The end of a year marks the passage of time and provides us with an opportunity to reflect. At this time, I find myself thinking of the conversations I have had in the past with those who are no longer with us. Conversations, I now recall, with those we’ve lost in 2024 include:
Chatting with Jim Seward was something I would always look forward to and value. Seward would call me regularly to schedule a lunch because he cared deeply about Oneonta and wanted to know if there was anything he could do to help. Nearly every time we met, he would tell me he was born in Oneonta and went to college in Oneonta — he considered it to be his hometown. While during many of those talks I found myself asking him for help in getting state funding for a project, more often I would be looking for his advice in navigating New York state bureaucracy and politics — particularly during our Downtown Revitalization Initiative. We would sometimes laugh about how we could share the same goals despite belonging to different political parties. One year, after his re-election, he called me up to ask if I would emcee his swearing-in ceremony. I couldn’t have been more proud to do so. As Seward once said to me, “Everyone has a role to play in politics,” but that doesn’t mean we can’t be both pulling in the same direction. We could use a little more of that now.
I worked with Cheri Albrecht at Opportunities for Otsego for about eight years. Albrecht kept a small glass bulldog on her desk. The reason for it, she would tell me, was that when she wanted to get something done, nothing could stop her. She could be as stubborn as a bulldog in pursuing her goals. One of her goals was to build a shelter for the homeless here in Oneonta. It was not to be just a building to shelter people from the weather. Her vision was a home with therapists who could work with all involved members of a family along with employment counselors. I will never forget the day she called me into her office to ask me (to tell me, actually) to write grants to secure the funds that would be needed to make her vision happen. That day was Sept. 11, 2001. Thirty minutes into our meeting, someone interrupted us to say, “An airplane just hit the World Trade Center.” Albrecht made sure that our meeting would continue. One side of Albrecht, however, that most people didn’t know is that she loved a good joke — and it didn’t have to be clean. I would pass some of the funniest ones along here but I doubt The Daily Star would print them.
I joined the Oneonta Rotary Club in 1992. The club president, at that time, was Eric Wilson. I didn’t know many of the people in the club and I admit to having been a bit intimidated. I will always remember that Wilson would regularly check in with me to ask how I was doing and to help me find meaningful roles to fill in the organization. Wilson was both humble and quiet — not one to blow his own horn. While I knew he worked as the director of computer services at SUNY Oneonta, there were many accomplishments of which he never spoke. Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Wilson had a great talent and love for music — particularly show tunes. At a young age, Wilson would entertain passengers on-board a ship travelling between Brazil and New York by playing his guitar and singing songs in both English and Portuguese. He would later perform with the Catskill Choral Society and Glimmerglass Opera as well as serve as a hospital troubadour entertaining sick children. There was, however, one thing that Wilson would brag about — his daughter, Rebecca Wilson Bresee, who worked for Disney as a movie animator since 2002. Her big breakthrough came as the supervising animator for the creation of the lead character Anna in the film “Frozen”. She would then go on to be the head animator for “Frozen 2”. In a 2020 interview, Wilson Bresee said she always dreamed of animating for Disney and feels lucky that she is now living her dream. However, she would add, “My dad would say, ‘No, Becky, you’re not just lucky, you’ve worked very hard for this.’
As we move on to a new year, I look forward to taking the time to chat, over a cup of coffee, with more of our neighbors while remaining cognizant that opportunities such as these will not last forever.