Best of all, Amenia has Ann Linden

Amenia’s Community Day, held in conjunction with the Indian Rock Schoolhouse Picnic, is really something special. It brings out the best in our region’s residents and encourages them to share their time, their thoughts, their gifts and their good will with their neighbors.

It’s a throwback to how one imagines life used to be, back in the day when men and women invited their neighbors to backyard barbecues for an “evening out� and when kids ran together in potato sacks for entertainment, versus the high-tech and impersonal e-world everyone seems so content to operate in these days. It seems, in fact, to personify an idyllic version of life in 2010 — with people still caring about their world, however small, and those who live in it.

But pulling off the day is no small feat. The attention that’s paid to the minutest of details — the pie-eating contests, the raffles and the games, coordinating with the Lions Club for the diabetes walkathon that started the day and then the fire companies for the ball game that wound things up, those were all lined up by the very active and imaginative mind of picnic planner and unofficial historian Ann Linden. If you ask her how she does it all, it’s likely you will be “pshawed,� and told, “I don’t do anything special.� Don’t believe her for a second.

For years Linden has been organizing Amenia’s Community Day events and the Indian Rock Schoolhouse picnics, as well as other programs at the beloved locale.

And then there are the archives. Linden has carefully archived photos, articles, stories and other treasures recording the town’s history — all because she knows of its importance and because she has a genuine love for all things historical. Years ago while running her sign shop, The Red Hen, she was like a magnet for locals sharing their stories and memorabilia, which she diligently recorded and saved in the local archives. Thanks to her there have also been a number of books published preserving Amenia’s history. Things like that just happen to get accomplished around the Amenia mainstay, whether it’s due to her diligence, her tenacity or maybe her energy, we may never know.

Community Day and the Indian Rock Schoolhouse Picnic exemplify Linden’s extraordinary success in bringing history alive in a town very lucky to count her among its residents. Are there others who have contributed? Absolutely. And we owe them all a thank you, too. But it’s under Ann Linden’s guidance, and with her unbridled enthusiasm, that events such as Community Day and the Indian Rock Schoolhouse Picnic have come to define Amenia as a community proud of its roots, knowledgeable of its history and excited about its future.

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