Alan Crawford

Some of us belong to volunteer fire departments in our Town. I’m with Cronomer Valley. All these first responders give their time to help our community with hours spent on training, equipment maintenance, and responding to the needs of people when a call comes in.

One of the tasks I’ve taken on is to document items which, while in my perspective only happened “yesterday”, are being forgotten. After Don Stillwaggon, who lived to reach 100 years old, passed away, I was given some slides to review.

In one box, I discovered four slides simply labeled “Parade New Windsor Hudson Valley 1966”, “Parade CVFD”, “Parade CVFD Ladies”, and “Parade Bob Mackey Band”. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out CVFD meant Cronomer Valley Fire Department and the year was 1966. Putting them into a viewer revealed these were definitely from a parade. Perhaps some of you were there, and just maybe, some of you marched!
During the past sixty years after these photographs were taken, community involvement has dwindled. In 1966, the fire department marched with a large marching band. Today? More and more fire departments are using “canned” marching music playing out from loudspeakers during parades.

Perhaps we had more free time in our schedules back in ’66. Perhaps we have too much on our plates now to make ends meet. We’ve observed people now commute to their place of employment creating what have some calling us a bedroom community.

Looking at these four images, you’ll see the enthusiasm and pride being displayed while these ladies and men marched and celebrated. From what I see, there was a wide range of ages. The uniforms are colorful and sharp. In the one photo, you can see the old REO fire truck CVFD had at the time. Cronomer Valley still has a 1949 Mack which is used for parades and other celebrations.

If you have time, there are a number of parades during the year in our area. Take the time and view one. You’ll see the honor, pride, and sense of community our Town has always had. Kudos to all our first responders! All our groups welcome new members and some even have cadet programs for those of the younger persuasion.