Published in The Post-Star (D1)
7/23/06
SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Aqua Net hair spray isn't exactly Elizabethan, but it's playing an important role in the Saratoga Shakespeare Company's latest production, "The Tempest."
The play is set on a magical Mediterranean island, where an Italian royal entourage ends up shipwrecked after an unnatural storm. With a large cast of characters that includes sprites, goddesses, and other strange creatures, bringing the play from text to life presents some unique challenges.
"My character, Caliban, is half-man, half-monster or beast," actor Tim Dugan explained as two teenage girls painted strange, dark geometric designs on his face and legs before Wednesday night's show. His costume includes a fishing net, flesh-colored underwear, and long, dark dreadlocks.
Other actors bustled around the basement of the Saratoga Arts Council building, getting ready for the 6 p.m. curtain call. They would have to imagine the curtain -- the play is performed on an outdoor stage in Congress Park, before an audience that includes picnickers, ducks and squirrels.
Near the door to the park, actor Dorian Makhlogi paced and recited lines into the wireless microphone attached to his ear. But his words didn't match the script for his character, the prince Sebastian.
"One hen. One hen, two ducks. One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese," he said, speaking quickly but clearly as he added "four limerick oysters" and "five corpulent porpoises" to the bizarre litany.
He explained this was a trick he learned as a theater student at Skidmore College. It helps him practice proper articulation and volume -- factors that are especially important in an outdoor performance.
A few doors down, the girls worked on their hair and makeup before climbing into costumes.
"Do you need some Aqua Net?" Johanna Fey Parker asked her fellow actresses Anna Hendrick
and Carly Hirschberg, interrupting their discussion of the downfalls of cheap eyeliner.
Her own red hair was already teased into a wild, windswept crown above her long, narrow face, creating a look to suit her character, the sprite Ariel. She looked at herself in the mirror and laughed.
"It doesn't even feel like hair anymore. I feel like I could be in a Gwen Stefani video!" Parker said.
Hendrick laughed, then frowned at her reflection in a small mirror propped against a chair. She frizzed her fine, blonde hair with a crimping iron.
"I want it to be more...aaah!" she exclaimed, pulling at the air around her head to demonstrate.
Hirschberg glanced at her sideways in the mirror as she tugged at her own brown hair with a curling iron, working on a more natural hairstyle for her character, the female lead Miranda.
"They have that blue Elmer's glue," she suggested. "It's washable."
Hendrick reached for the Aqua Net.
---
IF YOU GO: "The Tempest" will be performed by Saratoga Shakespeare Company at 2 p.m. today and July 30 and at 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, weather permitting. All performances are free and open to the public, with donations appreciated. No seating or shelter is provided. Dogs and picnickers are welcome. For information, go to www.saratogashakespeare.com or call 581-1853.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Rodeos in the Wild East? Who knew?
Published in the Post-Star (G1)
7/20/06
Most of the time, the only thing Josh Mead wrangles are packages, but he's a cowboy at heart.
The slim, gentle-eyed 23-year-old from Clifton Park is a UPS worker by day. But at least one night a week, he's an amateur bull rider at the Double M Western Rodeo in Ballston Spa.
"I'm a rodeo cowboy. I mean, I do live on a farm, but that doesn't make me any more of a cowboy," he said. "It's not about that. It's all a test of skills, and how strong a person you are."
He certainly looked the part last Friday night, wearing a worn plaid shirt unbuttoned at the top, jeans, leather chaps, tall boots with silver spurs, and a big, classic cowboy hat.
Of course, that described pretty much all the guys in the herd.
Eric Berghammer, a 35-year-old motorcycle parts salesman from Scotia, was similarly decked out as he and Mead lounged on a picnic table and waited for the rodeo to start. Berghammer's 10-year-old son roamed nearby, scowling beneath his black cowboy hat like a miniature John Wayne.
They were soon joined by Steve Dobbs, another bull-riding, hat-wearing, rodeo cowboy.
"Cowboys aren't born, they're made," Dobbs declared. "When I was a kid ... I saw the rodeo on TV one day, and said, 'That's what I want to do.'"
Mead explained that any adult who pays the $40 entry fee and has appropriate "Western attire" can ride the bulls at the Double M. Most nights, about 20 or 25 guys take the challenge.
The hats usually fly off as soon as the bucking begins, but the crowd likes them. So do the girls.
"I don't think of myself as a tough guy, but I guess that's the image that goes with bull riding," Mead said.
Berghammer nodded.
"A lot of chicks are into that," he added.
Since joining the rodeo circut about five years ago, Mead has learned just how rough-and-tumble a cowboy's life can be.
"It's dangerous, yeah. I broke my wrist two years in a row, and had to get pins in it and a bone graft," he said. "But if you love something enough, you keep doing it."
To an outsider, bull riding is a perplexing sport. These guys actually pay for the chance to straddle an angry animal that could crush, skewer or trample them.
"Yeah, it's pretty much the only sport where you have to pay to play," Berghammer said with a rueful chuckle.
The riders' only potential reward is a few hundred dollars. Most of the time, they go home empty-handed, bested by the beasts in less than eight seconds.
And (no offense, pardners), it's not like they're saving the world from destruction by this act of self-sacrifice. In fact, the only reason the bulls are angry in the first place is because they have a rope around their flanks and a person on top of them.
Mead gets this.
"I wouldn't want somebody on my back, either," he said, grinning. "But there's a misconception that the rodeo is cruelty to animals. The bulls are well taken care of. They know they have a job to do, and they're proud of it."
And in the end, there's one simple reason these guys put up with so much bull. It's the same reason other people jump out of planes, ski down glaciers or drive racecars.
"It's the rush," Mead said. "It's like an addiction. But a good one."
IF YOU GO
Bull riding and other events take place at several rodeos in the region throughout the summer.
Double M Western Rodeo, Ballston Spa 8 p.m. Fridays, $15/$10 at gate. 885-9543 or www.doublemwestern.com/rodeo.html
Painted Pony Championship Rodeo, Lake Luzerne 8 p.m. Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, $14/$9 at gate. 696-2421 or www.paintedponyrodeo.com
Pond Hill Ranch Pro Rodeo, Castleton, Vt., 8 p.m. Saturdays, $10/$5 at gate. 468-2449 or www.pondhillranch.com
RODEO LINGO:
Bullrope: Braided rope wrapped around the bull and held onto with one hand by riders.
Chute: Gated pen where a rider gets on a bull right before it is released into the arena.
Cover: To stay on a bull for the full eight-second period.
Rank: Measure of how ornery a particular bull tends to be. Higher ranks bring higher scores for riders who can cover them.
Rosin: Sticky substance placed on bullrope to improve riders' grip.
Roughstock: Rodeo events which depend on endurance rather than speed, like bullriding and bareback bronc riding.
7/20/06
Most of the time, the only thing Josh Mead wrangles are packages, but he's a cowboy at heart.
The slim, gentle-eyed 23-year-old from Clifton Park is a UPS worker by day. But at least one night a week, he's an amateur bull rider at the Double M Western Rodeo in Ballston Spa.
"I'm a rodeo cowboy. I mean, I do live on a farm, but that doesn't make me any more of a cowboy," he said. "It's not about that. It's all a test of skills, and how strong a person you are."
He certainly looked the part last Friday night, wearing a worn plaid shirt unbuttoned at the top, jeans, leather chaps, tall boots with silver spurs, and a big, classic cowboy hat.
Of course, that described pretty much all the guys in the herd.
Eric Berghammer, a 35-year-old motorcycle parts salesman from Scotia, was similarly decked out as he and Mead lounged on a picnic table and waited for the rodeo to start. Berghammer's 10-year-old son roamed nearby, scowling beneath his black cowboy hat like a miniature John Wayne.
They were soon joined by Steve Dobbs, another bull-riding, hat-wearing, rodeo cowboy.
"Cowboys aren't born, they're made," Dobbs declared. "When I was a kid ... I saw the rodeo on TV one day, and said, 'That's what I want to do.'"
Mead explained that any adult who pays the $40 entry fee and has appropriate "Western attire" can ride the bulls at the Double M. Most nights, about 20 or 25 guys take the challenge.
The hats usually fly off as soon as the bucking begins, but the crowd likes them. So do the girls.
"I don't think of myself as a tough guy, but I guess that's the image that goes with bull riding," Mead said.
Berghammer nodded.
"A lot of chicks are into that," he added.
Since joining the rodeo circut about five years ago, Mead has learned just how rough-and-tumble a cowboy's life can be.
