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Veden shares more Falls Village voices

FALLS VILLAGE — Eric Veden’s newest Falls Village video is out.

Episode 32 kicks off with Kenny Rogers, who describes himself as a permanent New York resident with a home in Falls Village.

A firefighter by profession (albeit with a law degree), Rogers came to Falls Village in 2004 and got married here, at the South Canaan Meeting House.

Rogers said he worked in the same place for 22 years. “Everything was pretty good, until 9/11.”

On that fateful day, Rogers’ truck and crew were called into action after the second plane hit the World Trade Center.

“When we got down there, the traffic was extremely compliant. Never saw anything like it.”

The firefighters who responded ahead of Rogers’ crew died. Veden asked how he felt about that.

Rogers says, “I’m alive.”

“I have so much, and so many lost everything. So I took it well. There were many people who did not take it well.”

Rachel Gall, student of astrophysics, middle school science teacher, farmer and fiddler is next, complete with dog.

She recalls her 10th grade year at a kibbutz in Israel. Not initially excited by the prospect, she was ultimately glad for the experience.

“There aren’t too many of them left,” she says. “I got to work on a tropical fish farm.”

She currently works as a middle school science teacher in New Milford.

The viewer is next taken on a mushroom foraging adventure at Adamah Farm at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center.

Mushroom expert Carly Sugar provides hands-on demonstrations and running commentary, with plenty of clear video to illustrate.

The next segment is a visit with the Falls Village Volunteer Fire Deparytment, with Michelle Hansen and Andrea Downs pitching the department’s ongoing 100th anniversary celebration and associated activities. Think small children deploying water squirting devices far superior to any squirt gun.

Episode 32 concludes with a visit with Catherine Palmer Paton, starting in her family home. In the kitchen, to be exact.

“We’d have 30 people in here.” The children would put on talent shows, and her father would say “This isn’t a gymnasium.”

“Well, it should be!”

The Falls Village videos are available for borrowing or for sale at the David M. Hunt Library and can also be seen on YouTube.

Patrick L. Sullivan
Senior Reporter
Patrick Sullivan has been a reporter for The Lakeville Journal since 2004, covering everything from town meetings to local characters and the outdoors. He grew up in Northern Virginia but spent summers on Mount Riga in Salisbury, giving him a lifelong connection to the Northwest Corner. A graduate of Denison University, Patrick is also the author of Tangled Lines, the newspapers’ popular fly-fishing column—making The Lakeville Journal, as far as anyone knows, the only newspaper in Connecticut with a regular fly-fishing columnist. He once received a fan letter from England, which he considers sufficient evidence that his work has achieved international acclaim.

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