March 18, 2025 James (J) by Amanda (A), with Priscilla (P)
A: Hi, this is Amanda, what’s your name?
J: James.
A: Hi James, nice to meet you.
J: Same.
A: So you were telling me that you were born and raised in the area, and you’ve been in Rosendale for how many years?
J: Almost, a little over 30 years, born and raised, grew up on West Street. We used to have the Youth Center where the old Tibet store was, and we used to have a lot of fun. We used to meet a bunch of different people. A lot of activities they’d do. They used to help you with your homework. Everything like that. We used to go on trips. They used to take us on little trips where you would go to different places. We used to go to this place in Rhinebeck where they had bumper boats. It was a great experience. You’d hang out. We had competitions for pool. We’d get trophies and everything. They didn’t have that whole win or lose. You know what I mean? If you lost, it’d make you thrive to play better. But there’s a lot of things in this town that are great.
A: Tell me what are some of the other things that you love about Rosendale or that you value here.
J: What I love about Rosendale is that it’s home. It’s a quiet little town. You get your street fest and everything. That became a beer fest. They don’t have real things [at street fest] you can do with your children because there’s a lot of parents that bring their kids and walk through. So it’s like trying to make it more family oriented with more things you can do to get outside, get kids off the computers, to play their games. I know you’ve got trails and that. Maybe try to open up to where the old ski jump used to be. Make it a historical site here. There’s a lot of things that have a lot of history and it’s just beautiful. So I think if you make it more of a family thing, you’ll get more people to come in and it will progress a lot better.
A: As a long time resident, can you tell me some of the things that you love about it? It seems like you are oriented towards kids’ stuff because you have kids?
J: I do have children, yes. But I look back and I’m like, man, I remember I used to be a kid and we used to play football. A bunch of us would be outside. We’d be active. We’d play football. And then the video games came in and that’s where we focused on. But my generation, we’d be like, all right, let’s go play football in the movie theater parking lot. And we’d play full contact on a concrete pad. But otherwise, I think it’s a great town. There’s some things that are great. It’s just getting more and more people involved. In today’s age, with kids being on video games, with parents wanting to get out, you know, like a tire swing would be great. My kid loves a tire swing, and you get all these other kids that are at the park and I’m spinning my kid on a tire swing. These kids are coming over, “hey, can I join?” “Yes, you can jump on. All right, you got to get off. It’s this one’s turn.” They just love it
A lot of people don’t talk to each other anymore. It’s just like you walk past each other like you were strangers, and it shouldn’t be like that.
A: That’s one of the things that we’re trying to do. You know, there’s a lot of new…I’m a newer person in town. I’ve been here for 10 years, you know, I didn’t grow up here. And there’s a lot of obviously newer people in the past five years.
J: Oh, there’s a lot of new people and a lot of things changed through this time.
P: Mmm, some things have.
J: No, a lot of things have.
A: And we’re trying to figure out how to have more community, talk to each other more, get together more because it seems like everyone’s in their little groups of people who’ve been here forever and then the people who’ve been here for five years and then I’m somewhere in the middle.
J: I think the way to bring a community together is to organize more family oriented things, because you get parents that on a nice day, they bring their kids to the park. So you bring your kids to the park. I bring my kids to the park. Our kids are playing together. I introduce myself to you, or you introduce yourself to me. And then we communicate and then, you know, as time goes on, we still communicate and we become friends. And then, you know, we start bringing each other’s people into the community.
A: I grew up in New Jersey and that’s how I met my first friend when I was a toddler. Our moms started talking and they were friends for many, many, many years and we had holidays together, you know?
P: I want to learn pickleball. Well, I think they can do it at the tennis court. I’m not sure, but Ron had spoken to me last year about doing a league and that would be so much fun.
J: Where the old Rosendale School is, there’s a pickleball court right over there.
P: Sweet!
A: We need to get people to do it together, like a league.
J: Well, that’s where you got to find people that are interested in these certain things. Just give it a shot, you know?
P: And a softball league.
J: We want to put this together.
P: [Ron] does one in Marbletown.
J: [In the] Summertime people are going to play softball. They have softball leagues. They have bowling leagues. You’ve got to try to get the community together, to band together. I know life sucks. You’ve got to work. You’ve got this. You’ve got bills. Everything, like, gets ahead of you. That’s where you start losing friends. It’s all reality.
A: But the fun stuff is where we come together, right?
J: That’s where, like, summertime, springtime, you get the kids. You get, like, they have the little hill over there.
P: And how about [Ron’s] concerts?
J: But if the town did, like, a little concert thing instead of him doing it, you know what I mean?
A: We did a concert in September. Were you there for the Joppenbergh Jam? We put that on, and we’re looking to do more of them this year. I just wanted to get the word out to the greater town. You know, not just people on Main Street, and not just the usual suspects. We want more people to come, you know? And I think it has to do with who we get to do the music.
J: Yeah. I work for Turco’s. He has the cave down there. We deliver to Widow Jane Whisky. The Widow Jane Whisky, they have the story behind Rosendale. I don’t see where they’re official enough to take that story just because [it was started by] a man that lived here and decided to use that story. You know, that should be Rosendale’s story. That shouldn’t be theirs down in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Or some famous…or I know that the biggest whiskey company, that they bought that company. For millions of dollars. So, they did that. And, like, isn’t Rosendale getting something out of it? You know, they took our story. And they’re running when they had no part of it.
A: That’s kind of problematic, I’d say.
J: It is to me, you know.
A: I’m sure they didn’t think of it that way, but yeah.
J: The guy did. The guy wanted to put a bunch of stuff down on my boss’s property and that and do a bunch of things.
In the winter time, do something where people can come inside and gather. And make it fairly priced, so everybody can come together and actually do things. And bring the population in, to where it improves the economy of here, of the sales and the small little businesses. And I think that would be impressive.
A: Thank you so much, James, for your thoughts.
J: You’re very welcome. I really appreciate it.
