It’s often the case that life up here in Sullivan County fills me, a sometime and longtime big city dweller hailing from Berlin and New York, with wonder and awe. It’s true. Simplicity over complexity, any day.

Once there was the subway ride that took 90 minutes to crawl through five subway stations on the way to Columbus Circle in Midtown Manhattan. One hundred of us piled into a car, packed on the A Train like sardines in a can.

Nowadays I’ll be driving along Airport Road to the Transfer Station singing a song out loud to the radio, left arm dangling out the window in the rich warm air. Suddenly my eye catches that field of chocolate-hided cows ahead of me, and above the bovines that sparkling blue sky and white billowing clouds. And Green All Around!!! This is Freedom. This is Liberation. This is what we want!

Matters continue apace in Smallwood. The Smallwood Civic Association (SWCA) is reaching out to its artistically-inclined friends, neighbors and supporters to inform about its upcoming Arts & Crafts Fair. The event will be held on Sunday, August 1st from 1:00 – 5:00 PM in the SWCA Lodge and Ballfield. The SWCA is calling for local vendors to participate in this event.

If interested, please reach out to Terry Gedan at Monte125@aol.com. $35 if you are a SWCA member, and $50 if you are not a member. This will be a very popular event attracting hundreds of Smallwoodians. Book a space, or take a gander!

Our collective Hope Diamond, Mountain Lake, was closed this week after torrential rains flushed effluent from the surrounding hills into its basin. Water test results provided to the SWCA by Sullivan County Labs established E. coli numbers in excess of acceptable levels. The lake must be closed whenever E. coli counts are in excess of 200 and some of the tested areas of the lake evidenced numbers far in excess of this number (full test results are viewable if you are an Association Member on the SWCA website at Smallwoodcivicassociation.org).

While this news is unfortunate, the results are almost predictable given recent heavy rains and the presence of fertilized lawns and septic tanks above the lake’s waterline. It is laudable that someone at the SWCA took the initiative to ensure tests were run twice this very rainy month to monitor water quality.

While aquatic activities are canceled in the Lake for the moment, the delightful jewel called the SWCA Beach remains open for use (sun bathing, games, volleyball, etc). Hopefully in the next week or two the rain will stop and water test levels will fall within acceptable levels again.

Life at the moment seems full of impediments but let us look to the sauntering cows and the sparkling skies and ascendent clouds and sing along to the radio. This is what we wanted. We are home again, here, wherever we are. Be well, get your vaccination, and flourish.