"It's dangerous, yeah. I broke my wrist two years in a row, and had to get pins in it and a bone graft," he said. "But if you love something enough, you keep doing it."
To an outsider, bull riding is a perplexing sport. These guys actually pay for the chance to straddle an angry animal that could crush, skewer or trample them.
"Yeah, it's pretty much the only sport where you have to pay to play," Berghammer said with a rueful chuckle.
The riders' only potential reward is a few hundred dollars. Most of the time, they go home empty-handed, bested by the beasts in less than eight seconds.
And (no offense, pardners), it's not like they're saving the world from destruction by this act of self-sacrifice. In fact, the only reason the bulls are angry in the first place is because they have a rope around their flanks and a person on top of them.
Mead gets this.
"I wouldn't want somebody on my back, either," he said, grinning. "But there's a misconception that the rodeo is cruelty to animals. The bulls are well taken care of. They know they have a job to do, and they're proud of it."
And in the end, there's one simple reason these guys put up with so much bull. It's the same reason other people jump out of planes, ski down glaciers or drive racecars.
"It's the rush," Mead said. "It's like an addiction. But a good one."
IF YOU GO
Bull riding and other events take place at several rodeos in the region throughout the summer.
Double M Western Rodeo, Ballston Spa 8 p.m. Fridays, $15/$10 at gate. 885-9543 or www.doublemwestern.com/rodeo.html
Painted Pony Championship Rodeo, Lake Luzerne 8 p.m. Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, $14/$9 at gate. 696-2421 or www.paintedponyrodeo.com
Pond Hill Ranch Pro Rodeo, Castleton, Vt., 8 p.m. Saturdays, $10/$5 at gate. 468-2449 or www.pondhillranch.com
RODEO LINGO:
Bullrope: Braided rope wrapped around the bull and held onto with one hand by riders.
Chute: Gated pen where a rider gets on a bull right before it is released into the arena.
Cover: To stay on a bull for the full eight-second period.
Rank: Measure of how ornery a particular bull tends to be. Higher ranks bring higher scores for riders who can cover them.
Rosin: Sticky substance placed on bullrope to improve riders' grip.
Roughstock: Rodeo events which depend on endurance rather than speed, like bullriding and bareback bronc riding.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Fiddler on Broadway
Published in The Post-Star (D1)
7/17/06
Broadway isn’t such a surprising place for a certain familiar Jewish fiddler to show up, but in this town, his cry of "Tradition! Tradition!" is coming from a storefront rather than a roof.
Fiddler on Broadway, a seasonal shop filled with Jewish art, games, literature and religious objects, recently opened its doors for the summer in downtown Saratoga.
It’s operated by the local branch of Chabad, a worldwide community of Jews who place a strong emphasis on spreading Jewish tradition and teachings through social action and the arts.
"The idea of Chabad is that wherever you are, you should bring godliness and goodness," explained Devorah Rubin, who works at the store. Her brother, Rabbi Abba Rubin, leads the local Chabad community with his wife, Rochelle.
The group welcomes Jews of all ages and backgrounds to participate in worship services, study groups and other events at the Saratoga Chabad Center on 130 Circular St., but Rabbi Rubin said he hopes the store will give them a more visible presence downtown.
He wants "Fiddler on Broadway" to be more than a store — it’s a sort of visitor’s center for Jews, where they can find out things like where to buy kosher food (the closest place is Price Chopper in Colonie) and when local synagogues are holding services.
"I think people should be exposed to their heritage and be proud of it — not just in a synagogue, but also in public, in a friendly way," he said. "We picked the theme of the fiddler because it’s something that most Jewish people can recognize and relate to."
So far, he said, the response has been very positive.
"Sometimes, people don’t even need to buy anything, they just want to pop in and say they’re Jewish," Devorah said. "It’s neat."
From menorahs and prayer scrolls to kosher Candyland ("Magical Mitzvah Park"), the merchandise is meant to appeal to Jews of all ages and types. Framed prints and paintings by Jewish artists line the walls of the long, narrow shop, sharing space with kitschier items.
There’s a tower of plastic cups bearing the design "Torah — It’s the Real Thing" in the shape of the Coca-Cola logo, and a shelf of kosher candy imported from Israel. In the back of the store, kids can make arts and crafts while watching videos about Jewish history.
On Friday afternoon, Rabbi Rubin stopped at a shelf of mezuzas — small parchment scrolls, containing a Hebrew prayer for protection, that are placed in doorways — and decided it was time the store had one of its own. Uttering a brief blessing, he attached it to the store’s entrance, then turned and smiled.
"It’s kind of like an insurance policy," he explained.
IF YOU GO
Fiddler on Broadway, at 466 Broadway in Saratoga Springs, is open now through September 15 from 11 to 5 p.m. Monday to Wednesday and Friday, 11 to 7 p.m. Thursday, and 11 to 6 p.m. Sunday. More information at www.saratogachabad.com
7/17/06
Broadway isn’t such a surprising place for a certain familiar Jewish fiddler to show up, but in this town, his cry of "Tradition! Tradition!" is coming from a storefront rather than a roof.
Fiddler on Broadway, a seasonal shop filled with Jewish art, games, literature and religious objects, recently opened its doors for the summer in downtown Saratoga.
It’s operated by the local branch of Chabad, a worldwide community of Jews who place a strong emphasis on spreading Jewish tradition and teachings through social action and the arts.
"The idea of Chabad is that wherever you are, you should bring godliness and goodness," explained Devorah Rubin, who works at the store. Her brother, Rabbi Abba Rubin, leads the local Chabad community with his wife, Rochelle.
The group welcomes Jews of all ages and backgrounds to participate in worship services, study groups and other events at the Saratoga Chabad Center on 130 Circular St., but Rabbi Rubin said he hopes the store will give them a more visible presence downtown.
He wants "Fiddler on Broadway" to be more than a store — it’s a sort of visitor’s center for Jews, where they can find out things like where to buy kosher food (the closest place is Price Chopper in Colonie) and when local synagogues are holding services.
"I think people should be exposed to their heritage and be proud of it — not just in a synagogue, but also in public, in a friendly way," he said. "We picked the theme of the fiddler because it’s something that most Jewish people can recognize and relate to."
So far, he said, the response has been very positive.
"Sometimes, people don’t even need to buy anything, they just want to pop in and say they’re Jewish," Devorah said. "It’s neat."
From menorahs and prayer scrolls to kosher Candyland ("Magical Mitzvah Park"), the merchandise is meant to appeal to Jews of all ages and types. Framed prints and paintings by Jewish artists line the walls of the long, narrow shop, sharing space with kitschier items.
There’s a tower of plastic cups bearing the design "Torah — It’s the Real Thing" in the shape of the Coca-Cola logo, and a shelf of kosher candy imported from Israel. In the back of the store, kids can make arts and crafts while watching videos about Jewish history.
On Friday afternoon, Rabbi Rubin stopped at a shelf of mezuzas — small parchment scrolls, containing a Hebrew prayer for protection, that are placed in doorways — and decided it was time the store had one of its own. Uttering a brief blessing, he attached it to the store’s entrance, then turned and smiled.
"It’s kind of like an insurance policy," he explained.
IF YOU GO
Fiddler on Broadway, at 466 Broadway in Saratoga Springs, is open now through September 15 from 11 to 5 p.m. Monday to Wednesday and Friday, 11 to 7 p.m. Thursday, and 11 to 6 p.m. Sunday. More information at www.saratogachabad.com
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Polo -- uppity fun
Published in The Post-Star (D1)
7/13/06
There's something suspiciously yuppie about the sentence: "I'm going to a polo match."
It brings to mind images of a crowd wearing designer suits or dresses and elaborate hats, sipping champagne and sharing stock tips, doesn't it?
But at least in Saratoga, the field has really opened up since the days when Julia Roberts' less-than-aristocratic (OK, hooker) character was scoffed at by the rich elite for daring to attend a polo match in "Pretty Woman."
These days, you can cram a six-pack of friends and a tailgate picnic into your station wagon and pay just $20 a carload for a spot on the sidelines.
"It's a great deal, especially if you can get a lot of people in your car," said 25-year-old Eric Hoover, who is in his second year on the parking and security staff at the polo fields.
"I think they're really trying to promote this to a younger crowd, and it's working," he reflected. "I mean, I'll even come for fun in my free time."
An optional touch of glamour remains for those who can afford it -- $20 a person scores you a seat in the "VIP hospitality tent" and admission to the air-conditioned clubhouse, where patrons can splurge on things like champagne or linger after the match for a $35 gourmet buffet.
