In Palisades, a number of nonegenarians are greeting advanced age with verve and good humor, and in their individual ways providing living proof of the power of engagement. Dorothy Davis, 96, and Albon Man, 94, one who writes stories and the other who tells them, both with deep roots and rich histories in our community, agreed to share with me the view from ahead.

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If you meet Roger Weisberg at a cocktail party you’ll likely not suspect he’s responsible for over thirty documentaries on some of the thorniest issues facing American families today. Why? Because he’s so…well…nice. How can someone immersed in the gritty details of poverty, drug addiction, foster care abuses, welfare reform and every possible angle of our teetering health care system be calm, seemingly well adjusted and dare I say, the antithesis of Michael Moore? Weisberg answers with a clear-eyed earnestness that may explain his success, “I can’t imagine a better job than that!”

We would like to welcome Thomas Mazziotti to our staff; he will be covering the entertainment field. Tom moved to Palisades from Prague three years ago. Prior to that he lived on River Road in Grand View, N.Y. where he won the prestigious Governor’s Award for the restoration of the former Hader Waterfall House.

Yuri Shigeura
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After my father died, I took Mom on a tour of retirement homes in the Bay Area. She would be able to go to concerts and plays, and most importantly, she would be safe, near John and me. When that didn't work, I had a separate unit built into my house in Oakland. When I expressed my concerns she maneuvered through them like the Japanese women's soccer team moving toward a goal–until I finally got it. She was going to live her life as she wanted to in her own home.

Rehearsal with Maria Callas
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Sure, “Palisades’ Got Talent,” and plenty of it. But more than a few neighbors wondered where Eugene Kohn had been hiding his when, at a Palisades Library benefit in October 2010, he sat at a piano accompanying the tenor Giuseppe Filianoti who was fresh from a recent production of Offenbach’s "Contes d’Hoffmann" at the Metropolitan Opera, and nearly blew the roof off the Community Center.

The 1886 graduation portrait of Cora keck holding her certificate for completing a full program of study at Vassar’s School of Music
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Like many of us, Greta Nettleton did not know very much about her father’s family and there were no surviving elders who could tell her their stories. Greta and her sisters lived a life without a past. And so things were until Greta’s mother moved out of the family home. In cleaning out the house, Greta and her sisters discovered a number of old trunks in the attic. In the interest of just getting the work done, the sisters suggested the trunks go to the dump, but something about the trunks spoke to Greta and she offered to take them without knowing what was in them. They sat in her house for a number of years until one day she opened one and found that her father’s grandmother, Cora Keck, had preserved diaries, scrapbooks, photographs, letters and other memorabilia for her father. He had never opened them nor had spoken about them.

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On November 3, 2011, the headlines of an article in the New York Daily News read Retired NYPD Detective Larkin, 73, Liked Fishing. The article began “William (Billy) Larkin, a retired NYPD Detective Sargeant who ran an East Bronx detective squad and was considered a legend among police bosses and locals, has died.”

Mary Tiegreen is a risk taker of sorts. In 1979, she decided to forsake the security of permanent employment for the freedom to be her own boss. Now, thirty two years later, she has never looked back. Mary grew up in Chicago. After graduating the University of Iowa with a degree in photography, she moved to London where she stayed for two years. It was off to New York City after that. “I always wanted to come to New York,” she says. “For me, itʼs the center for the arts with wonderfully creative people like Milton Glaser who I took two courses with in the early 80s.”

Our community has a number of older residents, some of whom several years ago created an informal organization called the Palis-Agers. We have been meeting several times a year, sometimes with an informational agenda, sometimes just to get together and talk. During these discussions it has become apparent that some of us have need of help from time to time, and donʼt like to ask for it.

Beatrice Agnew, former librarian of the Palisades Free Library, and Mary Berhringer, former librarian of the Blauvelt Free Library, were good friends in life. Although they are no longer with us, I have recently forged a different sort of connection between them: stained glass windows.

Bob Breer (1926-2011), artist, filmmaker and pioneer of avant-garde animation died on August 11, in his home in Tucson where he was living with his wife Kate Flax.

Robert E. Barrett, a neurologist, died on Saturday, June 25 at his home in Sparkill. He was 79. The cause was prostate cancer, his wife, Virginia, said.

Charles Shimel, who served as a trustee of the Palisades Free Library since 2004, died July 25th, when he lost a courageous battle to recover from the lung surgery he underwent last November. He died at the Friedwald Center in New City with his wife, Harriet Hyams, and his family at his side. He was 86 years old.

At any time of the day, all over Palisades, you can see people walking and running. Heaven knows in our tiny hamlet, there are very few places to go. But these people are on a jaunt to nowhere, just out to enjoy the change of seasons, the solitude of day, the beauty of our surroundings, the interaction with neighbors and yes the exercise. It is not a new phenomenon. Alice Gerard walks in the footsteps of her mother, who walked our hills daily, well into her 90’s. Then there is Cass Ludington, Jerry Lehman, Helene Powers, Shelly Cohen, Marina Harrison and Jeannie Boose, just to name a few, who walk at least several times a week while dozens more walk their dogs or push strollers.

Palisadian Kris Haberman lived and worked in Shanghai for four months this past spring, embedded in the Chinese client team, which was comprised of developers, architects, restaurateurs and financial analysts. The project was for a Chinese real estate developer who wanted to create a new style of community within China.

Frank Umbrino 1947-2011
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Frank Umbrino of Palisades was born in the Bronx on January 26, 1947, the son of a lamp maker father and a mother who worked in a sweatshop. It was during his school years that he fell deeply in love with music. While he never played an instrument, he soaked up music performed by guest musicians, many of them famous, who played in his school’s rich music program.

Ed Kalotkin at work
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Quick. What do local historian Alice Gerard and actor Bill Murray have in common? Give up? Then I’ll tell you. They have both been treated by Dr. Ed Kalotkin of Palisades Physical Therapy. Alice says he treated her after shoulder surgery without hurting her and she got better. Bill says he could not have won the Pro-Am PGA Tournament at Pebble Beach without him. And there are many others who feel the same way.

Larry Bucciarelli finds bees extremely interesting insects. He should know, he first started keeping bees when he was a kid. He learned the ins and outs from his grandfather who raised bees at his home in Fort Lee. Larry went to college at the University of Hawaii and in exchange for keeping on eye on their 70 hives (it would take a full week to extract the honey from the hives) he got free tuition. “Because it was the tropics, they produced triple the amount of honey that you would get here,” Larry says. “I would extract the honey three or four times a year.”

Leon "Lee" Drechsler
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Leon Drechsler, who moved to Palisades with his beautiful artist wife Paula and their three young children in 1958, passed away on December 10, 2011. After serving in the Navy during WWII, Leon, known as Lee to all, graduated from Pratt Institute with a certificate in Industrial Design. He and Paula first settled in New Hope, where their first child, John, was born. They ran The Contemporary Studio, a fine arts gallery representing such artists as Isamu Naguchi and George Nakashima.

Angie, 1950s
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Angie Hyde was born in Palisades in 1926 and lived here until the 50s, building a small stone house on Woods Road with her husband Lloyd Bjorklund. There was a fire at the house, and soon afterward they moved to California. Lloyd died years ago. Today Angie is in a wheelchair and lives in a nursing home. In December she returned to Palisades briefly, undertaking an odyssey across the country to see family members and some old friends.