A guide to resources for honoring Memorial Day 2023 on LI. Plus, we can’t think about Memorial Day on LI without remembering Gus Scutari.
Continue readingMemorial Day 2023: Meaning, Events, Remembering Gus
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: To Reflect and Serve
The third Monday in January is reserved to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is the only federal holiday formally recognized as a national day of service, “a day on, not a day off.” In the spirit of listening and thinking first, people are warmly encouraged to study the works of King, and to devote time to serious reflection on how we will endeavor toward a healthier, more just world for all. Here are some ways you can learn about and advance his legacy.
Continue readingHalloween 2022: Let’s Go!!!
Halloween Jack O’ Lanterns by Katheryn Laible |
Updated 10/27…My mother always felt a main point of Halloween was to scare bad spirits away before winter gave them too many opportunities to wreak havoc. I love the idea, and really everything about All Hallow’s Eve. You can learn all sorts of things about the holiday at history.com. Here’s a history of the Celtic holiday Samhain from Time Magazine, which, due to it’s being an Irish word is, in fact, pronounced SAW-in. This interesting old article from the BBC explores the connection (or maybe not) between All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day, and Samhain. For an even deeper and broader look at such holidays, check out the World History Encyclopedia. Of course, many folks simply treasure Halloween for the opportunity to express their creativity and enjoy a great party of sweets, cosplay, and the fun of being playfully terrified. |
Are You Ready for Halloween?
Here are “159 of the most creative Halloween Costume Ideas Ever” from Bored Panda. If you have to come up with one yourself really fast, Readers Digest offers 102 Easy Halloween Costumes You Can Make Last Minute
Here’s the Ultimate Guide to Pumpkin Picking on Long Island — I still need to get mine. Can’t wait to carve this weekend!
Here’s 100 easy ideas for that from Parade.com. If you want to take it to the next level, check out “111 World’s Coolest Pumpkin Designs” from homesthetics.net.
Let's Make Some Plans!
For a truly spectacular experience, check out The Rise of the Jack o’ Lanterns which is finally returning to LI this year and is now being hosted at USDAN!
Mommypoppins.com offers up 75 Fun Halloween Activities for Kids.
Here’s a list of haunted houses offered by the Long Island Press
Did you know there’s a Long Island Haunted House Calendar?
Newsday’s got the party scene covered, and articles on all sorts of folks getting into the spirit across the Island. (There is a paywall. Please support local papers).
Don’t forget to check out cool local theaters. The Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington will be showing “The Bat” from 1926, “Scared for Your Life 2022: An Indie Horror Film Festival”, as well as “Boardinghouse –
Cult Café – VHS Night.” What shows are going on near you?
Downtown Happenings
This is also a great time of year to check out Long Island’s amazing downtowns, which are filled with treasures. Check out your local Chamber of Commerce, BID, and other local organizations to see what’s going on near you!
Check out The Huntington Arts Council’s exhibition “A Nightmare on Main Street,” an annual exhibition featuring artwork from students grades 6-12. There were 200 pieces from 145 students submitted. Juror Lauren La Bella chose 41 to show. They are eerily inspiring! Check out the website to learn more, including the 2022 statement that prompted them….
My own Firefly Artists Gallery features hauntingly beautiful works and so much more all year long from amazing local artists such as our abandoned space and other spooky scenes specialists John Lazzaro (did you see his new book?!?), Paul Mele (who’s also got “Confinement” going on at fotofoto in Huntington) and now the amazing Kristen Memoli (welcome!!!).
This Thursday evening, we will offer 10% off our entire gallery as part of Northport’s annual Witches & Warlocks’ Night Out.
That’s October 27th from 5-8pm.
The event unites local businesses in offering promotions and Halloween spirit. Come in costume! Bring your friends! Pick up a free tote bag, map and directory of evening events from our neighbors at the Signature Properties Northport office, 172 Main Street, who wonderfully organize this event.