This is where they keep the fancy hats (as the Polo Association's Web site gently puts it: "VIP Clubhouse Patrons typically take care to choose outfits that would not be out of place at other traditional Saratoga summer venues, such as the racetrack and ballet").
Over on the cheap -- excuse me, general admission, side -- spectators are more likely to be sporting polo shirts and shorts, and snacking on Cheetos and watermelon.
Behind one open tailgate, a group of friends settled in Sunday evening to watch the Chamber of Commerce Cup semifinal match at Whitney Fields.
"My dad played, and I used to play at Skidmore, but now I just like to watch," Kris Moskos-Guyette said. "We've all been coming together for a long time."
One of her friends chimed in: "We're family now."
Most of the parking spots are first-come, first-served, but it's easy to find the most devoted fans. Two spots at the head of the row are marked with nameplates, indicating the holders of what amounts to season tickets.
"It's beautiful, it's green, it's outdoors, it's horses ... what more can you ask? It's a lot of fun to watch," said Mark Doane, a Clifton Park resident.
He and his wife, Valerie, have been attending matches for at least two decades, and for the past few years, they've paid extra for a reserved spot, marked "Doane."
As Valerie cooked steak kabobs on a portable Coleman grill, Mark smiled contentedly from his camping chair.
"We can afford to be on the members' side, but we enjoy the atmosphere over here," he confided.
There are six chukkers, or periods, in a polo match. At halftime, the VIPs mingle with the commoners when everyone walks onto the field to smooth out the divots of grass churned up by three chukkers of pounding horseshoes.
Have fun, but as the polo announcer in "Pretty Woman" advised: "Avoid the steaming divot!"
IF YOU GO
Saratoga Polo Association holds matches at 5:30 p.m. every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday evening through Labor Day, subject to field and weather conditions. Matches take place at Whitney or Skidmore fields, located off Denton Road in Saratoga Springs. Gates open at 4 p.m. Live music on Friday and Sunday nights until 10 p.m.
General admission tickets $10 per person or $20 per carload, $5 per person on foot or bicycle. VIP admission $20 per person. For more details, go to www.saratogapolo.com or call 584-8018.
POLO LINGO
Bump: When one player spoils another's shot by riding into him at a slight angle and jarring him.
Chukker: One of six periods in a standard polo game, each lasting seven minutes.
Hook: When one player spoils another's shot by putting his mallet in the way.
Mallet: Tool used by players to hit the ball, typically about 50 inches long with a bamboo shaft and hardwood head.
Near Side: Left-hand side of a horse.
Off Side: Right-hand side of a horse.
Ride-off: When two riders use their horses to push each other out of a position where they can strike the ball.
Tailshot: Hitting the ball behind and across the horse's rump.
(Source: Saratoga Polo Association 2005 summer program)
7/13/06
There's something suspiciously yuppie about the sentence: "I'm going to a polo match."
It brings to mind images of a crowd wearing designer suits or dresses and elaborate hats, sipping champagne and sharing stock tips, doesn't it?
But at least in Saratoga, the field has really opened up since the days when Julia Roberts' less-than-aristocratic (OK, hooker) character was scoffed at by the rich elite for daring to attend a polo match in "Pretty Woman."
These days, you can cram a six-pack of friends and a tailgate picnic into your station wagon and pay just $20 a carload for a spot on the sidelines.
"It's a great deal, especially if you can get a lot of people in your car," said 25-year-old Eric Hoover, who is in his second year on the parking and security staff at the polo fields.
"I think they're really trying to promote this to a younger crowd, and it's working," he reflected. "I mean, I'll even come for fun in my free time."
An optional touch of glamour remains for those who can afford it -- $20 a person scores you a seat in the "VIP hospitality tent" and admission to the air-conditioned clubhouse, where patrons can splurge on things like champagne or linger after the match for a $35 gourmet buffet.
This is where they keep the fancy hats (as the Polo Association's Web site gently puts it: "VIP Clubhouse Patrons typically take care to choose outfits that would not be out of place at other traditional Saratoga summer venues, such as the racetrack and ballet").
Over on the cheap -- excuse me, general admission, side -- spectators are more likely to be sporting polo shirts and shorts, and snacking on Cheetos and watermelon.
Behind one open tailgate, a group of friends settled in Sunday evening to watch the Chamber of Commerce Cup semifinal match at Whitney Fields.
"My dad played, and I used to play at Skidmore, but now I just like to watch," Kris Moskos-Guyette said. "We've all been coming together for a long time."
One of her friends chimed in: "We're family now."
Most of the parking spots are first-come, first-served, but it's easy to find the most devoted fans. Two spots at the head of the row are marked with nameplates, indicating the holders of what amounts to season tickets.
"It's beautiful, it's green, it's outdoors, it's horses ... what more can you ask? It's a lot of fun to watch," said Mark Doane, a Clifton Park resident.
He and his wife, Valerie, have been attending matches for at least two decades, and for the past few years, they've paid extra for a reserved spot, marked "Doane."
As Valerie cooked steak kabobs on a portable Coleman grill, Mark smiled contentedly from his camping chair.
"We can afford to be on the members' side, but we enjoy the atmosphere over here," he confided.
There are six chukkers, or periods, in a polo match. At halftime, the VIPs mingle with the commoners when everyone walks onto the field to smooth out the divots of grass churned up by three chukkers of pounding horseshoes.
Have fun, but as the polo announcer in "Pretty Woman" advised: "Avoid the steaming divot!"
IF YOU GO
Saratoga Polo Association holds matches at 5:30 p.m. every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday evening through Labor Day, subject to field and weather conditions. Matches take place at Whitney or Skidmore fields, located off Denton Road in Saratoga Springs. Gates open at 4 p.m. Live music on Friday and Sunday nights until 10 p.m.
General admission tickets $10 per person or $20 per carload, $5 per person on foot or bicycle. VIP admission $20 per person. For more details, go to www.saratogapolo.com or call 584-8018.
POLO LINGO
Bump: When one player spoils another's shot by riding into him at a slight angle and jarring him.
Chukker: One of six periods in a standard polo game, each lasting seven minutes.
Hook: When one player spoils another's shot by putting his mallet in the way.
Mallet: Tool used by players to hit the ball, typically about 50 inches long with a bamboo shaft and hardwood head.
Near Side: Left-hand side of a horse.
Off Side: Right-hand side of a horse.
Ride-off: When two riders use their horses to push each other out of a position where they can strike the ball.
Tailshot: Hitting the ball behind and across the horse's rump.
(Source: Saratoga Polo Association 2005 summer program)
Food pg: Apples and globalization
Published in The Post-Star (D1)
7/13/06
New Zealand, Chile, China -- There's quite an international crop of stickers on the apples in most American grocery stores these days.
Consumers may benefit from the fruits of globalization, but what does it mean for farmers?
"The food we eat every day primarily originates on farms, but we neglect to think about the circumstances of the farmer," said Tracy Frisch, a freelance writer who founded the Regional Farm and Food Project to promote local agriculture in the Hudson-Mohawk Valley.
Todd DeGarmo, director of the Folklife Center at Crandall Library, recently called on Frisch to brainstorm ways to combine the center's current exhibit of agricultural photos with a public discussion of broader issues related to farming.
The result is this month's two-part film series, which kicks off Thursday with a screening of "Broken Limbs," a documentary about the impact of globalization on the apple industry.
"This will be a chance to learn about the food system ... and what's going on with farmers," Frisch said. "The fact that we're losing farms, and more of more of our food is being produced in other nations, should be a real wake-up call about our own food security."
The film is set mostly in Washington state, and shows how the "apple capital of the world" is feeling the pressures of globalization. Apple buyers are migrating eastward to places like China, lured by cheaper labor and weaker regulations, leaving many U.S. orchards with few choices but to close down or expand into large corporations.
"That has a big impact, especially on small farms that can't afford to take advantage of the economies of scale," said Dan Wilson, a second-generation apple farmer who owns Hicks Orchard in Granville.
Wilson said he sees strong parallels between the dairy and apple industries, and one of the main problems with both is that farmers don't typically handle their own distribution.
"That puts farmers in the least favorable position in terms of getting a return on their investment, while they're taking the highest level of risk," he said.
Farming is an unpredictable profession, with weird weather and market forces often wreaking havoc on even the best-tended seeds of profit, so farmers tend to be slow to panic. But there's an uncommon urgency in Wilson's words.
"Our region is beginning to experience a very basic change in the nature of our communities...Farmers are the main landowners, and development pressures are really mounting, so there needs to be a really concerted effort on a county level to address some of these issues before the bulk of farming disappears in our area," he said. "I'm just reading the writing on the wall."
