Is that right?

According to McKeon, it wasn't much of a meeting.

And I didn't know this... you know, something like this could happen where two people from Argentina could just show up at town hall, request to speak to the supervisor, um, and then have a meeting with him.

It sounds like it was a very short meeting, but I guess these two visitors were somehow involved or they said they were involved with this property.

And they asked McKeon, according to him, how far it had advanced.

And McKeon was like, what do you mean? It hasn't advanced at all.

Which is a little strange that, you know, if you're... involved in a project that you're asking the supervisor how far the project has advanced when you haven't submitted a planning board application, you haven't gone through any of the town official processes, you haven't communicated with the supervisor or any other town officials in two years.

What did you find about his record of delivering on the projects that he promotes, including elsewhere in the Hudson Valley, but also elsewhere in the country?

How many people were there? Lay the land for us.

Yeah.

So this took place at the Pleasant Valley Town Hall.

The parking lot was completely packed, very difficult to find parking anywhere in the spots.

A lot of people had to park on the grass and whatnot.

And then there was a massive line before the forum because they were doing security screenings one by one to go into the town hall.

So it was just a massive, massive event.

What do you think will be the process and how will that unfold to get that $500,000 reallocated to other priorities?

How did this one-time event then become an annual tradition?

Yes.

So as you said, hardscrabble was first conceived as a one-time celebration tied to the nation's bicentennial commemorating the 250th birthday of Edward Benson, who was the first attorney general of New York and a founding father who lived in Red Hook.

The event featured store owners wearing colonial costumes, students installing period-appropriate street signs, and exhibits about Red Hook's history.

And I actually found an excerpt from the Pine Plains Register Herald from 1975.

It says, quote, the clocks were turned back 200 years as flocks of local people and out-of-towners strolled down the walks between Church Street and the Masonic Hall shopkeepers appeared in 18th century garb.

And soon after that first event, the town voted to make the second Saturday in June Heart Scrabble Day.

And that's when music started to become more of a central part of the festival, right? So what did you learn, Athan, about how that transformation into more of a music festival happened?