Meanwhile the Northport Historical Society
is featuring the “Somnia Tarot” an exhibition of works of Nick Bruno,
“a 78 image art series which uses photography, sculpture, costume
design,
and dream journal recordings to tell the tale of classic Tarot. “
…They’ve also got “Halloween Magic” with Todd Harris coming Sunday 10/30!
Let’s have some fun!
You can see other great Northport/East Northport events (including Halloween Yoga!) in the Northport Journal. Check out your own local resources (which we are SO lucky to have) to see what’s going on in your neighborhood!
However you choose to celebrate (or not!), we wish you all the best!
Be safe, be smart, and enjoy.
Happy Halloween!!!
We Will Never Forget…
We Will Never Forget… Photo of the WTC memorial lights by Colin Hopkins, Local 580 Iron Workers. Colin was on week three of work when the towers fell, a day when these folks and many others who never expected to be such, came to serve as first responders and who continued working at the site for weeks after the attack. Later, Colin was also among those present at work who got to witness the Freedom Spire rise…
We Will Never Forget…
Over the last two decades, we have learned a new rhythm….The end of summer comes, there is a flurry of activity about getting kids prepared for and off to school, and then, the moment all settles down the weight of solemn remembrance overshadows everything but the realization of how lucky we are to have that terrible event cast such a pall over our beings only once a year. Our hearts go out to so many others who lost so much…who experienced so much…who have since endured so much…
We remember the first puzzled and then stunned and horrified voices of the professionals whose job it is to tell us the bad news every day. We recall the images that replayed, the bells that rang, the world that all but stopped.
We remember the selfless bravery of firemen who went in where anyone in their “right mind” would be running out.
We remember the horrific loss of 2.977 innocent lives, including 343 of those firemen, 60 police officers and 8 EMTS. We remember the probability that anyone we encountered may have just lost someone dear. We remember how some of those who perished did so heroically apprehending hijackers and crashing their own plane.
Our hearts twist in the simultaneous gratitude for the miracle of how, despite intense confusion, so many lived to tell their tale or simply were not there.
We remember the people walking over the Brooklyn Bridge…covered in dust…the people being rescued from the end of Manhattan Island…the people desperately seeking people who would never be found.
We remember the school children who did not know. We remember the teachers who did, but could not tell them. We remember the beautiful day slowly overcast by those beautiful, yet terrible clouds. We remeber the taste. We remember the smell.
We remember the iron workers, the dock builders and the other hard working Long Islanders who heard of the disaster and raced to the scene to see if they could be of service. We remember those who spent weeks upon weeks shoveling through the twisted debris. We remember the price so many have paid for their commitment.
We remember being implored to go out and live. We remember being told it was patriotic to shop. We remember wishing there was something more meaningful to do. We remember Paul McCartney and the musicians he gathered to play for the world and those first responders. We remember Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick who were on Broadway as The Producers, and how they epitomized the notion that “the show must go on.”…how meaningful it was to simply carry on.
We remember the brave men and women who have been at war ever since that fateful day. We pray that they and all the others who bear intense burdens and indelible scars will be properly cared for. We pray for a peace that seems so very far away.
We look down at children, and now young adults, who never knew the days before then; who never wondered at those impossibly tall buildings but may have marveled at those even taller beams of light; who never felt that fateful day; who look at us in bewilderment at the ongoing challenges, both at home and abroad…who wish, sometimes loudly, other times in quiet sighs, that the adults of this world would finally grow up.
We remember the noble ideals that we stand for. We remember how innocent we were. We realize on how much has changed since then, including an explosion of communication that somehow seems to have opened chasms between good people of different perspectives, and tidal waves of information that seem to only muddy any sense we once had of the truth. We reflect on how much we still have to learn, and on how much we seem to have forgotten…
We remind ourselves that while the battle may rage on within our hearts and across this world, we must never let terror win. We must never let the blind hatred that enables it to win. We must overcome.
But how?