Wilson will lead a discussion after the film screening on Thursday night.
7/13/06
New Zealand, Chile, China -- There's quite an international crop of stickers on the apples in most American grocery stores these days.
Consumers may benefit from the fruits of globalization, but what does it mean for farmers?
"The food we eat every day primarily originates on farms, but we neglect to think about the circumstances of the farmer," said Tracy Frisch, a freelance writer who founded the Regional Farm and Food Project to promote local agriculture in the Hudson-Mohawk Valley.
Todd DeGarmo, director of the Folklife Center at Crandall Library, recently called on Frisch to brainstorm ways to combine the center's current exhibit of agricultural photos with a public discussion of broader issues related to farming.
The result is this month's two-part film series, which kicks off Thursday with a screening of "Broken Limbs," a documentary about the impact of globalization on the apple industry.
"This will be a chance to learn about the food system ... and what's going on with farmers," Frisch said. "The fact that we're losing farms, and more of more of our food is being produced in other nations, should be a real wake-up call about our own food security."
The film is set mostly in Washington state, and shows how the "apple capital of the world" is feeling the pressures of globalization. Apple buyers are migrating eastward to places like China, lured by cheaper labor and weaker regulations, leaving many U.S. orchards with few choices but to close down or expand into large corporations.
"That has a big impact, especially on small farms that can't afford to take advantage of the economies of scale," said Dan Wilson, a second-generation apple farmer who owns Hicks Orchard in Granville.
Wilson said he sees strong parallels between the dairy and apple industries, and one of the main problems with both is that farmers don't typically handle their own distribution.
"That puts farmers in the least favorable position in terms of getting a return on their investment, while they're taking the highest level of risk," he said.
Farming is an unpredictable profession, with weird weather and market forces often wreaking havoc on even the best-tended seeds of profit, so farmers tend to be slow to panic. But there's an uncommon urgency in Wilson's words.
"Our region is beginning to experience a very basic change in the nature of our communities...Farmers are the main landowners, and development pressures are really mounting, so there needs to be a really concerted effort on a county level to address some of these issues before the bulk of farming disappears in our area," he said. "I'm just reading the writing on the wall."
Wilson will lead a discussion after the film screening on Thursday night.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Un-dangered: the bald eagle
Published in The Post-Star (A1)
7/10/06
At a time when the country's feathers are frequently ruffled by military and diplomatic challenges to its global dominance, one classic American symbol is stronger than it has been in a long time: the bald eagle.
Declaring the last few decades of recovery efforts a success, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is poised to release the bald eagle from the federal list of endangered species.
Last century, the species had a close call with extinction in the country that has considered it a national symbol since 1782. Biologists believe there were once more than 100,000 bald eagles in America, but that population plummeted as humans hunted them, devoured their natural habitat with development, and released deadly pesticides like DDT into the environment.
By the early 1960s, there were only 417 breeding pairs of bald eagles left in the lower 48 states, prompting Congress to pass the Bald and Gold Eagle Protection Act and declare the bird an endangered species.
Recently, that number has soared past 7,000 breeding pairs -- even higher than biologists hoped when they began a regional recovery program in the mid-1970s.
As a leader of the endangered species program for the state Department of Environmental Conservation since 1976, Peter Nye has handled thousands of eagles. He spent the early years of the bald eagle recovery program climbing trees in Alaska to capture baby eaglets and bring them back to the northern U.S., where they were gradually released into the wild.
With the help of a helicopter, Nye now keeps a close eye on each of the 110 breeding pairs of bald eagles in New York state.
The federal recovery program split the lower 48 states into five recovery regions, each with a numeric goal for re-establishing bald eagles. In the 16-state northern region, which includes New York, the goal was 1,200 nesting pairs.
"At the time, everybody thought those numbers were really pie in the sky," Nye said. "Then, lo and behold, eagles started to come ... we blew by the numeric goals. Now, there's probably like 2,000 pairs in the northern states."
The Fish and Wildlife Service downgraded the bird's risk status from "endangered" to "threatened" in 1995, and in 1999 proposed removing it from the list completely. Now, after a lengthy review process and public comment period, it appears that proposal will soon be implemented. The species will still be protected from hunting and other forms of disturbance under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
Nye said delisting makes sense based on numbers alone, but the eagles' future could still be clouded if the government fails to set strict habitat management guidelines.
"I think where everyone was a little shortsighted was simply saying, if we ever get these numbers again, we're golden," Nye said. "But what's it going to be in 2040? Is the habitat base that created those numbers going to be there?"
Bald eagles only breed once a year, and they are sensitive creatures, said Nye. If nearby human activity disturbs them too much, they may abandon the nest -- and their eggs.
"We saw one active nest this year, on the lower Hudson, and when we went back in May we found it abandoned, with eggs," Nye said. "We noticed an ATV trail about 25 feet away, and said, 'Oh.'...That's that. I guess they just go and mope somewhere."
The habitat management guidelines currently proposed by the Fish and Wildlife Service are "probably okay," but they're only voluntary, Nye said. He and other raptor biologists are recommending the adoption of a mandatory habitat management plan "with some teeth behind it" to protect bald eagles' nesting sites from development in the future.
"Without that, seeing the way things have gone in the Hudson Valley and throughout the state, we're just chopping up the habitat as if there's no tomorrow," he said. "Basically, the species has had a remarkable recovery, and they warrant delisting, but it's kind of irresponsible to delist them and just walk away."
LOGGING ON: To learn more, visit www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/BaldEagle.
7/10/06
At a time when the country's feathers are frequently ruffled by military and diplomatic challenges to its global dominance, one classic American symbol is stronger than it has been in a long time: the bald eagle.
Declaring the last few decades of recovery efforts a success, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is poised to release the bald eagle from the federal list of endangered species.
Last century, the species had a close call with extinction in the country that has considered it a national symbol since 1782. Biologists believe there were once more than 100,000 bald eagles in America, but that population plummeted as humans hunted them, devoured their natural habitat with development, and released deadly pesticides like DDT into the environment.
By the early 1960s, there were only 417 breeding pairs of bald eagles left in the lower 48 states, prompting Congress to pass the Bald and Gold Eagle Protection Act and declare the bird an endangered species.
Recently, that number has soared past 7,000 breeding pairs -- even higher than biologists hoped when they began a regional recovery program in the mid-1970s.
As a leader of the endangered species program for the state Department of Environmental Conservation since 1976, Peter Nye has handled thousands of eagles. He spent the early years of the bald eagle recovery program climbing trees in Alaska to capture baby eaglets and bring them back to the northern U.S., where they were gradually released into the wild.
With the help of a helicopter, Nye now keeps a close eye on each of the 110 breeding pairs of bald eagles in New York state.
The federal recovery program split the lower 48 states into five recovery regions, each with a numeric goal for re-establishing bald eagles. In the 16-state northern region, which includes New York, the goal was 1,200 nesting pairs.
"At the time, everybody thought those numbers were really pie in the sky," Nye said. "Then, lo and behold, eagles started to come ... we blew by the numeric goals. Now, there's probably like 2,000 pairs in the northern states."
The Fish and Wildlife Service downgraded the bird's risk status from "endangered" to "threatened" in 1995, and in 1999 proposed removing it from the list completely. Now, after a lengthy review process and public comment period, it appears that proposal will soon be implemented. The species will still be protected from hunting and other forms of disturbance under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
Nye said delisting makes sense based on numbers alone, but the eagles' future could still be clouded if the government fails to set strict habitat management guidelines.
"I think where everyone was a little shortsighted was simply saying, if we ever get these numbers again, we're golden," Nye said. "But what's it going to be in 2040? Is the habitat base that created those numbers going to be there?"
Bald eagles only breed once a year, and they are sensitive creatures, said Nye. If nearby human activity disturbs them too much, they may abandon the nest -- and their eggs.
"We saw one active nest this year, on the lower Hudson, and when we went back in May we found it abandoned, with eggs," Nye said. "We noticed an ATV trail about 25 feet away, and said, 'Oh.'...That's that. I guess they just go and mope somewhere."
The habitat management guidelines currently proposed by the Fish and Wildlife Service are "probably okay," but they're only voluntary, Nye said. He and other raptor biologists are recommending the adoption of a mandatory habitat management plan "with some teeth behind it" to protect bald eagles' nesting sites from development in the future.
"Without that, seeing the way things have gone in the Hudson Valley and throughout the state, we're just chopping up the habitat as if there's no tomorrow," he said. "Basically, the species has had a remarkable recovery, and they warrant delisting, but it's kind of irresponsible to delist them and just walk away."
