The closing event for Great Neck Reads, the peninsula’s first community-wide reading program, was held on Sunday, May 31 at the Main building of the Great Neck Library. Winners of the teen and adult Great Neck Reads Writing Contests were announced, and their work was read aloud by actor/narrator David Aubrey. The winner of the teen contest was Alexander Nero, who won for an untitled poem, and the winner of the adult contest was Diane Coffield, who was honored for her short story, Tredwell. Mr. Nero and Ms. Coffield both received signed copies of Chris Bohjalian’s latest book, Skeletons at the Feast, as prizes. Other parts of this event were a dramatic reading from The Double Bind, the 2009 Great Neck Reads title, given by David Aubrey, a review of Great Neck Reads highlights by librarian Kathleen Cotter, and a group discussion of next year’s Great Neck Reads.
The Great Neck Library and its community co-sponsors hope to make Great Neck Reads an annual event. Residents are encouraged to contact the library with their ideas for Great Neck Reads 2010, including book suggestions, comments on this year’s program, and thoughts on what next year’s program should include.
As part of the Great Neck Reads program, the Great Neck Library sponsored a food drive to benefit Island Harvest, a Long Island hunger relief organization. We are proud to announce that 450 pounds of donated food was collected to help out neighbors who are in need. Thank you for making this a success. Other highlights of this year’s Great Neck Reads were an exciting and entertaining appearance by author Chris Bohjalian at the library, attended by an admiring crowd, a Gatsby Boat Tour, presented by the Great Neck Park District, numerous library book group discussions, and weekly readings from The Double Bind.
Great Neck Reads would not have been possible without the help of its co-sponsors, The Great Neck Library, Barnes & Noble Manhasset, The Great Neck Park District, The Village of Great Neck Plaza, PATV, The Great Neck Arts Center, The Adult Program, The Great Neck Senior Center, and The North Shore Community Arts Council. Community organizations that wish to help out and co-sponsor next year’s Great Neck Reads are urged to contact the library.
GREAT NECK READS
WRITING CONTEST WINNING ENTRIES
UNTITLED
by Alexander Nero
I tell a tale of fortune, and of mischief, as they say.
A blazing wind wraps fate in strife!
All silent was the bishop's way...
He writes his king to will and pray,
His knight to scribe epistles by his fyfe.
I tell a tale of fortune, and of mischief, as they say.
"Vainglorious herald! Alack this day!
"Your head shall sit upon the Emperor's knife!"
All silent was the bishop's way...
"Vituperative bishop--what foolhardies you may?
"I take the souls of rooks; of a queen and troops such life."
I tell a tale of fortune, and of mischief, as they say.
But the sly priest pondered his stay.
Here he'd move, tho' leave the bodies about and rife.
All silent was the bishop's way...
The devil won this round, and as they say,
The bishop took indulgence for his wife.
I tell a tale of fortune, and of mischief, as they say.
All silent was the bishop's way...
TREDWELL
by Diane Coffield
I had no interest in history when I was young--not mine or anyone else’s. Who cared what long-dead people did centuries ago, whether they fought wars, discovered countries or painted animals on the walls of caves? I wanted to live now, to experience life in the present. I never questioned why my parents were strangely silent about their own past lives because it didn’t even occur to me that they or their ancestors had past lives.
Perhaps history should be taught to the elderly instead. For it’s only then that we begin to understand what it means, why it’s important. It’s only then that the dead begin to speak to us.
They say we are the only living creatures who know we’re going to die. I say the older you get, the more dead people you know.
I picture the cemetery scene in “Our Town,” the dead sitting in chairs, calm, accepting, not wanting to return, observing the living, talking among themselves, content with their fate. But amongst them are a few who hold regrets, who want to go back and finish something or tell someone something or just relive one happy moment. They are often the ones who have died young or at least, before they were ready.
These dead are in your town, too, hovering around, reminding you of your good fortune, whispering lucky you, you’re alive, you’re not me, the gregarious Margaret, suddenly dead in her early 50s from another asthma attack, buried in a far off cemetery, isolated, with no other graves around. I want someone to talk to.
Or the angelic Sarah, insisting to her final day that she is in perfect health, gasping for breath as one of her aides pushes an oxygen tube into her nose. Don’t take me yet.
Or the brilliant musician Jeremy, realizing too late, at the last possible moment of course, that a lifetime of drugs, cigarettes and alcohol will end his life just before he can complete his last album. Can’t I have a few more days?
It’s easy to care about these people, the dead you knew, had lunch with, talked to on the phone, gave gifts to, and maybe even loved. It’s easy to hold on to them, to take them with you when you jog or see a movie or feel lonely, or want to see them again in your dreams.
