Hoosick Falls Home

Helen arrived on the redeye out of Dallas this past Thursday. This was our, now annual, Just Us Holiday Extravaganza. Last year we visited Hoosick Falls, New York -- the ancestral Maderer home, spent time in the Berkshires and here at home on the beaches. This year we again voyaged to Hoosick Falls but this time, it was to scope out her soon to be new home. Yep, she’s moving into the house where Vati and Mary Ann grew up, the house where Grandpa had his doctor’s office, the home Grandma made beautiful, the place of so many of my happy childhood memories.

Before Helen, husband John and the most awesome kiddles can move in a plumber needs to perform his/her extra special household pipeline magic.  Yeah, the joint needs more work than just that but this bit is a pre-move in MUST.

Here’s the dealie though -- plumbers, in this rural, out of the way area, are scarcer, harder to find than cool heads in Arden Wood.

While lunching at Farrara's Pub & Grill on Classic Street we struck up a conversation with the very nice barkeep, Ali (who’s studying speech pathology at Saint Rose College in Albany AND knows ASL!!!). She didn’t know any plumbers but opened the question up to the rest of the joint for us. Incredibly, in a town this small, in a pub full of folk NOone had a plumber to recommend. There was, seemingly, much grumbling and cursing about the pipe pros they’ve known and loathed. Apparently, up that way, plumbers command $100 just to show up at your door. Not fixing, not diagnosing, JUST for making an appearance.

Mega sigh.

Two recession proof, you-can-work-anywhere-you-want professions -- nursing and plumbing. Nursing, for folks with mature, fabulous social skills and a caring manner. Plumbing for the rest of us. And you should really know yourself well enough in order to choose the smartest path for yourself as well as the rest of humanity.

A fellow flute player, a girl I knew in junior high school, went on, like me, to study music. Unlike me she was tremendously gifted and focused. Her goal was the concert stage. She even studied with Jean Pierre Rampal.

We were 23, at last connection. She was finishing up her undergraduate degree, still playing, still immersed in music but her plans had morphed radically. The competition for orchestra positions was deemed too fierce and the pay oppressively poor. She’d decided to become a plumber. With that skill she could support herself in style anywhere from Xanadu to Caracas or any tiny hamlet in between.

Sadly, Julie the flute playing plumber and I fell out of touch so I can’t hire her.

 In any case, I introduced Helen to her new next door neighbors -- Tom and Nordica. We popped into the big, beautifully stained glassed Catholic church (where the family will likely attend mass) and walked around town a bit. Then we hopped in the car, heading east over the gorgeous Hogback Mountains to Brattleboro, Vermont for a couple of days of art gallery hopping, wine tasting and SHOPPING!