LOGGING ON: To learn more, visit www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/BaldEagle.
Christian consumers
Published in The Post-Star (D1)
7/10/06
Flip through the "Churches" section of the Yellow Pages, and you'll notice that Christians represent a major chunk of the local population.
From a marketing perspective, that represents a major chunk of change.
Realizing this, some local businesses have started to offer special events that target Christian consumers.
At The Great Escape theme park in Lake George, July 1 was "Glory Day," an all-day festival of Christian music. Groups from about 50 area churches flocked to the event, paying between $22 to $40 per person to mix holy rock and rollercoasters.
"This is the third annual Glory Day, and the driving force behind this is really the Christian community," said Jeff Bartone, general sales manager for the park. "We wanted to provide them with a place to get together and join in a day of praise and worship...and it's always a lot of fun."
Holy rolling is also popular at The Fun Spot, a rollerskating rink and entertainment complex in Queensbury that recently began hosting a monthly Christian-music skating night called "Momentum" during the school year.
"It's kind of a market that isn't really tapped a lot, which is why we were interested," said Steven Duckett, a manager at The Fun Spot.
The events coordinator for Word of Life Bible Institute in Schroon Lake doubles as a DJ on Momentum nights, and picks out a playlist heavy with heavenly hits from the likes of Casting Crowns, Toby Mac, and Barlow Girl.
It's a concept that's been around for years, at roller rinks throughout the nation. But earlier this year, a rink in Accord, N.Y., about an hour south of Albany, got a slap on the wristband for featuring "Christian skates" on Sunday afternoons.
According to The Associated Press, Skate Time 209 received a letter from the state Division of Human Rights warning that it was breaking human rights law because playing exclusively Christian music was allegedly discouraging non-Christian customers.
Duckett said he thinks places like Skate Time 209 and The Fun Spot are simply responding to customer demand, not trying to push anyone out of the rink.
"I don't really see it as discrimination -- all of our sessions are open to the public," he said. "Anything we can do to get people in here seems like a good idea to me."
Skate Time 209 owner Len Bernardo told The Associated Press he's hoping the "strange situation" will resolve itself soon.
The company has changed the name of the sessions to "spiritual skate," and their Web site now states in bold yellow lettering: "We would like to reiterate that everyone is welcome, and we wheelie mean it!"
7/10/06
Flip through the "Churches" section of the Yellow Pages, and you'll notice that Christians represent a major chunk of the local population.
From a marketing perspective, that represents a major chunk of change.
Realizing this, some local businesses have started to offer special events that target Christian consumers.
At The Great Escape theme park in Lake George, July 1 was "Glory Day," an all-day festival of Christian music. Groups from about 50 area churches flocked to the event, paying between $22 to $40 per person to mix holy rock and rollercoasters.
"This is the third annual Glory Day, and the driving force behind this is really the Christian community," said Jeff Bartone, general sales manager for the park. "We wanted to provide them with a place to get together and join in a day of praise and worship...and it's always a lot of fun."
Holy rolling is also popular at The Fun Spot, a rollerskating rink and entertainment complex in Queensbury that recently began hosting a monthly Christian-music skating night called "Momentum" during the school year.
"It's kind of a market that isn't really tapped a lot, which is why we were interested," said Steven Duckett, a manager at The Fun Spot.
The events coordinator for Word of Life Bible Institute in Schroon Lake doubles as a DJ on Momentum nights, and picks out a playlist heavy with heavenly hits from the likes of Casting Crowns, Toby Mac, and Barlow Girl.
It's a concept that's been around for years, at roller rinks throughout the nation. But earlier this year, a rink in Accord, N.Y., about an hour south of Albany, got a slap on the wristband for featuring "Christian skates" on Sunday afternoons.
According to The Associated Press, Skate Time 209 received a letter from the state Division of Human Rights warning that it was breaking human rights law because playing exclusively Christian music was allegedly discouraging non-Christian customers.
Duckett said he thinks places like Skate Time 209 and The Fun Spot are simply responding to customer demand, not trying to push anyone out of the rink.
"I don't really see it as discrimination -- all of our sessions are open to the public," he said. "Anything we can do to get people in here seems like a good idea to me."
Skate Time 209 owner Len Bernardo told The Associated Press he's hoping the "strange situation" will resolve itself soon.
The company has changed the name of the sessions to "spiritual skate," and their Web site now states in bold yellow lettering: "We would like to reiterate that everyone is welcome, and we wheelie mean it!"
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Movie review: Superman Returns
Published in The Post-Star (D7)
7/6/06
Superman Returns (2006). Written by Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, directed by Brian Singer. Starring Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, James Marsden, Frank Langella, Eva Marie Saint, Kevin Spacey and Parker Posey. 153 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some intense action violence).
Superman's back in Metropolis, and back in the box office.
Don't care for men in Spandex? Keep an open mind. This cotton-candy comic-book plot probably won't inspire anyone to save the world, but it's certainly an entertaining way to watch a few hours fly past.
As the film begins, Martha Kent (Eva Marie Saint) is immersed in a homey scene of dishwashing and Scrabble (look quick, and you'll notice words like "alienation" on the board) when a hunk of flaming meteorite lands in her cornfield.
Make that, a hunk and a flaming meteorite. It's her son Clark (Brandon Routh), aka Superman, returned from an unproductive voyage to the ruins of his home planet. His mom welcomes him back, but he soon discovers that not everyone feels the same way.
Reporter Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) was justifiably peeved when her super-studmuffin flew off to a distant galaxy without so much as a goodbye kiss. Talk about a man who can't commit, right? He seems to think he can just swoop in and sweep her off her feet after five years of silence -- but alas, the Man of Steel has a lot to learn about the women of this planet.
Lane has moved on -- or at least, tried valiantly. She has a son (he's about 5 years old ... hmmm), a supportive, down-to-earth fiance (James Marsden), and a freshly won Pulitzer Prize for an editorial titled "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman."
And then there's his old nemesis, Lex Luther (Kevin Spacey), who has escaped life behind bars because Superman failed to appear as a witness at his trial. He's plotting another earth-shatteringly evil caper, and only a caped do-gooder with a weird little curl in the middle of his forehead can stop him.
The movie has all the elements of a blockbuster -- humor, romance, drama and action -- but something about it feels a little too airbrushed to evoke real emotion.
Cartoonish, you might say.
But I guess that's not such a bad thing. If you can't save the world, you might as well entertain it.
7/6/06
Superman Returns (2006). Written by Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, directed by Brian Singer. Starring Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, James Marsden, Frank Langella, Eva Marie Saint, Kevin Spacey and Parker Posey. 153 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some intense action violence).
Superman's back in Metropolis, and back in the box office.
Don't care for men in Spandex? Keep an open mind. This cotton-candy comic-book plot probably won't inspire anyone to save the world, but it's certainly an entertaining way to watch a few hours fly past.
As the film begins, Martha Kent (Eva Marie Saint) is immersed in a homey scene of dishwashing and Scrabble (look quick, and you'll notice words like "alienation" on the board) when a hunk of flaming meteorite lands in her cornfield.
Make that, a hunk and a flaming meteorite. It's her son Clark (Brandon Routh), aka Superman, returned from an unproductive voyage to the ruins of his home planet. His mom welcomes him back, but he soon discovers that not everyone feels the same way.
Reporter Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) was justifiably peeved when her super-studmuffin flew off to a distant galaxy without so much as a goodbye kiss. Talk about a man who can't commit, right? He seems to think he can just swoop in and sweep her off her feet after five years of silence -- but alas, the Man of Steel has a lot to learn about the women of this planet.
Lane has moved on -- or at least, tried valiantly. She has a son (he's about 5 years old ... hmmm), a supportive, down-to-earth fiance (James Marsden), and a freshly won Pulitzer Prize for an editorial titled "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman."
And then there's his old nemesis, Lex Luther (Kevin Spacey), who has escaped life behind bars because Superman failed to appear as a witness at his trial. He's plotting another earth-shatteringly evil caper, and only a caped do-gooder with a weird little curl in the middle of his forehead can stop him.
The movie has all the elements of a blockbuster -- humor, romance, drama and action -- but something about it feels a little too airbrushed to evoke real emotion.
Cartoonish, you might say.
But I guess that's not such a bad thing. If you can't save the world, you might as well entertain it.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Secret Sorrow series: a narrative about suicide's impact
Published in The Post-Star (A1)
5/24/06
Editor's Note: This is the fourth in a six-part series. All are online at www.poststar.com/arts_life/suicide
When Karen Padowicz's uncle called her on a December day almost 25 years ago and said her parents were coming to visit, she guessed why.