The words of many sages come to mind; visionaries and scholars of so many cultures and kinds. We keep coming back to the wisest ones; the ones who seem to have mattered the most…
Over and over they whisper from the ages the same small, powerful yet humble, healing, overcoming, uplifting light of a word…
And so…we reflect…on Love.
A 4th of July Reflection on US
The 4th of July honors the US Declaration of Independence. Its most well-known passage is the foundation upon which the colonists’ grievances were justified and a bold declaration of human rights…
Continue readingHappy Father’s Day!
Thinking About Fathers by Katheryn Laible
Happy Father’s Day!
Here is a photo of my own father, wandering through the village of his grandfather, telling stories about him, the mother he raised, his own father, and his father…
I am grateful for him, for them, for my sweet husband, and for all who give it their best to be a good man and serve as a father. It means more than I can say….Thank you!
Apparently Father’s Day didn’t come about until quite a few decades after Mother’s Day. In fact, while in the US it was apparently initiated by a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd in 1909, whose dad raised her and her five siblings alone, it didn’t become an official national thing until 1972!
You can read about that and other fascinating bits in this Britannica entry, as well as in this History.com article.
I love this collection of “The Best Quotes on Fatherhood” from The Art of Manliness…
Did you know there’s a National Fatherhood Initiative dedicated to helping foster fatherhood?
I am also really, really grateful for all who step up to serve in a fathering role, This expecially includes all those folks who for one reason or another end up wearing both mother and father hats, and those who are determined to be the father they wish they had.
One sweet and broadly helpful example is this guy, Rob Kenney who hosts “Dad, how do I?” on YouTube. Kenny’s dedicated to doing his “best to provide useful, practical content to many basic tasks that everyone should know how to do.” He started out just trying to do it for his own kids, and now we all benefit.
Grateful!
Juneteenth
When I think of Juneteenth, I see one hard-won step on a very long journey. May we continue to climb that mountain and reach a higher place. Photo by Hillie Chan on Unsplash
This second official Juneteenth happens to fall on Father’s Day. I find that fitting somehow, as I pause to consider what it means to be a good man and to give gratitude for all who father.
The official site for Juneteenth is here. It commemorates that July 19th day in 1865, 2-1/2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and over a month after the last battle of that hard, bloody war, when the last black american slaves in Galveston, TX were finally set free.
The date has been celebrated in black communities for years with street fairs, parades, concerts, and prayer. In 2021 it was finally, recognized as a federal holiday. It is good to see the growing acknowledgment and honoring of its significance among broader communities through events and such. Some are listed here in the LI Press . Others are in this piece from News12 LI.
Of course, being forcibly set free and actually realizing the stated promise of this nation are two different things. Another good way to honor this day is to study history, both before and after that day, and to reflect on how, while Juneteenth itself recalls a moment of triumph worthy of celebration, it was just one hard-won step on an ongoing journey toward “a more perfect union,” and far from the end of disparity in the treatment of human beings.
I am grateful to all who have given their best to advance civil rights and to create a more just world. May we honor ongoing endeavors to more fully realize the acknowledgment and admonishment entailed by our nation’s Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
One local organization focused on just that is ERASE Racism. Here, in their most recent newsletter they ask how folks are celebrating Juneteenth, share some of what they offer and are focused on, and offer a wealth of diverse and broader resources for exploration.
Check it out
Memorial Day Meaning and Events on Long Island
Every Memorial Day, Gus Scutari would invite veterans, Long Island dignitaries and the children up. Learn about the 2022 Syosset parade here in the Syosset Patch.
Here is a guide to resources for honoring Memorial Day 2022 on Long Island.
The last Monday in May, this three-day weekend at the dawn of summer, is set aside to honor the tremendous sacrifice made by soldiers who gave all. It is a time to pause and acknowledge how veterans offer their very souls to our Nation, and to give solemn consideration to the responsibility we have as citizens to ensure they are treated well and that we give it our best to create a nation somehow worthy of such sacrifice.
