PINE PLAINS — The Pine Plains Hose Co. is mourning the loss of one of its own this week, after the company’s chaplain, Larry Pariseau, died when his house at 41 Hoffman Road exploded on Wednesday, Oct. 13. His wife of roughly one month, Kim Dunn, was also injured in the blast.
“It’s tragic,” said Pine Plains town Councilman Matthew Zick, who heard Chaplain Larry speak at the town of Stanford’s 20th commemoration of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks this year. “He gave a very moving address. It’s heartbreaking — devastating. I know he also took in a family and that he’s a volunteer fireman.”
Chaplain Larry, 61, was among the many heroes who helped out at Ground Zero. He shared some of his gut-wrenching tales for the very first time at the Stanford 9-11 tribute this summer, of those who lost loved ones and those who made it through what was one of this nation’s darkest days. A first responder in NYC at that time, he later decided to become a chaplain after witnessing such horrors first-hand, he said.
He joined the Pine Plains Hose Co. as its chaplain and also as a volunteer firefighter when he and Dunn, 62, moved to town two years ago. Pine Plains Fire Chief Brian Walsh said Dunn just became certified as an EMT recently so she, too, could help contribute to the community.
“Together they were committed to serving the community,” he said.
Town Supervisor Darrah Cloud agreed on their benevolence as she described the couple, whom she considered friends, in the days after the explosion.
“He was a very eclectic man and a lot of fun and very funny,” she said. “He moved to town and he just volunteered for everything and came in and became a member of the church where I go. He just jumped right into town life. Not a lot of people do that but he and Kim, his wife, really did. We were grateful when he was alive for that. It was a real loss.”
The explosion
According to Walsh, the Hose Company got the call Wednesday evening at 7:30 p.m. from the 911 center. The emergency call was placed from a neighbor, said Walsh, and the “initial dispatch was there in less than one minute.
“When I arrived on scene the explosion had already happened and the fire had happened,” he said. “It hit third alarm right off the bat, which is not common. I’d never hit a third-alarm fire personally, and I’ve been in fire service for 15 years, and chief for the last six years. So far they’ve only gone up to second alarm. It was extremely intense, as well as throwing out the possible entrapment of four people who were trapped inside the structure.”
Walsh said that “it only ended up being two people who were in the residence.” They were Chaplain Larry and his wife.
Fortunately, the volunteer firefighters rescued Dunn with the help of a neighbor, but “the second unfortunately turned out to be a fatality,” said Walsh, who added “when we were called to the scene we didn’t know it was Larry’s home.”
Walsh described the multi-unit response as “larger than normal,” adding that “usually on third-alarm fires it is a bigger response.”
Fire companies from Copake, Ancram, Millerton, Millbrook, Milan and Stanfordville responded, with Tivoli on standby. Walsh said he believed Rhinebeck and Red Hook were there as well, and possibly a few others.
The Pine Plains Police Department also assisted, as did the Dutchess County Fire Investigation Division, the State Office of Fire Prevention and Control and the New York State Police.
The two-story house was completely leveled as a result of the blast and resulting fire, said Walsh. He said the family that Chaplain Larry and his wife had welcomed into their home was living in the same single residence, splitting the living space.
“It was all one home; it was one structure,” said Walsh, who wouldn’t speculate if the ongoing construction contributed to the cause of the explosion.
The investigation is ongoing at this point. In fact, although the fire was extinguished in a matter of hours, Walsh and fire investigators stayed on scene for nearly 24 hours.
“We were there until 4 p.m. Thursday, and we got the call 7:30 p.m. Wednesday,” he said. “Fire burns as fast as it’s fed with a fuel source, and it had a fuel source that broke apart, so it spread fast. Along with that time on the scene was also the investigation, and the investigation was longer than normal due to the fact that there was a fatality involved.”