"Roger's dead, isn't he?" she asked.
Her older brother, 37-year-old Roger Maune, had hanged himself.
It was an act that would shape the rest of Karen's life and career. She now works for the Warren-Washington Association for Mental Health, developing programs on mental health and suicide prevention.
But speaking out about her brother's suicide didn't come easily.
Her parents arrived at Karen's apartment in Schenectady that night, nodded tearfully, and quickly shuttered their pain behind silence.
"No one wants to talk about suicide. That night was like any other night," Karen remembered.
"My mother read a magazine. My father read the paper. My sister cooked. I said, 'Don't you think we need to talk about this?' "
Special bond
Karen had visited her brother about two weeks earlier at their parents' apartment in Florida.
"Roger and I had a very unique relationship, like we were spiritual buddies or something," she said.
She remembered the "trust game" they played as kids, which involved falling or jumping into her brother's arms without looking.
"One day, I jumped out of my second-story bedroom window and he caught me," she said. "I trusted him with my life."
Maybe that's why she woke up about 4 a.m. that night in Florida to discover her brother silently climbing over the balcony.
"I jumped up and said in this kind of theatrical voice, 'Roger, you can't kill yourself on your parents' balcony! What will the neighbors think?' " Karen remembered. "That was the right thing to say. It brought him back."
For the next two hours, Roger was lucid. Their conversation flowed as it had in the old days, and Karen thought everything was going to be OK.
"Then it was like a switch turned on inside. He went from coherent to -- just this other place -- so quickly. And I sort of snapped, too, because it destroyed my optimism," she said.
They fought, and Roger left the room. As he walked out the door, he turned to Karen and said: "Just remember, go toward the light."
That was the last time she saw him.
A sensitive soul
Roger was one of those people who seem to be born burning at both ends.
"He and his friends were the kind of people I always wanted to be -- curious, interesting, passionate people. They were people who really lived," said Karen.
In the late '60s, Roger was a striking young man. He was about 6 feet tall, with a Roman nose, big blue eyes and a reddish-blond beard.
"He was such a pretty boy," said his younger sister, Lorraine Dejohn. "Damn it, he had the longest eyelashes, and that wavy hair -- oh my gosh!"
In Karen's childish imagination, he resembled a young Einstein, and she considered Roger just as brilliant.
"I called him the dictionary. Any questions I had, he just knew the answers to," she remembered.
He was the artistic, "Beatnik" type who wrote poetry and listened to jazz. He sang beautifully, played several instruments, and loved to act.
His intensely sensitive nature proved both a gift and a burden.
"Once, he told me: 'Carrie, Carrie, do you know trees cry when you cut them?' I would crumble if I felt the things he felt," Karen reflected. "I mean, how do you live with that depth of feeling?"
He didn't know.
A black aura
Fissures in Roger's mental health began showing up in his mid-20s, leading to a psychotic breakdown that landed him in the hospital.
For the next decade, he became increasingly convinced he was evil.
"He was so totally sure that he had a 'black aura' that was harming people," Lorraine said. "He didn't want anyone near him."
At the height of his paranoia, he would only talk to Karen from around the corners of rooms, fearing that his inner darkness was contagious.
Soon, he moved away to Syracuse. He and Karen communicated through letters, but for a long time, she didn't understand the depth of his problems.
"All I saw was this beautiful human being," she said.
His parents and siblings tried to help him, but they rarely shared their struggles with each other. Stoic self-reliance was considered the best way to handle problems in the Maune family.
Years later, Karen discovered that her family had a history of mental illness on both sides: a great-aunt and grandmother who went in and out of institutions after "nervous breakdowns"; a great-uncle who hanged himself; a cousin with bipolar disorder; another cousin whose teenage child committed suicide. She also found out that when her parents had picked Roger up at the hospital after his first breakdown, psychiatrists had warned them he was at risk of committing suicide.
"If I had known that then, it would have shaped the decisions I made after, no doubt about it," said Karen.
The burden of care
Medication couldn't shake the voices of condemnation from Roger's brain, but it did shake his body. The side effects of several psychotropic medications left him with a debilitating Parkinsonian syndrome that sent him to the hospital again in the late '70s.
Karen moved to Syracuse to care for him when he got out of the hospital, and discovered that he had been sleeping in his car in front of his apartment.
"When I got there, I realized the extent of his illness," she said.
Not long after that, he decided to stop taking his medication.
Eventually, Karen's emotional resources were so exhausted by caring for Roger that her physical health was in jeopardy. She turned to her sister for help.
Lorraine, divorced and living alone at that point, took Roger into her home. She talked to him over coffee and cigarettes at the kitchen table, night after night. She would have hugged him, but he wouldn't let her come close.
A cloud of despair had enveloped him, and it was impossible to penetrate with words.
"I talked to my brother until I was blue in the face, but I just couldn't help him," Lorraine said. "Now, he didn't say he was going to kill himself. He didn't go out looking for someone with a gun to kill him. But he kept talking about this black aura, and I couldn't get him to go to a doctor or sign up for unemployment. ... He didn't seem to feel he was worth the effort."
After 10 months, Lorraine couldn't take it anymore.
"He was driving me crazy -- and I'm not crazy," she said.
In October, she sent him to live with their parents, who had just moved to Florida.
Silence
Roger's illness often drove him to wander, so when he disappeared in early December, no one looked for him. His body was found in a grove of trees by firemen responding to a brush fire near his parents' house. No one knows exactly how long he had been there.
His body was cremated immediately, but it wasn't until almost a year later that his ashes were scattered on the land of a close friend. There was no funeral; no grave to visit.
"When you don't have that, it haunts you," Karen said. "There's no sense of closure."
She held out a small red jewelry box, lined with a yellowing square of cotton.
"This is all I have left of my brother," she said, pointing at a few pebble-sized white fragments she snatched from the scattered ashes. She is creating a memorial stone in her backyard, to honor Roger and their father, who died of cancer three years ago.
"My mother and father both had cancer twice, and I honestly believe it's because they held that grief inside," Karen said. "You know that Simon and Garfunkel song, 'Silence like a cancer grows?' It's really true."
Her mother is still alive, but refused to be interviewed.
"For my mother, the chapter is closed. It hurts too much," explained Lorraine. "She did say that losing a child should never happen to a parent."
For both Lorraine and Karen, talking about their brother's death has been a form of healing.
"I think this is important, so people can see how suicide affects not only the person who has taken their own life, but how it affects the whole family," said Lorraine. "I'm not stigmatized by it. My friends know that Roger committed suicide. It was horrible, terrible -- and I think it was preventable, but I didn't know what to do about it. I hope this helps other people."
Feeling the pull
Roger's death sent Karen into a tailspin that she believes was her own attempt at suicide. She spent the next four months in "the most destitute bars possible," drinking heavily and often driving afterward.
"I just did not care," she said. "My behaviors at the time were death-driven and death-seeking."
As she lay on her couch in a stupor one Sunday, she began to lose feeling in her limbs. She was overwhelmed with a sense that she was dying.
Then a thought came to her: "I think you're going into a diabetic coma. Eat some oranges."
She did, and as her body revived, so did her mental clarity.
"You could say that Roger reached out to me," she said. "I realized that he would never want this to happen."
She said family members left behind by suicide often feel pulled toward self-destruction.
"When someone chooses death, it's so contrary to the survival instinct that you think there must be something inside them that's broken," she said. "I began to see it as an inevitability that I would break, too -- so I almost sought it out."
In the years that followed, she tried to bury her grief by becoming a workaholic, and has only recently begun to confront her emotions about Roger's suicide.
"I remember thinking: Karen, if you focus on this, you may go totally insane," she said. "Working kept my mind on other things."
Karen ended up at Warren Washington Association for Mental Health about eight years ago.
She calls the mental health field "my professional swan song," the natural endpoint of the painful journey that Roger's death prompted in her personal life. Her goal is to reduce the public stigma surrounding mental health disorders, and get a message across to those struggling with them.
"People need to seek treatment," she said. "We know more now, and treatment can be highly successful. You don't need to suffer the way people suffered in the past. There's help."
She also offers a warning to those grappling with the grief of a loved one's suicide.
"A lot of people seem to think that if you just ignore or deny something painful, it will go away -- but it doesn't," she said. "It becomes like a lead ball inside of you that grows thicker with each passing year, and makes it harder to access your core emotions. I still can't cry."
She finds release in words, if not tears.
"I love being able to talk about my brother -- to honor him; feel him again," she said. "I haven't been able to do that before."