While the specific focus is those lost to war, it is also important to recognize those left behind. For many, this is a very personal affair. Please do not say “Happy Memorial Day” as many are honoring lost loved ones and reckoning with memories, knowledge and feelings that are incredibly difficult. It is better to offer gratitude for service, and to offer a listening ear and an open heart.
I have been told by several veterans that this does not mean the day should be entirely without joy. The barbecues and the lighter sides of the parades are important moments of community and, yes, even celebrations of life and nation. May we do so with a mind to surround service families in love, light, and gratitude for the blessings they seek to offer so much to preserve.
Various Guides to Memorial Day and Where They’ll Lead You
Here’s a Guide to Memorial Day Parades from News12 Long Island including Island Park, Airshow Cruises in Freeport, Hempstead, a Riverhead Painting Festival, Bay Shore, Elwood, Farmingdale, Freeport, Little Neck, Long Beach, Malverne, Massapequa Park, Mastic, a Parade and Open House at Raynham Hall in Oyster Bay, Merrick, Northport, Painview-Old Bethpage, Sayville, St. James, Smithtown, Southold, and West Islip
This one of parades and events from the LI Press includes the Bethpage Air Show, Hempstead (the oldest parade on LI), The Largest Parade of the Five Towns in Cedarhurst, an Air Show Cruise in Freeport, Little-Neck Douglastown (one of the largest in the nation), Massapequa, Wantagh, Port Washington, the Parade and Open House at Raynham Hall, Levittown, an event of music, food, and fun at Harbes Family Farm in Mattituck, Babylon, Southold, and Lindenhurst.
From Greater Long Island we learn about parades in Bay Shore, Babylon, Patchogue, Stony Brook, Fire Island, Huntington, Rockville Centre, Center Moriches, Farmingdale, and Ronkonkoma.
A Bit of History and More Current Stories on Honoring the Day
Here is the encyclopedic definition of Memorial Day from Britannica.
You can learn more on the History website.
Here is a meaningful piece in the LI Advance offered by Dave Rogers in 2021. He was a tremendous asset to veterans, the arts, and local business in Patchogue for many years. Thanks to social media, he continues to serve veterans everywhere from his new home.
Here is a piece on a call for a county-wide moment of silence by Long Island leaders featured on Texas Public Radio.
This story from News12 LI is about Ron Errickson Jr, who be spending this weekend cleaning up Tinton Falls, a cemetary in New Jersey of African American soldiers who weren’t permitted to be buried with white ones.
Here, the National Park Service looks back over 150 years of Memorial Day traditions springing up across the nation. It also offers links to specific major memorial sites in its care, including The Korean War Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, National Mall and Memorial Parks, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, World War II Memorial.
In another piece from History, did you know that one of the earliest Memorial Day events in the USA was held by freed slaves?
This feature in Almanac offers some more history including why the Poppy is important, the poem “On Flanders Field,” and a bit about the flag and distinguishing holidays honoring those who serve in the military. There are also recipes and the Memorial Day calendar for the next several years.
Finally, here is my own piece honoring Costantino “Gus” Scutari. Gus was a World War II Veteran who long served as a champion for good citizenship and thoughtful Americanism, and who dedicated his later life to the Syosset Memorial Day Parade. He passed at the age of 99 in April of 2020. He is now a namesake of Underhill Blvd, where he long held the ceremonies following the parade, and the Syosset VFW, where he would invite everyone for hot dogs and refreshments after.
It is fitting to hear that in honor of his memory and an enduring spirit that is likely leading it anyway, there will be no Grand Marshal of this parade.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: To Reflect and Serve
The third Monday in January is reserved to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is the only federal holiday formally recognized as a national day of service, “a day on, not a day off.” In the spirit of listening and thinking first, people are warmly encouraged to study the works of King, and to devote time to serious reflection on how we will endeavor toward a healthier, more just world for all. Here are some ways you can learn about and advance his legacy.
Continue readingHappy New Year! Thank You, Friends for these End of Year Resources!
Photo “New Year’s Love” by Katheryn Laible