I Have Always Depended Upon The Kindness of Strangers

Poor Blanche Dubois knew something about life and how strangers can be wonderfully kind. I can bear witness to it myself. When Hurricane Irene hit the East Coast last Fall scenic and yuppified Vermont got most of the press -- and yes, Vermont got hit hard, but it also got the repair funds which came rolling in. Upstate New York's agricultural county, Schoharie County, got bupkiss. Yet the counties' two villages were nearly wiped off the map. Go today and you can see tall trees with plastic bags hanging from the top branches -- that was how high the little Schoharie Creek rose to the almost absolute destruction of the nearby village of Schoharie. Drive through it and you find two businesses open -- a pizza place and a local dairy chain store, plus a popular restaurant that just reopened. Otherwise the village Main Street is a wasteland. "For Sale By Owner" signs appear on every other lovely old Victorian home, or so it seems. The library building is closed tight with an air of gloom hanging over the staid white building.

Move on down the road and you come to the little village of Middleburgh and the difference between the two places hits you immediately. Here the businesses that were under five feet of water on the Main Street are repainted in cheerful colors, people stroll the streets and Mrs. K's Kitchen is doing a booming business. (Mrs. K's chocolate cream pie is worth the trip!) The library has just reopened. A huge brick building. Last fall the librarian had called me to cancel my speaking engagement there. "The community room is covered in mud," she said. "We've lost thousands of books on the lower shelves." And this is where the kindness of strangers comes in. I was almost in shock after a friend took me on a tour of both villages -- I'd seen the pictures on television at the time, but I live an hour away in safe Saratoga Springs where the nearest thing to a flood is a crowd of tourists in plaid pants lining up at the Big Red Spring for a taste of the foul waters that are said to bring luck at the race track. Just in passing I sent an email to a fellow writer in California describing what I'd seen. She asked if it would help if she sent a signed copy of her book for the library. Priscilla Royal's offer was accepted, I added a few copies of my own books, and I asked other writers to contribute. Well, the response from writers from Maine to California was overwhelming. Hubby and I lugged a huge cloth bag full of books to the Middleburgh library, all signed by their authors. My writers group, the Hudson Valley Writers Guild, made a generous contribution to both libraries. (An Albany Indie bookstore is collecting funds for the Schoharie library.)

And the signed books are still coming in. I'm looking forward to a second trip to Middleburgh -- and another piece of yummy chocolate cream pie.

M. E. Kemp celebrates a successful writers conference with (l. to r.) panelist and author Susanne Alleyn; Writers Guild President Dan Wilcox; M. E. Kemp, organizer, Jack H. Rothstein, supporter and Hallie Ephron, featured speaker.