Roger is gone, but Karen feels that he left her with a gift.
"He left me with this knowledge that people can get to a point where it becomes black and white: Do you want to die or live?" she said.
"And once you realize that you want to live, it's a very powerful feeling."
#
SIDEBAR: Mental health and suicide
There is no universal cause for suicide -- each death represents a complicated individual choice.
But according to health professionals, most suicides are triggered at least in part by untreated mental illness.
"I would say that in a very large majority of cases, there is a diagnosable condition present, but it's a minority of people that are actually in treatment," said Dr. Paul Benveniste, operations manager of Behavioral Health Services at Glens Falls Hospital.
The National Mental Health Association estimates as much as 30 percent of the U.S. population has a mental health disorder, a substance abuse disorder, or both.
Depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety or panic disorder and schizophrenia are the most prevalent mental illnesses.
The association also notes that, although treatment success rates are as high as 80 percent for some of these conditions, millions of Americans with mental health disorders do not receive adequate treatment.
"I think we have a culture and a drug industry that actively promote partial treatments and quick fixes," Benveniste said. "The implication is that in one little pill, you can solve all your woes ... but in most cases, you can't help a person deal with their mental health symptoms without addressing how they think, feel and act."
In cases of depression, for example, medication is often much more effective when combined with psychotherapy, he said. But many insurers cover only a limited number of counseling visits per year, if they provide any mental health coverage at all.
"Mental health is viewed by insurers as a barely necessarily evil ... something that can be squeezed," he said. "But I would say that, in the long term, there are greater costs associated with not treating mental health than treating it."
Rob York, director of the Office of Community Services, which oversees mental health services in Warren and Washington counties, said stigma is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to mental health treatment and suicide prevention.
People are reluctant to seek treatment for depression because there's a public perception that it's "all in their head," he said, but that's false.
"Depression is a real, biologically based illness. Brain studies have shown that changes in the brain occur that medication can correct," York said. "It's not something you can 'just get over,' as some people believe."
5/24/06
Editor's Note: This is the fourth in a six-part series. All are online at www.poststar.com/arts_life/suicide
When Karen Padowicz's uncle called her on a December day almost 25 years ago and said her parents were coming to visit, she guessed why.
"Roger's dead, isn't he?" she asked.
Her older brother, 37-year-old Roger Maune, had hanged himself.
It was an act that would shape the rest of Karen's life and career. She now works for the Warren-Washington Association for Mental Health, developing programs on mental health and suicide prevention.
But speaking out about her brother's suicide didn't come easily.
Her parents arrived at Karen's apartment in Schenectady that night, nodded tearfully, and quickly shuttered their pain behind silence.
"No one wants to talk about suicide. That night was like any other night," Karen remembered.
"My mother read a magazine. My father read the paper. My sister cooked. I said, 'Don't you think we need to talk about this?' "
Special bond
Karen had visited her brother about two weeks earlier at their parents' apartment in Florida.
"Roger and I had a very unique relationship, like we were spiritual buddies or something," she said.
She remembered the "trust game" they played as kids, which involved falling or jumping into her brother's arms without looking.
"One day, I jumped out of my second-story bedroom window and he caught me," she said. "I trusted him with my life."
Maybe that's why she woke up about 4 a.m. that night in Florida to discover her brother silently climbing over the balcony.
"I jumped up and said in this kind of theatrical voice, 'Roger, you can't kill yourself on your parents' balcony! What will the neighbors think?' " Karen remembered. "That was the right thing to say. It brought him back."
For the next two hours, Roger was lucid. Their conversation flowed as it had in the old days, and Karen thought everything was going to be OK.
"Then it was like a switch turned on inside. He went from coherent to -- just this other place -- so quickly. And I sort of snapped, too, because it destroyed my optimism," she said.
They fought, and Roger left the room. As he walked out the door, he turned to Karen and said: "Just remember, go toward the light."
That was the last time she saw him.
A sensitive soul
Roger was one of those people who seem to be born burning at both ends.
"He and his friends were the kind of people I always wanted to be -- curious, interesting, passionate people. They were people who really lived," said Karen.
In the late '60s, Roger was a striking young man. He was about 6 feet tall, with a Roman nose, big blue eyes and a reddish-blond beard.
"He was such a pretty boy," said his younger sister, Lorraine Dejohn. "Damn it, he had the longest eyelashes, and that wavy hair -- oh my gosh!"
In Karen's childish imagination, he resembled a young Einstein, and she considered Roger just as brilliant.
"I called him the dictionary. Any questions I had, he just knew the answers to," she remembered.
He was the artistic, "Beatnik" type who wrote poetry and listened to jazz. He sang beautifully, played several instruments, and loved to act.
His intensely sensitive nature proved both a gift and a burden.
"Once, he told me: 'Carrie, Carrie, do you know trees cry when you cut them?' I would crumble if I felt the things he felt," Karen reflected. "I mean, how do you live with that depth of feeling?"
He didn't know.
A black aura
Fissures in Roger's mental health began showing up in his mid-20s, leading to a psychotic breakdown that landed him in the hospital.
For the next decade, he became increasingly convinced he was evil.
"He was so totally sure that he had a 'black aura' that was harming people," Lorraine said. "He didn't want anyone near him."
At the height of his paranoia, he would only talk to Karen from around the corners of rooms, fearing that his inner darkness was contagious.
Soon, he moved away to Syracuse. He and Karen communicated through letters, but for a long time, she didn't understand the depth of his problems.
"All I saw was this beautiful human being," she said.
His parents and siblings tried to help him, but they rarely shared their struggles with each other. Stoic self-reliance was considered the best way to handle problems in the Maune family.
Years later, Karen discovered that her family had a history of mental illness on both sides: a great-aunt and grandmother who went in and out of institutions after "nervous breakdowns"; a great-uncle who hanged himself; a cousin with bipolar disorder; another cousin whose teenage child committed suicide. She also found out that when her parents had picked Roger up at the hospital after his first breakdown, psychiatrists had warned them he was at risk of committing suicide.
"If I had known that then, it would have shaped the decisions I made after, no doubt about it," said Karen.
The burden of care
Medication couldn't shake the voices of condemnation from Roger's brain, but it did shake his body. The side effects of several psychotropic medications left him with a debilitating Parkinsonian syndrome that sent him to the hospital again in the late '70s.
Karen moved to Syracuse to care for him when he got out of the hospital, and discovered that he had been sleeping in his car in front of his apartment.
"When I got there, I realized the extent of his illness," she said.
Not long after that, he decided to stop taking his medication.
Eventually, Karen's emotional resources were so exhausted by caring for Roger that her physical health was in jeopardy. She turned to her sister for help.
Lorraine, divorced and living alone at that point, took Roger into her home. She talked to him over coffee and cigarettes at the kitchen table, night after night. She would have hugged him, but he wouldn't let her come close.
A cloud of despair had enveloped him, and it was impossible to penetrate with words.
"I talked to my brother until I was blue in the face, but I just couldn't help him," Lorraine said. "Now, he didn't say he was going to kill himself. He didn't go out looking for someone with a gun to kill him. But he kept talking about this black aura, and I couldn't get him to go to a doctor or sign up for unemployment. ... He didn't seem to feel he was worth the effort."
After 10 months, Lorraine couldn't take it anymore.
"He was driving me crazy -- and I'm not crazy," she said.
In October, she sent him to live with their parents, who had just moved to Florida.
Silence
Roger's illness often drove him to wander, so when he disappeared in early December, no one looked for him. His body was found in a grove of trees by firemen responding to a brush fire near his parents' house. No one knows exactly how long he had been there.
His body was cremated immediately, but it wasn't until almost a year later that his ashes were scattered on the land of a close friend. There was no funeral; no grave to visit.
"When you don't have that, it haunts you," Karen said. "There's no sense of closure."
She held out a small red jewelry box, lined with a yellowing square of cotton.
"This is all I have left of my brother," she said, pointing at a few pebble-sized white fragments she snatched from the scattered ashes. She is creating a memorial stone in her backyard, to honor Roger and their father, who died of cancer three years ago.
"My mother and father both had cancer twice, and I honestly believe it's because they held that grief inside," Karen said. "You know that Simon and Garfunkel song, 'Silence like a cancer grows?' It's really true."
Her mother is still alive, but refused to be interviewed.
"For my mother, the chapter is closed. It hurts too much," explained Lorraine. "She did say that losing a child should never happen to a parent."
For both Lorraine and Karen, talking about their brother's death has been a form of healing.
