By Judy Garrison and Barbara Mellon

Music, food and friends blended to create a delightful afternoon on September 9th as the Andes Public Library celebrated its 90th Birthday. We thank all of the patrons and supporters who joined us to mark this momentous occasion. Much of the credit for the day’s success goes to volunteer Anita Lanziero, who expertly coordinated an appetizing array of refreshments, and to Peter Lederman and Jeff Ditchek, whose melodic fiddling out on the porch had a lot of feet tapping. We are grateful to have such talented folks willing to give of their time and energy for the benefit of our library. And equally we are thankful for the response to our fundraising request which will allow us to continue offering a myriad of services to our community.

Dorothy Rider, Walter Gladstone and Wayne Decker enjoy refreshments on the deck at the Library Birthday Party

At its September gathering, the Library’s Italian Circle (Circolo Italiano) showed the film Moonstruck, starring Cher, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia and Olympia Dukakis, to an enthusiastic group of 13 (at least one of whom travelled from Pennsylvania for the event!). The audience broke out spontaneously during opening credits to sing Amore along with the Dean Martin track and laughter accompanied the rest of the movie. Fresh popcorn provided by Maria Lombardo Ditchek, a delicious Italian plum cake baked by Bill Piervincenzi and wonderful torrone from Christine Chesire were welcome additions to the evening’s conviviality. At the end of the movie the group toasted “Alla Famiglia” with         Prosecco provided by Judy Garrison.

Jeff Ditchek and Peter Lederman fiddle some tunes

The Italian Circle is not a membership group, nor is Italian ethnicity or Italian language facility a requirement. What they all share is a fervor for Italian (and Italian-American) life and culture. Come once or come often. (Email Judy to be included on the monthly shout-out giving notice of the 3rd Thursday, 7-8:30 pm program: garrison@catskill.net.).

Our ability to show Moonstruck in the library was the result of two factors. First, our library now subscribes to a movie licensing service whichallows us to legally screen a wide variety of films here in the library building, and second, we were able to borrow a flatscreen TV and DVD player for the evening. If library patrons would enjoy seeing an occasional evening film, let the library staff and trustees know your opinion. Perhaps a larger screen permanent set-up could be in the library’s future enabling us to offer programs for children, teens and adults.

Speaking of movies, we recently received a donation of a number of gently used DVDs, including a “Special 007 Edition” of 7 James Bond classics and a host of A&E films. Maybe you can do a bit of paring of your own DVD collection and donate excess titles to the library to share with others as well. ~