Then there are the celebrity dead, the ones who lived in your town. Lew Lehr, the once-popular comedian, known for his line, “Monkeys is the cwaziest people,” the man my father befriended after recognizing him at a village grocery. P.G. Wodehouse, the writer my philosophy teacher said had created a new form of literature. George M. Cohan, actor and songwriter, whose house was saved from demolition, even while much of his property was grabbed by developers. They, too, are spirits in my town, even if more and more people have forgotten their names.
And finally, there are the ones you don’t know. The forgotten ones, forever linked to you in another way, through your genes, ethnicity, religion, or home town. They also call out, remember me, visit me, talk to me. And don’t let them get away with what they’ve done to us here, disturbing us after we were laid to rest.
Two histories. Your small one, family and friends, and your large one, the world around you, concentrated in your town, the unknown people who created the place you now love. You begin to think about them, to care about them. It happens all by itself.
At the circular end of an upscale street in an affluent community, the place where I grew up, is something you wouldn’t even notice. A tree in the middle of a grass-covered mound, the grass nicely cut and maintained by the village. Just another block in paradise. You drive around and leave, not noticing anything.
But once it was a family cemetery. Called the Tredwell Burying-Ground in a 1905 description published by The Long Island Historical Society. William A. Robbins lists inscriptions on the 43 tombstones he found there, noting it was “the property of William Allen, which burying ground is referred to as being reserved in a deed of conveyance from Benjamin Tredwell, physician to David Allen, dated 1 May 1792...”
Scan the list of stones he records and you find dates as far back as 1738: “Here lyes the Body of Phebe Tredwell, wife of Benjamin Tredwell and Daughter to Mr. Epenetus/Platt att Huntington, Dyed January 18th, 1738, aged 28 years, 4 months and 18 days.” And many more from the 1700s. Here, in my home, where I was once a child running around in the streets with my friends, knowing nothing of death or an ancient cemetery so nearby, forgotten and almost obliterated.
Hundreds of years ago, they died, one by one as they do today, buried in the ground to be remembered and honored forever, trusting us to listen to them, visit them, respect them, and ponder their lives. Dead people like Doctor Richard Tredwell, who died at 41 in 1811; Miriam Woolley, wife of Henry Woolley, who died at 61 in 1806; and Peggy Kissam, wife of Benjamin T. Kissam, who died at just 20 in 1814.
I returned to look again at that mound of earth, which had seemed like nothing more than that when I drove past it, searching, that first time, so many years ago. This time, parking my car, I got out and climbed up the hill, hoping that people in the waterfront homes wouldn’t see me and think I was trespassing.
Bits of stone poked out of the earth, or perhaps more accurately, poked in, since it was clear they had been buried by time. I could read a few words here and there, but where were the others? Under the ground, no doubt, covered over. Maybe plowed together years ago when these houses were built, built on a cemetery.
Was it indecision or a sudden pang of guilt that led them to leave these bits of stone here? Why didn’t anyone know about it? Why hadn’t it been preserved, a place to honor those who had come so long before us and expected to lie here for all time? It bothered me.
My home town has many villages and the village this cemetery lay in was not mine. I walked into their building, carrying documentation about the cemetery, hoping someone would tell me more, hoping, of course, that they would do something to restore it.
The people in the office said they knew nothing about it and referred me to their village historian. I reached him on the phone and mentioned the cemetery. “Oh yes,” he replied, “I used to ride my bicycle there when I was a child.” Not just any child, as I later discovered, but the child of the family that owned the prime property in my town, a huge piece of land at the point, protected by a warning sign to those who might think of driving in to see it.
(I had been there as a teenager, helping take people’s coats for a charity event in the waterfront pavilion. It was a rainy day and all the coats and umbrellas were soaking, but I was so in awe of the place that I didn’t even mind getting wet. Years later, I wanted to see it again, but had no way to do it.)
The village historian told me to send him the documentation and he would ask at the next village board meeting if something could be done about the cemetery. I was grateful. But my subsequent phone calls were fruitless--he never called back--so finally, I gave up.
He has since died a rather horrible death. I have since realized that no one will do anything about it because after all, the cemetery is on a residential street and no one, including me, wants the curious to drive to your secluded cul-de-sac to see what almost isn’t there anymore. And yes, the village did put a plaque on the mound and when my friend and I visited not too long ago, there were still a few tips of the ancient monuments sticking up.
The plaque reads in part, “This graveyard was originally one acre in size and part of the 99 acre John Kissam Farm purchased in 1678.” It says that from the late 17th century through the early 19th century, approximately 50 members of the Kissam, Tredwell and related families were buried there. It adds that the families were prominent in the medical and legal professions on Long Island and in New York City and had also played significant roles on both sides in the American Revolution.
I stood there, silent and motionless, waiting to hear something from them, if they could still speak, or to find out if they, too, had given up. After a while, I heard a few small whispers, too low for me to understand the words.
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