Wearing his signature sleeveless vest and neck kerchief, Jeff Beck took the stage at a sold-out Ulster Performing Arts Center this past Tuesday. From 8:50 p.m. until nearly 10:30, the crowd listened and watched in awe, mesmerized by every note. 

After his band warmed the crowd up for a minute, Beck strutted onto the stage and picked up a gleaming white guitar. Without hesitation, he jumped headlong into an intense night of jamming. A thick diamond wristband glistened with each turn of his wrist. Beck’s thumb flicked like a hummingbird’s wing across the strings, rapidly and instinctually. He paid particular attention to the lower end of the guitar’s neck, yielding high, emotional notes that each tap of the whammy bar contorted with surgeon-like precision.

It was a haunting scene outside the Basilica Hudson Saturday evening as crowds gathered, awaiting the re-creation of Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train stop in Hudson exactly 150 years earlier.

A slow drumbeat hushed the large crowd and a group of women in white dresses began singing a solemn hymn. Another set of re-creators lit torches and the entire crowd followed the women in white, across the train tracks toward the old Dunn Warehouse building in Hudson’s riverfront park. The women in white, during the walk over, sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

It seems truer every year that you can never say for sure what you’re going to see in the Hudson River.

According to The Albany Times-Union, a herd of about 15 buffalo were spotted on Schodack Island in the river Thursday evening.

A year and a half before he died, Levon Helm and his band were about to take the stage at John Gill’s Farm outside Kingston to play a free Sunday concert—an annual tradition during Helm’s comeback years. A Pumpkin cannon launched in the distance and a hayride wagon carrying families meandered in a field beyond the stage.

My father and I stood along Route 209, since the grassy area in front of the stage was packed with people. Barbara O’Brien, Helm’s manager, announced before the show, as she sometimes did, that Levon’s voice wasn’t cooperating that day. Helm, famous for his work with The Band, had recovered from throat cancer and had managed to regain his well-known voice, though it was often touch-and-go.

It’s back to being one of the most exciting times of year on the Hudson River. Local anglers are beginning to report success in landing both herring and some Striped Bass in the area. Spend any time around the river in the coming weeks and you’re likely to see pickup trucks rumbling along the access path, fishing boats out on the water and lines extending from shore. For many in this area, the famous Hudson River Striped Bass runs is the time each year that everything else life demands nearly fades away and the first priority is getting out on the water, and often.

A real estate broker from the Hudson area may not have realized what he was about to set off when he approached the owners of the Quality Garden Center and Quality Landscaping. The broker played middle man between the property owners and Primax Properties, the developers who are hoping to build a Dollar General store on Route 9G in Germantown.

Even though the eventual decision on whether the store will be built will be for the five members of the town’s planning board to decide (and possibly the five people on the zoning board of appeals), the potential store has been a major source of debate among the town’s citizens.

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a regular series of transcribed interviews with local citizens. Many thanks to Eugene and Patricia Pielli of Germantown for their kindness in telling their story.

Where were you born?

Eugene: Both my wife and I were born in Manhattan, Mid-Manhattan. Both raised in Mid-Manhattan. I was on 56th between First and Second and my wife was on 66th between Second and Third. We met at Bloomingdale’s—I was an associate buyer and my wife was the store detective.

Such protein! So few calories! So healthy! So simple! This is another recipe that gets me warm inside—I think it’s the basil and oregano and tomatoes in a can, which are the flavors of my childhood.

I had the flu recently and started fever-dreaming about making this soup once I got my appetite back—I was in pretty desperate need of some restorative nutrients by Friday evening, and this hit the spot. Plus, it’s easy and low-maintenance, so I could lie down pretty much the whole time it was cooking. It’s basically a red sauce with lentils and kale living in it. Rustic, and classic. Yum.

More than two dozen speakers shared their river knowledge with roughly 400 people crowded in a Poughkeepsie conference room Thursday for the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s 2015 Hudson River Summit. It was the first summit since 2009 and coincided with the release of the DEC’s new State of the Hudson report.

There was lots of talk and enthusiasm, but let’s get right into the most important and concrete things discussed.