Phil Amelio also lives on Hoffman Road; he was in his recliner with his four Labradors when the explosion occurred. He said he stuck his head out the window, and there was dead silence. He described the scene as “absolutely eerie” at the time.
“It’s just a shame — it’s awful. I live two houses up. We lived in that house when I was a little kid,” said Amelio. “That house had been around a long time. They’re were fixing it up. They were doing a nice job. It was so nice to see someone working on it — it’s just a tragedy.”
Walsh said that losing Chaplain Larry has hit the entire fire company hard.
“Larry was the kindest individual you’ll ever meet,” he said. “He always cared for everyone he met. If you needed anything he was there, whether it was the community or the fire service. He was just the kindest person you’d ever meet. That’s who Larry was.”
On Thursday, Oct. 14, Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro posted on social media his hopes and prayers for those affected by the fire and the entire community.
“Please pray and stand with our neighbors in Pine Plains. A family was displaced, life lost and fire company rocked. We are fortunate to have so many amazing emergency responders who worked tirelessly at this scene and so many others. Keep them all close to your heart, in your thoughts and center in your prayers.”
Dunn, who was initially transported to MidHudson Regional Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, was later sent to Westchester Medical Center.
GoFundMe page
Meanwhile, Kaitlyn Weise, the 18-year-old daughter of the family that had been taken in by Chaplain Larry and his wife, has organized a fundraiser on GoFundMe, entitled, “The collapse of two families.” As of 6:08 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 18, $56,971 had been raised of the $20,000 goal.
According to Weise’s statement, “This family was the best, allowing me and my family to stay at their fixer-upper home they were making into a little home for us. In the fire was all of my two little brothers’, my mother’s and my belongings…
“This would of been the fifth time we have moved in a little over two years… Also inside were all the memories and belongings to the amazing family that let us call their home our home. We are very confused and unsure why bad things happen to such good people.”
She said the money that is raised through GoFundMe will go to her family and to help Dunn “get everything she needs after she recovers,” as well as to make sure Chaplain Larry “gets the send off he deserves.”
Walsh said on Friday, Oct. 15, as Dunn remained hospitalized at that time, arrangements had not yet been announced for the chaplain. While he had spoken with the family about arrangements, he said “everything is in the works” and “still being kept quiet.”
NORTH EAST — Habitat for Humanity of Dutchess County will conduct a presentation on Thursday, May 9 on buying a three-bedroom affordable home to be built in the Town of North East.
The presentation will be held at the NorthEast-Millerton Library Annex at 5:30 p.m.
Any first-time home buyer interested should attend the information session.
The application for this pilot program home-buying opportunity must be made between May 1 and June 10.Minimum household income for the pilot program is $55,000 while maximum income is determined by family size.
Applications are available at the North East Town Hall.Habitat for Humanity describes itself as a nonprofit with global reach, working across the United States and in approximately 70 countries.
‘Migration Collage' by ransome
If you claim a single sobriquet as your artistic moniker, you’re already in a club with some big names, from Zendaya to Beyoncé to the mysterious Banksy. At Geary, the contemporary art gallery in Millerton founded by New Yorkers Jack Geary and Dolly Bross Geary, a new installation and painting exhibition titled “The Bitter and the Sweet” showcases the work of the artist known only as ransome — all lowercase, like the nom de plume of the late Black American social critic bell hooks.
Currently based in Rhinebeck, N.Y., ransome’s work looks farther South and farther back — to The Great Migration, when Jim Crow laws, racial segregation, and the public violence of lynching paved the way for over six million Black Americans to seek haven in northern cities, particularly New York urban areas, like Brooklyn and Baltimore. The Great Migration took place from the turn of the 20th century up through the 1970s, and ransome’s own life is a reflection of the final wave — born in North Carolina, he found a new home in his youth in New Jersey.
