Columbia County Life

So my friend Lisa posts on her Facebook page Saturday night that she has been really sick and hasn't been out of the house in five days. I know she's on deadline to finish her book (the History of Hudson) so I call her to see what's up? She didn't want to trouble her friends, she says,  but tells me she'd really like to go the emergency room. I'm house sitting for another friend so I say, "I can be there in ten minutes." Now mind you, I hate the emergency room just as much as the next guy, but I'm foregoing personal preferences for a friend in need. I pick her up at her house just outside downtown Hudson. It's early Saturday night and lots of people are hanging out getting some night air. Lisa looks rather dreadful, her face is swollen, her eyes are puffy, but she doesn't need to hear that. I load her in the car, and she tells me she thinks she has Lyme disease. Columbia Memorial is a fairly big place. As a matter if fact I was once tre...

Living in Columbia County, New York, is a minute-to-minute, changing experience. One day life here can be simply about surviving three feet of snow that's accumulated near your front door when you only expected a dusting or a manageable inch of fluffy stuff. The next could be about saving an historic site that you've driven past a hundred and fifty times and wondered when that old house was built and who lived there. On any given day your attention might be centered on finding a restorative yoga class to rest your stressed mind, or securing the services of a caterer who can help you serve 100 people an organic brunch on a budget. Yes, it's that diverse. I've learned, no matter where you live, life is never one thing, it's everything. And that's what we have here. A growing community made up of people who are diverse, devoted, and different, because they're intentionally living here, in this unique corner of New York, Columbia County. I'm one of them....