Hi, Folks!
I hope someone in NYC is printing out all these tributes to Adam and will give them to his son, Daniel. It has to be terribly hard to lose both of your parents (especially when they were such wonderful people) in 5 years and the prayers of our church are with Daniel at this time. If the family sets up some type of memorial to Adam, please post it here so that those of us who live outside of NYC can contribute. I also hope ACGA sets up some type of memorial fund in Adam's memory -- I can't think straight right now about what it should be, but something important should be done because Adam was a source of great support for those of us who tried to persevere in our dream of community gardening in an often-hostile "community gardens are a temporary use until someone with money put buildings on that land" world. His two laws of community gardening "Community Gardening is 50% gardening and 100% politics" and "Land Use is A Blood Sport" should be prominently displaced on the ACGA website -- forget those two laws and if you don't yet hold title or long-term lease to your community garden's land -- you WILL lose your community garden. That all said, I just took Adam's e-mail address off my Garden Update e-mail list and I can't stop crying. Most of the time, we just supported each other on the list as the "pain-in-the-ass" New Yorker and the "attytood"-filled Philadelphian. However, in 2002 when the Food Network asked me to come to NYC as the "garlic expert" for the garlic episode of "Follow That Food" Adam and Allegra couldn't have been more gracious in giving my then-fiancé and I directions on how to get to the Food Network's taping restaurant, going out to eat afterwards, showing us NYC and making sure we got to our train. Adam's graciousness in person and love of the city convinced us to make our honeymoon at ACGA's NYC conference later that year and we had a wonderful time with Adam, with the city and with fellow community gardeners. Throughout his depression, I would e-mail him to remind him that St. John's United Church of Christ Organic Community Garden WOULD NOT exist at this time without his support and advice since 2005 when everything went very, very wrong. (Currently, Housing Authority of Chester County personnel are tracking my public e-mails -- especially on this list -- so that they can sue the church for my comments!) No matter how nasty and underhanded things got, Adam had seen it before and provided helpful political advice that has keep this community garden going. I, personally, and the community garden as an entity, could not have come this far -- and have the stomach to continue -- without him. Guess I'm the only acid-tongued person left on this list! :'( I miss Adam terribly and the current fight to save St. John's United Church of Christ Organic Community Garden will be so much harder without his support. May God bless his family and may he and Allegra find peace with each other and with God. Dorene Dorene Pasekoff, Coordinator St. John's United Church of Christ Organic Community Garden and Labyrinth A mission of St. John's United Church of Christ, 315 Gay Street, Phoenixville, PA 19460 _______________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org
