WPCNR PHOTOGRAPH OF THE NIGHT. Submitted by Roving Photographer Ray Frederick. May 29, 2012:
Powerful thunderstorms are now desultorily working their way across Westchester County showcasing some power bursts of lightning. Ray Frederick photographed this spectacular blast from his backyard on his I-Phone moments ago.
WPCNR SOUTH END TIMES. From French American School of New York. May 29, 2012:
Under direction from NYS Department of Environmental Conservation and with full city of WP approval – the French American School of New York is scheduled to begin today the removal of trees that are growing on the earthen dam at the south end of the pond on the former golf course.
The issue of the dam was raised by neighbors. The DEC was contacted by the city and after inspecting the dam developed a plan requiring FASNY to remove large trees and underbrush on the dam.
This work includes the removal of 5 large (80 foot) trees and other vegetation. Some of the small trees (under 6” diameter) will be left. A large tree crane was scheduled to be on site today. Passersby may see and/or hear the activity, and that’s the explanation. The entire plan has been developed in full collaboration with the DEC and the city and is sanctioned by both the DEC and the city.
WPCNR SOUTHEND LIFE. By The American Grillman. Reprinted from The CitizeNetReporter Archives. July 5, 2008: It’s the come home day of another Memorial Day Wekend in White Plains, coming home for that Memorial Day picnic. After Monday’s Memorial Day Parade starting at 10 AM in downtown White Plains, honoring our veterans it is time to usher in summer officially. Thanks to the chimney charcoal starter and its glowing orange coals, the backyard American barbeque DNA macho in the amateur chef is once again the equal of the overpriced steak cooked indoors at any restaurant. Steak was raised outside, it was born to be cooked outside, and the barbequed steak on orange charcoal’s glow puts the Cartier- priced steakhouse in its place! In this griller’s opinion, ourdoor grilling proves once again to be the equal and superior to the overpriced artificial-tasting steak that sleek decor and atmosphere cannot duplicate backyard orgins. The economy may be a press secretary’s fantasy, your home price declining, your taxes going up, but remember, even the hobo can grill! To do real steak right , you have to do it outside on charcoal. The instinct of generations of the American backyard barbeque tradition passed up from the cave, enjoyed at Valley Forge, sunk into y cowboys around chuck wagons on the prairie and up from the Southland barbeque inbred and passed on from American father to American son – cutting across nationality and station – gives you real steak – not $100 technology enhanced cuts. Flaming charcoal makes steak a living thing in your mouth! What is it about the American Grillman that’s so special that his or hers backyard cuts beat the insider professionals’ inflation-friendly ostentatious steaks? It’s the unique chemistry of being American and charcoal flame. You’re not really part of America unless you’re grillin” like an American. And on Independence Day Weekend coming up, it’s not July 4 unless you’re grillin’. There’s just something about the searing intensity of glowing charcoal combining mystically with the testosterone and instinctual synergy between red meat and the dedicated outdoor griller — it beats in taste, juiciness and texture the contrived technology of the most expensive restaurant equipment. No matter how tasty the megabuck meat is in the swank sticker shock steak palaces, there’s always that articificialness packaged taste that marks the indoor steak. The butteryness. The soft crust of the black topped surface of the indoor steak just does not have the nubile grizzled roughhewn flamed yield of the outdoor one-on-one grilled steak that fights your bicuspids every cillemeter.It is like a showgirl seen from a distance who looks older the closer you get. Only one whose money is easily parted would pay $50 and up for a buttery indoor steak dinner when you can do it yourself in the backyard even in 20 degree weather even in the rain – the steaks done to perfection with the juices sealed in. The chimney starter – the secret to the hot start. No more charcoal fluid needed. Take a copy of The Journal News and scrunch up the news section or the sports section in the bottom of the Chimney Starter. (Experience shows that copies of the Journal News — any Gannett paper — burn better than the New York Times which is very slow-starting) Pour in a helping of those ultimate black beauties, Kingsford charcoal briquettes into the chimney top. Fifteen minutes before the wife has the sides ready, take a wooden match to the aperatures in the base of the starter and light up the edges of the newsprint. Within 10-15 minutes you’ve got coals a firey orange red. You’re ready to outcook the pros. Eat Your Heart Out, Mr. or Ms. Professional Food Designer and Celebrity Chef! After the Griller’s wife has marinated the meat – these Stop and Shop trimmed New York Strips sizzling in the caressing deep searing heat of glowing orange briquettes – 3 minutes a side and deft turning and surgical rareness checks – the seasoned grillista simply has a feel for the meat – passed genetically down from generations of American grillers. The combination of cauldron, flavored steel grill rods coated in the char of former grillings, and perfect licking flames create the branded grillmarks that deliver the natural taste of the backyard steak – impossible to achieve for any price in the tehnologically nuanced, high tech steam tables of today. No one can do a great cut like you can, Mr. America! FEEL THE BURN! As any redblooded American Grillman will tell you when doing a steak – you can’t deliver a steak by manual or instructions. You have to feel the meat. Feel it cook. You just know its time. Every cut is not the same. The American Grillman becomes one with the meat. With eye and knowledge of the hue of red – you just know by instinct when she’s done. Cooking is slowed down by moving the meats to the side off the heat to keep the American beauties warm With the wife’s deft presentation, sweet potato fries, corn pudding, fresh beans and mushrooms without the sog of infrared glare, the Grillman’s natural art relegates the indoor steak out of the taste sweepstakes. Gentlemen, start your grils and fire up to get that taste of summer you cannot get in any indoor steakhouse no matter how much you pay. And–gas grills, are you kidding me? Only charcoal does it the American Way!
I think America can pull itself out of this temporary hiccup in the American economy and “anything-but-the-issues-politics”. as long as the American grilling tradition is handed down, the pioneer “can-do” spirit lives!
WPCNR STARS AND STRIPES. Contributed by Carl Albanese. Originally published by WPCNR May 30, 2011:
Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.
“Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.” — General Logan – May 5, 1868
We need to remember with sincere respect those who paid the price for our freedoms; we need to keep in sacred remembrance those who died serving their country. We need to never let them be forgotten. However, over the years the original meaning and spirit of Memorial Day has faded from the public consciousness.
Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day.
There is also evidence that organized women’s groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, “Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping” by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication “To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead” (Source: Duke University’s Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920).
While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it’s difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860’s tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in Gen Logan giving his official proclamation in 1868.
It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.
Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states.
The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war).
It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 – 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis’ birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.