The headline on the May 31, 1945 Highland Post, which came out a day after Memorial Day was “They Die - - That We May Be Free.”

On the front page was the photos of all of the 16 Highland men, who had died in World War II. Just two weeks earlier, President Franklin Roosevelt of Hyde Park had died. He was the Commander in Chief. Highland was such a small community of about 3,500 people, which had lost so many. New Paltz had lost one or two, one of whom was the son of the president of New Paltz College, Lawrence H. van den Berg, whose name is now on the Vandenberg learning Center. He served as the college’s president from 1923 to 1944.

Shown and listed on the front page of the Highland Post were the photos of Donald DuBois, Leander DuBois, Anthony Bezzaro, Major (and Dr. ) Irving Rathgeb, William Donovan, Patsy Franciola, Lloyd Bennett, Isaac Palmateer, Enrico Picco, Irving Krom, Dominic Realmuto, Joseph DiBenedetto, Ignazio Trapani, Theron Woolsey, and Patrick Pape.

A lot of the Highland GIs at that moment were home ready to be called for the invasion of Japan, when the late Sal Tantillo said, “Harry dropped his beautiful bomb.”

For the living Highland members of the armed services the real Memorial Day was on May 30, 1946 when they saw personally all of their friends, who had survived and learned because of their absence of those, who had died.

Highland had lost a disproportionately large number of soldiers and sailors in the war. The families feared a visit from the armed services at which they were told that a family member had been killed. In the worst week in the history of the Town of Lloyd, three families were visited by the grim reaper. Isaac Palmateer’s brother, Fred Palmateer, on being told that his brother had been killed, swore to himself that he would never leave the town again. I do not think he ever did.

On memorial days for years, you would see men, with tears in their eyes, as they remembered their brothers, or in the case of Jack Mesquita, his father, who had died in the war.

Possibly the last of the living veterans from Highland has died when 94 year old Ben Bragg passed away. Highland will miss him. Ben has been reunited with his Rosalie.

Rail Trails keep evolving In Ulster County
A success in Ulster County has been its evolving rail trail system. It is now on Route 299 between Highland and New Paltz, and on the Highland side connects to the Walkway over the Hudson while in New Paltz interacts with the New Paltz Rail Trail.

The system for many is an ecological adventure. For instance the Plutarch Swamp may contain a 30,000 year old mastodon. Or you travel on trails that the Lenape Indians used 1,000 years ago to get to the Hudson River in the spring so they could lay down their seines (nets) across the river to snare fish coming up the river in the spring. At a later time the Lenapes would store them in barrels, which the Dutch sold them.

In fields along the New Paltz Rail Trail and the Wallkill River arrowheads can be found. The Indians would go to the river in search of deer.
There are many visual adventures along the rail trails.

Hamptons on the Hudson tax Issue

Every Sunday I check the New York Times Sunday real estate section for stories on the Hamptons on the Hudson, most recently I see comments of families second homes, or using my words, a getaway home.

They have ads on homes for sale and these include the amount of taxes these very expensive homes, and some are mansions, owners pay in property tax on them.

Here is a cheap one, valued at $999,000, whose owners pay $4,895 in property taxes. Then there is another, valued at $1.895 million, which had a tax bill of $8,717. Then there is a nice home, with a selling price of $1.475 million, and a tax bill of $17,759, and then one on the high tax side. It is for sale for $1.195 million with a tax bill of $21,535.

For many of us the worst day of the year is when the school tax bill is due. It is a reason that a lot of senior citizens leave the state.

School spending is the underlying cause. For the forth coming school year in Ulster County Onteora School District will be spending more than $40,000 per student, and Marlboro, Rondout and Ellenville over $30,000 per pupil, and New Paltz, Wallkill, Kingston, Saugerties and Highland at over $20,000 per pupil. Highland may be the lowest cost district in the county.

The Ulster County School Districts as a group still rank in the top 20 counties out of 3,150 counties in the United States in per pupil spending.

In 2017 Ulster County residents, who had a per capita income of $48,811, had their schools out spend on a per student basis, Fairfield County, Connecticut, whose residents had a per capita income of $110,104, and in New Jersey, Somerset, Morris, and Bergen Counties, which had per capita incomes ranging from $81,203 to $96,408.

Manhattan has the second highest per capita income of any county with a per capita income of $175,540. First is Jackson Hole, Wyoming (Teton County), with a per capita income of $233,860.Teton is tiny, population wise, the size of Plattekill.

400 Abortion Rallies
A number of Republican states in the United States have been enacting anti-abortion bills that make it illegal to have an abortion at six or eight weeks pregnancy or once a fetal heart beat is detected. There are no exceptions for rape or incest or that the birth of the baby would endanger the life of the woman. There are severe penalties for doctors by performing an abortion after the heart beat is detected.

In response there has been over 500 rallies in the United States in reaction to these laws. Women believe that white Republican men are trying to take away their reproductive rights. I am pro-choice, but a woman understands this issue 100 times better than I do because I cannot get pregnant. How do women have an opinion about white men, because they have learned this from the media and saw on television that the Alabama Senate, whose majority is all white Republican senators, voted for the heart beat bill.

The Republican leadership in Congress is concerned that the women of the United States in this November’s election will come out enforce against the Republicans and that they will come out.

At issue was in the debates at state capitols about the anti-abortion laws, it was evident that the Republican men were not listening to what the women were saying. It was as if the women did not exist. I have a feeling that a lot on angry women will be voting in November, but not for the Democrats, but against the Republicans.

Are measles a religious right?
The New York State assembly and state senate are debating whether a parent should continue to have a religious right not to have their child or children vaccinated. State Senator James Skouflis agrees with me that they do not.

But there are legislators, who are get weak-kneed about this issue.
Where in the Bible does it say that a parent has a religious right not to get their child vaccinated for measles? And for that child to endanger my family every time we have new baby in our family. I do want my family to be that one, who lost our little baby because he or she was the one in a thousand to die of the measles. The Bible may have something to say about that.