‘Square Quilting painting' by ransomeAlexander Wilburn
Map fragments of North Carolina feature heavily in a large collection of eight-by-eight collage and acrylic paintings, sold individually but together mounted on Geary’s wall resembling the stitched patterns on quilts, like the quilts by the late Black American artist Arlonzia Pettway. Along with artists like Annie Mae Young and Mary Lee Bendolph, Pettway was a renowned artist associated with the quilts of Gee’s Bend, generations of women in the town of Gee’s Bend, Alabama who preserved African American culture in beautiful and vibrant textile art with bold combinations of stripes, textures and colors. The influence is also wonderfully clear in ransome large-scale collages and acrylic paintings like “Square Quilt painting” on display at Geary. It’s a powerful symbol of Gee’s Bend’s legacy continuing on, even under a new artistic medium.
In the smaller works, called “Migration Collages,” painted portraits are combined with pieces of floral and pastel paper, evocative of the tradition of “Sunday Best” splendor worn in Black churches in the South. “The women elders at my Baptist church often greeted each other that way on Sunday mornings when one hat was more elaborate, colorful, or wider brimmed than another,” New York Times veteran Lena Williams wrote in her 1996 essay, “In Defense of the Church Hat.” “It was traditional to put on one’s newest finery for church, and in many historically black churches, the wearing of fancy hats by women carried both spiritual and cultural significance.”
“The Bitter and the Sweet” is on view at Geary through Sunday, June 2.
Hospitality, ease of living and just plain fun are rolled into one for those who are intrigued by the leisure-time Caravana experience at the family-owned Four Brothers Drive-in in Amenia. Tom Stefanopoulos, pictured above, highlights fun possibilities offered by Hotel Caravana.
The month-long process of unwrapping and preparing the various features at the Four Brothers Drive-In is nearing completion, and the imaginative recreational destination will be ready to open for the season on Friday, May 10.
The drive-in theater is already open, as is the Snack Shack, and the rest of the recreational features are activating one by one, soon to be offering maximum fun for the whole family.
Tom Stefanopoulos, the second generation helping to guide the Stefanopoulos family’s recreational complex, brings a deep understanding of hospitality and business sense in support of the multi-faceted enterprise, begun in the 1970s, that is now a mainstay of the town of Amenia, located on a corner in the heart of the commercial district. He paused for an interview on Friday, April 26.
Two luxury camping trailers, each with an attached wooden deck and fire pit, make up Hotel Caravana, and each offers a different fun vibe, Stefanopoulos explained. The larger of the two, offers a California lifestyle, retro to 1967, although its modern where it should be. It can sleep four.
The smaller Caravana sleeps two and offers a lifestyle of the future dating to about 2041. It’s a brand-new Airstream, Stefanopoulos noted. It also has an attached deck with firepit.
“We get a lot of New York City people,” Stefanopoulos said when asked what sorts of people are apt to be attracted to Hotel Caravana. “They want to experience the upstate life,” he added. The idea of sitting out on the deck while watching an actual drive-in movie appeals to them, as does room service offered by the restaurant.
The lobster rolls prepared by the Snack Shack, are served on brioche hot dog rolls, either Maine-style or Connecticut-style, and the lobster can be topped with caviar. Four Brothers version is praised by customers for the generous portion of lobster in each, and the price is competitive.
Caravana guests may book for a single night, or maybe two, or even longer, taking advantage of the bicycles to pedal along the nearby rail trail, a local amenity, Stefanopoulos noted.
“We make our guests feel like movie stars,” Stefanopoulos said of the hospitality. And, if they like miniature golf, it is just a few steps away from their Caravana deck.
Asked how and why the Caravana idea began, Stefanopoulos recalled that as the drive-in theater grew in popularity, people were traveling from greater distances away. The last film of the night might start at midnight, he said, so the idea grew that Four Brothers might be able to offer an accommodation to stay the night.
In addition to Caravana, Four Brothers offers an alternative of two or three tent camping sites.
