was a relief to move to Dobbs Ferry, about 10 miles north. It was just a 2 block walk to the Metro, for dropping off my portfolio and assignments to publishers. Dobbs was a sleepy little town… with an Italian grocery store, where they all seemed kind of homesick for Naples. Lots of italian stone carvers lived in Westchester.
I never really fit in, since it was mostly an Italian village. I got married by an Italian priest in a little Italian church. But I was sure happy to move back to Seattle. Since there was no internet, all the places to find things like rentals and buses were all done with newspapers like the ‘Little Nickel’. Seems funny now… but that’s how it worked.
I did meet a few people… when I had a chamber music classical music group. I played the viola, so there was lots of meetings with other musicians. Funny things to remember… walking through the snow with my viola case in the dark along the Aqueduct Trail that runs north all the way from NYC to Sleepy Hollow. The cellist was a Dentist who did work for Henry Kissinger! He told great stories about how when went in for a root canal, Henry K would call with a cell phone (unheard of then) and say “Dr. Kissinger will be available in 10 minutes”.
I still have thrift store lamps and tables that I brought back from Dobbs to Seattle.
Sleepy Hollow really comes to life there, around Halloween time. His funny little house is totally charming, with turned up roofs and quaint Dutch touches. It’s amazing to think that New York was so different back then. The old railroad still runs along the shore of the river though… the Hudson River Line.
The really cool part about that Hudson trail is that it goes right through all kinds of huge estates that used to belong to the millionaires of the age.
Lyndhurst, Nevis estate… and the Octagon House. And way further up is the warm, welcoming, home-like mansion where FDR lived… who did fabulous things for America. I’m only sorry that mostly I never had a camera back then… and there was no digital camera to make life easy. But I remember all very well.
https://visitsleepyhollow.com/
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