User:Claudia cashman/Stonecrest (Rhinebeck, New York)

SIGH.

I just thought what the heck, type the name of the house in and see if anything comes up.

STONECREST.

The house I grew up in, in Rhinebeck, New York.

And there it was/is: it's a "historic landmark"...Dutch Colonial architecture.

Old Post Road. My formative years. Rudy and Hilde VonSiegel, the lovely German couple who resided in the Carriage House on the back of the property...the swimming pool: the day that part of the property was dynamited to make ready the ground; all the happy times swimming; my 16th birthday party when uninvited guests arrived, with alcohol, many of them inebreated, some of them trying to throw my father into the swimming pool, some of them ransacking the refrigerator on the porch area next to the back door.

Yes, the uninvited guests were highschool students, only a year older than I was.

My father had to call the police.

I remember walking around in the dark, by the carriage house, where many of them were camped out, doing whatEVER, yelling "THANKS....THANKS ALOT"...to those who ruined my party...the party my parents planned for so carefully and kindly.

The uninvited guests also stole the steaks out of that side porch refrigerator...our July 4th dinner...my birthday is July 3rd.

STONECREST...Looking at the aerial view map I just want to reach down into the image and regain that part of my life; walk through the house I still dream about so often; maybe see our family as it used to be, in "the Stonecrest days"...see my mother and father again. They have both been gone for so long now...so long.

I went to see Stonecrest, from the outside anyway, when I was in town for my twenty year highschool reunion, which was now twenty years ago. It brought tears to my eyes, remembering all those walks from the bus up that long driveway, all those Christmases, all of that time in life lived and now so very gone. But Stonecrest remains. Historic landmark indeed. To whomever inhabits the house of my childhood, good tidings to you...tell Stonecrest I remember. Thanks.