A Few Things I’ve Learned as a Columnist These Past Three Years

By Michael Gold

I’ve enjoyed the privilege of having a three-year conversation with our community. But I now have to take my leave of you, due to some health issues that require attention.

A newspaper columnist gets a great education just from meeting people with all sorts of experiences and troubles.

I think of the Mount Pleasant homeowners living downhill from Summit Estates, who have suffered floods from the torrential rains that our area is seeing as a result of climate change.

I think of the 700 acres of trees Mount Pleasant lost from 2001 to 2016, because of development. As Mount Pleasant continues to build more homes, we run the risk of losing some of the unique qualities that make Westchester a great place to live.

Residents should be asking hard questions about whether we want big parts of Westchester to turn into Long Island, which has become a nightmare, with housing developments stacked right on top of each other and motor vehicles everywhere.

Is it really the best thing for Westchester to cut down environmentally valuable trees, with the shade, rain-absorbing services and beauty they provide so we can get more houses? I understand Mount Pleasant wants the tax revenue, but there is much to lose in this exchange.

I learned that Putnam County’s government created a climate smart task force last April to try to mitigate the damage from climate change, which makes me question why Mount Pleasant, which has installed solar canopies in the Town Hall and community center parking lots, hasn’t done the same thing.

I think of the people I met at CURE100, who developed software available on their website for each household to track their carbon emissions and help figure out how to cut them, by purchasing an electric car, installing solar panels and buying heat pumps, for example.

I learned that New York has banned fracking but is still using fracked gas coming from Pennsylvania. The natural gas we’re using is the largest source of greenhouse gases in the state.

I got to talk to a number of land preservation proponents, who taught me of the value of wild land, for both people and animals. I took a tour of the Putnam Land Trust’s Ice Pond property, which provides a panorama of ridgelines and spectacular boulder fields, the residue of the glaciers that covered the land thousands of years ago before retreating, keeping us in touch with the heritage of the area.

I learned the importance of not pouring cooking oil down your drain from Dr. Diana Williams, co-founder of the Environmental Leaders of Color (ELOC). Cooking oil can clog drains and local water pipes, which contributes to flooding during torrential rainstorms.

Meeting and talking with police officers gave me a perspective on the lightning-fast decisions they often have to make. I still think about the explosive firework that a kid threw at Sleepy Hollow police Officer Jeffrey Muendel’s head on July 4, 2022. It caused him skeletal, sensory and neurological damage. I think of how the kid’s violent recklessness wrecked his own life, too.

I’ve met a few war veterans as well, who proudly served their country. They helped educate me on what it’s like to go onto a battlefield. John Fratangelo lost his cousin, also his best friend, in Vietnam. John was seriously wounded as he tried to rescue a fellow soldier, winning a Silver Star and a Purple Heart. Pat Selleck ran ammo to the front lines when his buddies were in grave danger from North Vietnamese Army troops at Ia Drang, earning a Bronze Star.

I talked to Korean war vet Don Rosaforte. Of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Don said, “Everybody’s getting killed, for what? A piece of ground. They could spend the money on education, the homeless, medical research, the mentally ill, Mother Earth. Putin is sitting on his behind and all these boys are getting killed.”

On a lighter note, I learned about that thing called hope, in the story of Cortlandt Manor Girl Scout Troop 2154. They painted a “Be The ‘I’ In Kind” mural in 2023, on the wall of the storage shed at a local community center playground.

The kids reminded me that we all can still offer up “the better angels of our nature,” as Abraham Lincoln said.

One of the advantages of talking to so many people as I have is that you listen to different points of view, unfiltered by the internet. I’m dealing with real, breathing people across the table from me at the diner.

My experiences reinforce for me the value of newspapers. Reading is learning. A newspaper is a far more involving experience than watching TV news. Newspapers challenge us. They help keep us talking to one another.

I’ll still be meeting you in The Examiner, as a reader.

Michael Gold has had articles published in the New York Daily News, the Albany Times Union and other newspapers, and The Hardy Society Journal, a British literary publication.

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