Future plans may include a third Caravana, Stefanopoulos said. Also, there is a giant mastodon skeleton, presently in storage, that should be on display, he said.
“It’s pretty big,” Stefanopoulos added.
The playground might be enlarged in the coming seasons, and perhaps an old-fashioned arcade added for retro amusement.
The community that surrounds Four Brothers remains important to the Stefanopoulos family as they offer substantial summer employment opportunity. Stefanopoulos said that a goal is to contract locally for business needs, such as musical entertainment and advertising. The drive-in also schedules occasion fundraisers to benefit local organizations, including the Amenia Fire Company and area schools.
If you’ve been thinking that you have a constitutional right to happiness, you would be wrong about that. All the Constitution says is that if you are alive and free (and that is apparently enough for many, or no one would be crossing our borders), you do also have a right to take a shot at finding happiness. The actual pursuit of that is up to you, though.
But how do you get there? On a less elevated platform than that provided by the founding fathers I read, years ago, an interview with Mary Kay Ash, the founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics. Her company, based on Avon and Tupperware models, was very successful. But to be happy, she offered,, you need three things: 1) someone to love; 2) work you enjoy; and 3) something to look forward to.
Like a lot of advice — to lose weight, for example, eat less and exercise, that’s one I’ve heard a few times — this is deceptively and falsely simple. It’s pretty hard, really, to be lucky enough to enjoy your work day in/day out. And given divorce rates, it seems that someone to love can be a bit scarce on the ground, too, and so this category may need to be expanded to include whatever else you might be able to love. The last condition — something pleasing on the horizon— is, perhaps the one most able to be made to happen. Vacations on the high end, looking out the window or a good night’s sleep on the low.
What Mary Kay failed to mention is how very difficult it is to have all three of these things working for you at the same time. It’s tough. So best not to think about that too much, but instead just close our eyes and focus on what might be possible. Small small, that’s the ticket.
Based on what makes some days better for me, and on what is realistic, here’s a suggestion for a low key approach to adding an attainable, achievable something to look forward to to your life. If there’s one thing I don’t look forward to, it’s having to face an evening of standing at the sink and the stove at the end of a long day. Fast food and take-out fortunes have been made by people who figured out how to capitalize on this, to the detriment of neighborhood bank accounts everywhere. Much better to plan ahead, bothering in advance to fix something that’s good and ready to eat at the end of the day, so that all that’s needed is a quick heating up. Look at it as one step taken on the road to a happier few moments as shadows lengthen at the end of the afternoon. Works for me. Well, along with a toast to those who are with us, and to those who are not.
This recipe can be put together from items you may already have on hand. You might want to give it a try, it’s simple and good.
This stew, though served hot, is light, and fine for this still between-seasons time of year.
And, happily, you will find it to be easy and economical. If you are feeling pinched these days, you can leave out the fish and add more beans. In that case, you might want to add fish stock cubes instead of the vegetable stock cubes specified, for a bit of extra flavor. You can, of course, use fresh fish instead of frozen, but that defeats the convenience of having a pantry-available meal. Regardless, and by the way, this is more than good enough to serve to a table of friends, if you choose to do that, and no one, including the cook, will feel hard done by. Or, if it’s just you or a few at the table, make a potful, dip out what you need for a meal, and heat it in the microwave for a few minutes. Keep the rest for an easy tomorrow, it keeps well.
8-10 servings
2 or 3 TB olive oil. A neutral oil is fine. I use Berio.
2 TB unsalted butter
2 sticks celery, halved lengthwise and very finely sliced, just a bit more than paper thin
Some celery leaves from the center of the bunch, rinsed and dried
4 medium shallots, peeled and quartered, OR 1 medium onion—red or yellow—roughly chopped
4 or 5 garlic cloves (small to medium), peeled and very finely sliced. And no, it won’t taste too garlicky: it isn’t smashed or pressed, which intensifies that.
