Last weekend Husband and I attended a yearly homeowners’ association meeting for the little upstate community where we have a little condo. Ours is one of over a hundred units in a sweet riverside hamlet that we always feel like we don’t get up to visit often enough. Husband has visions of us spending our future retirement puttering around the village and enjoying lazy days watching the boats go by. When I tell him I need museums and Broadway, he reminds me there’s a Broadway running right through the center of town. From Village Hall clear down to the Sac-O-Suds.
Village Hall was actually the site of the meeting. It was just like you’d imagine it with the elected board members sitting at a long table facing a sea of residents drinking Dunkin Donuts coffee and scarfing munchkins. I personally had twelve. The Board consists of fellow condo owners working like crazy to benefit the members of our association for absolutely no pay and often no thanks. They are a terrific, dedicated group of men and women with more patience than a statue covered with pigeons. This year they were all re-elected to their current positions having run unopposed. Our community members may be difficult but we’re not stupid.
Every annual meeting has a thorny issue to be painfully dissected until the coffee runs out. Previous years’ debates have revolved around whether the pool area needs new chairs, where does the snow removal equipment get stored, and do the older buildings without security systems have to share in paying the monthly fee for the newer buildings that have them. Whoa, that was a hot topic. People were standing and shouting for that one. Politely shouting, actually, since it still wasn’t an NYC co-op meeting. Some of those are like Gladiator.
This year it was all about color. No, nothing racial. Paint color. The exterior of all the buildings is due for a painting and the Board chose a new color for everyone’s approval. For many years we’ve been kind of a russet color, which was thought to blend harmoniously with our pastoral surroundings. Well, it seems the people over at the Scenic Hudson organization consider us an eyesore. We’re highly visible from the river and apparently we look like a bunch of potatoes with trees.
You’d have thought from some of the reactions that Scenic Hudson had called our babies ugly. People were insulted. They stood there with hands raised in protest, like, maybe we WANT our babies ugly! Did Scenic Hudson ever consider that? Besides, who are they to decide what’s good-looking? They’re only the most respected non-profit dedicated to the preservation of the river and the integrity of the Hudson Valley. Shouldn’t they be out saving the snail darter or something?
The Board president graciously allowed part of her unit to be painted with the new color and she invited everyone to come see it for themselves. Husband and I stopped by her house after the meeting to privately give her our support and take in the new look coming our way this spring. It’s the most subtle and natural shade of dusky clay, kind of like driftwood. It will be beautiful. We will blend. The president was grateful for our enthusiastic approval and said she was surprised more people hadn’t come by. We weren’t. It takes time defending the right to be an eyesore.
All kinds of Artistic Expression inform Daughter’s Featured Fotos
keep moving
avoid the tentacles of government
adhd
recycled phoenix rising
fly away