It started with the Weavers’ Carnegie Hall album, a valuable resource for a young guitar player…so I was aware of Pete back in the 60’s. A decade later, I was living in Red Hook, and somehow got invited to sing and play with my friend Pete Bowers on a public sail out of Rhinecliff. I do remember that the wind died when the sun went down. Thirty years after that, my career in public education was over, and I interviewed (auditioned?) for the amazing Linda Richards in 2000, and joined the Tideline Program as a contract educator. Been lovin’ it ever since, now with Eli, the indefatigable.
Over the years, the Tideline program has grown; expanding to include venues from New York City to Coxsackie, and word of the program has spread far and wide, beyond New York State with some schools from as far away as New Jersey even opting to join us at our home location of Esopus Meadows Park. It’s a true joy to see the involvement of our participants in the hands-on learning the program affords: “This is the best field trip ever,” is a sentiment I often hear from adults as well as youngsters at the end of the day. Where else can they sing with live, up-close musicians, help pull a seine net through the river, hold and identify various species of fish, investigate aquatic macroinvertebrates, learn the rudiments of navigation, and just drink in the beauty of the majestic Mohicanituk, “the river that flows both ways”?
All of this is grown out of the sloop that Pete Seeger and friends launched almost sixty years ago. The Clearwater is the heart and soul of our program, and the crew that works on her has a huge job, a difficult job, beset by unforeseeable problems and continual maintenance.
They are owed an ocean of appreciation for what they have done and will continue to do, keeping the fight for a revived Hudson alive. I am proud to be a part of this fight, and a part of the family that is Clearwater.
About Larry:
Larry Kosofsky was born and raised in Brooklyn, where he went on to study at Brooklyn College and New York University. He spent his career as an educator, teaching Reading and Language Arts at IS 271 in Brooklyn before continuing his work at Rhinecliff Union Free School District, a residential treatment facility in Dutchess County. In 2000, Larry joined Clearwater’s Tideline Program, bringing his deep commitment to education and music to shore-based environmental learning on the Hudson River.
For almost sixty years, Clearwater has nurtured a deep and abiding love for the Hudson River because of the generosity of donors like you. Help us keep the Clearwater magic alive and the sloop sailing for the next generation.