1 1/2 tsp. fennel seeds
A bunch of parsley, washed and dried. You will use the stems for the stew, the leaves for garnish. You want about 3/4 cup finely chopped parsley leaves. Medium chop the stems, 1/4” to 1/3” long.
1/2 c. dry white wine. I used what remained of a bottle; it may have been a bit more than half a cup, and had been sitting in the fridge for several weeks.
2 28-oz.cans of peeled plum tomatoes. I use Cento, and you needn’t buy the more expensive San Marzanos. With my washed hands, I take the tomatoes out of the can one by one and put them in a bowl, having removed the stem end and any stringy bits hanging from it, and any overlooked pieces of skin. Check the remaining tomato liquid for random bits of skin, too, before adding it to the bowl. All of these are indigestible, basically, and removing them improves the end product. But if you don’t care about that, just dump in the can as is. The tomatoes will need to be broken up a bit as you stir, with a wooden or silicone spatula.
One 15.5-oz. can of small white beans, rinsed and drained; Roman, flageolet, navy. I buy Goya.
One 15.5-oz. can of larger white beans, rinsed and drained. Butter beans are good, cannellini would do, too. Again, Goya.
2 cubes of vegetable stock. Mince these into small pieces before adding, they’ll dissolve more quickly.
Two pounds of frozen fish, thawed, rinsed, and cut into largish pieces, as they will break apart when cooking. Use a flaky fish, not a meaty one. I used one package of cod, and one of bay scallops, both bought on sale, which were in my freezer. The scallops (and by the way, in the past bay scallops were considered a delicacy compared to sea scallops, and were much more expensive; the reverse is true now, go figure) were very good, but all cod would be fine, too. If you’re not using fish, rinse and drain another can of beans, add that, see if one additional can is enough. This is not a thick stew, it should be a somewhat thinner, soupyish one. Add another can if you think it might be a good idea. The beans will swell as they cook, and will thicken the broth a bit; so if you’re uncertain, be conservative. You can always add more beans later.
Lemon wedges to serve, with Maldon salt and freshly ground pepper, and hot pepper flakes or oil
Melt the oil and butter in a large pan (a six or seven-quart Dutch oven, for example) over low heat. Add the celery, shallots, fennel seeds, and chopped parsley stems, with a pinch of salt. Cook slowly, stirring frequently, until the shallots and celery are very soft, but not browned at all. When they are nearly soft, add the garlic slices, being careful not to let them burn, and cook to soften. Raise the heat to medium, add the wine and let it simmer for 3 or 4 minutes, and then add the tomatoes, beans, and chopped vegetable stock cubes, which will dissolve. Add a cup of water, if things look too thick. Bring to a boil, turn down the heat, and simmer for about half an hour, stirring periodically.
Add the fish pieces, nestled into the top of the stew. Reduce the heat to low. Cover the pot and let this cook for about ten minutes, no more, until the fish is opaque and flaking. If you are using bay scallops, add them later, cook only 3 to 4 minutes. Once the fish is cooked, you can stir it in.
This should be prepared several hours ahead, so that the beans have mellowed and the seeds have softened. If serving the same day, I leave the base on the stove, covered, and reheat it slowly at dinner time. In that case, don’t add the fish until the base is hot, shortly before you’re serving it. If you have leftovers, keep the casserole in the refrigerator, and dip out and reheat only what you will need at that time.
Wrap the chopped parsley and celery leaves in waxed paper, wrap that in a damp paper towel, and wrap that loosely in plastic wrap. This will keep for several days in the refrigerator, and should be sprinkled over the stew. Serve with lemon wedges, etc., as above, along with some good bread. If you aren’t serving this to a crowd, you will have some easy evenings ahead, with very little to clean up. Cheers!
Sun all day, Rain all night? A friend once told me he’d had a perfect childhood, and this evocative short description of it was the only one offered. So peaceful and simple, and a guide.
Pamela Osborne lives in Salisbury.