"I think this is important, so people can see how suicide affects not only the person who has taken their own life, but how it affects the whole family," said Lorraine. "I'm not stigmatized by it. My friends know that Roger committed suicide. It was horrible, terrible -- and I think it was preventable, but I didn't know what to do about it. I hope this helps other people."
Feeling the pull
Roger's death sent Karen into a tailspin that she believes was her own attempt at suicide. She spent the next four months in "the most destitute bars possible," drinking heavily and often driving afterward.
"I just did not care," she said. "My behaviors at the time were death-driven and death-seeking."
As she lay on her couch in a stupor one Sunday, she began to lose feeling in her limbs. She was overwhelmed with a sense that she was dying.
Then a thought came to her: "I think you're going into a diabetic coma. Eat some oranges."
She did, and as her body revived, so did her mental clarity.
"You could say that Roger reached out to me," she said. "I realized that he would never want this to happen."
She said family members left behind by suicide often feel pulled toward self-destruction.
"When someone chooses death, it's so contrary to the survival instinct that you think there must be something inside them that's broken," she said. "I began to see it as an inevitability that I would break, too -- so I almost sought it out."
In the years that followed, she tried to bury her grief by becoming a workaholic, and has only recently begun to confront her emotions about Roger's suicide.
"I remember thinking: Karen, if you focus on this, you may go totally insane," she said. "Working kept my mind on other things."
Karen ended up at Warren Washington Association for Mental Health about eight years ago.
She calls the mental health field "my professional swan song," the natural endpoint of the painful journey that Roger's death prompted in her personal life. Her goal is to reduce the public stigma surrounding mental health disorders, and get a message across to those struggling with them.
"People need to seek treatment," she said. "We know more now, and treatment can be highly successful. You don't need to suffer the way people suffered in the past. There's help."
She also offers a warning to those grappling with the grief of a loved one's suicide.
"A lot of people seem to think that if you just ignore or deny something painful, it will go away -- but it doesn't," she said. "It becomes like a lead ball inside of you that grows thicker with each passing year, and makes it harder to access your core emotions. I still can't cry."
She finds release in words, if not tears.
"I love being able to talk about my brother -- to honor him; feel him again," she said. "I haven't been able to do that before."
Roger is gone, but Karen feels that he left her with a gift.
"He left me with this knowledge that people can get to a point where it becomes black and white: Do you want to die or live?" she said.
"And once you realize that you want to live, it's a very powerful feeling."
#
SIDEBAR: Mental health and suicide
There is no universal cause for suicide -- each death represents a complicated individual choice.
But according to health professionals, most suicides are triggered at least in part by untreated mental illness.
"I would say that in a very large majority of cases, there is a diagnosable condition present, but it's a minority of people that are actually in treatment," said Dr. Paul Benveniste, operations manager of Behavioral Health Services at Glens Falls Hospital.
The National Mental Health Association estimates as much as 30 percent of the U.S. population has a mental health disorder, a substance abuse disorder, or both.
Depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety or panic disorder and schizophrenia are the most prevalent mental illnesses.
The association also notes that, although treatment success rates are as high as 80 percent for some of these conditions, millions of Americans with mental health disorders do not receive adequate treatment.
"I think we have a culture and a drug industry that actively promote partial treatments and quick fixes," Benveniste said. "The implication is that in one little pill, you can solve all your woes ... but in most cases, you can't help a person deal with their mental health symptoms without addressing how they think, feel and act."
In cases of depression, for example, medication is often much more effective when combined with psychotherapy, he said. But many insurers cover only a limited number of counseling visits per year, if they provide any mental health coverage at all.
"Mental health is viewed by insurers as a barely necessarily evil ... something that can be squeezed," he said. "But I would say that, in the long term, there are greater costs associated with not treating mental health than treating it."
Rob York, director of the Office of Community Services, which oversees mental health services in Warren and Washington counties, said stigma is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to mental health treatment and suicide prevention.
People are reluctant to seek treatment for depression because there's a public perception that it's "all in their head," he said, but that's false.
"Depression is a real, biologically based illness. Brain studies have shown that changes in the brain occur that medication can correct," York said. "It's not something you can 'just get over,' as some people believe."
My brief stint as a biker chick
Published in The Post-Star (G1)
5/4/06
I certainly didn't expect to spend Friday night with my arms around a burly biker named Rocko -- talk about going the extra mile for an assignment.
It started when I called a local motorcycle shop with a few questions and ended up with an invitation to the infamous "Tank," home of The Jury Motorcycle Club in Hudson Falls.
My co-workers raised their eyebrows when I mentioned where I was heading that evening.
"You're going to The Tank?" they asked. "Alone?"
I figured it couldn't be that bad.
Sure, the name of the place referred to an actual tank -- a rusty old steel cylinder the club bought from an oil company in the mid-1970s and converted into a fortress-like headquarters beside the Champlain Canal.
And I knew The Jury had a reputation as a tough-guy biker gang, roaring through town in a pack of black leather and big mustaches and throwing raucous parties every summer.
But the old motorcycle outlined in colored lights and perched on top of the tank added a playful touch to its imposing exterior. I knew that Miss America had survived a visit to The Tank to speak about veterans' rights in 2000. And the club sponsors a Little League team, for Pete's sake. They probably weren't going to attack a visiting journalist.
My confidence was tested when the club's president, who goes only by "Rocko," invited me to hop on the back of his Harley not long after I arrived.
I tried to sound nonchalant: "Sure, why not?"
He handed me a black helmet adorned with a sticker that said "Sex Happens," and asked his blonde wife to lend me her sunglasses. They handled the sun but they didn't block the glare she gave me as Rocko and I rode off into the sunset with a biker named Red.
"Have you ever ridden a motorcycle before?" Red yelled as we paused at a traffic light.
I felt proud for a moment. "Actually, yes, I rode a sport bike around Barcelona --"
He sneered.
"I said, have you ever ridden a motorcycle before?"
The light changed, and we took off at a speed that made my eyes water. I tried to ignore the chilling wind and admire the scenery: a pretty farmhouse; a field of startled goats; an old lady watering the church lawn with one hand on her hip.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the sideview mirror, my hair streaming out behind my helmet, and thought: Hey, I look pretty cool.
By the end of the ride, cool had changed to just plain freezing, since I was wearing only a thin jacket.
But as I returned my borrowed gear and entered The Tank's warm, smoky atmosphere for a drink of water, I realized that I was still alive -- and smiling.
#
5/4/06
I certainly didn't expect to spend Friday night with my arms around a burly biker named Rocko -- talk about going the extra mile for an assignment.
It started when I called a local motorcycle shop with a few questions and ended up with an invitation to the infamous "Tank," home of The Jury Motorcycle Club in Hudson Falls.
My co-workers raised their eyebrows when I mentioned where I was heading that evening.
"You're going to The Tank?" they asked. "Alone?"
I figured it couldn't be that bad.
Sure, the name of the place referred to an actual tank -- a rusty old steel cylinder the club bought from an oil company in the mid-1970s and converted into a fortress-like headquarters beside the Champlain Canal.
And I knew The Jury had a reputation as a tough-guy biker gang, roaring through town in a pack of black leather and big mustaches and throwing raucous parties every summer.
But the old motorcycle outlined in colored lights and perched on top of the tank added a playful touch to its imposing exterior. I knew that Miss America had survived a visit to The Tank to speak about veterans' rights in 2000. And the club sponsors a Little League team, for Pete's sake. They probably weren't going to attack a visiting journalist.
My confidence was tested when the club's president, who goes only by "Rocko," invited me to hop on the back of his Harley not long after I arrived.
I tried to sound nonchalant: "Sure, why not?"
He handed me a black helmet adorned with a sticker that said "Sex Happens," and asked his blonde wife to lend me her sunglasses. They handled the sun but they didn't block the glare she gave me as Rocko and I rode off into the sunset with a biker named Red.
"Have you ever ridden a motorcycle before?" Red yelled as we paused at a traffic light.
I felt proud for a moment. "Actually, yes, I rode a sport bike around Barcelona --"
He sneered.
"I said, have you ever ridden a motorcycle before?"
The light changed, and we took off at a speed that made my eyes water. I tried to ignore the chilling wind and admire the scenery: a pretty farmhouse; a field of startled goats; an old lady watering the church lawn with one hand on her hip.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the sideview mirror, my hair streaming out behind my helmet, and thought: Hey, I look pretty cool.
By the end of the ride, cool had changed to just plain freezing, since I was wearing only a thin jacket.
But as I returned my borrowed gear and entered The Tank's warm, smoky atmosphere for a drink of water, I realized that I was still alive -- and smiling.
#
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