Today I did something different: I saw a dead white guy floating face-down in Crystal Lake. I mean, usually i don’t.

Tim and i were out there because we’d just visited the Snake Hill Cemetery where, i’m proud to say, i put the padlock on the newly-built gate last week. When we pulled up in my car, there was a white city police SUV parked at the trailhead on Temple Ave., and another, unmarked, car next to it. I parked behind them. We only spent a few minutes there because Tim had to get back to Long Island, but on the way back to the car, right about in the middle of the path to the cemetery (in other words, at just about the middle of the long shore of the lake), there were two tall young men wearing black T-shirts and jeans. They were just hanging out, no fishing poles or anything, and the wording on the T-shirt one was wearing was very juvenile and 8th-grader-ish (something about, “Your girlfriend told me to tell you…”) and i figured they were just two hoods from the ‘hood, enjoying the sunny afternoon. We all said hello to one another, and one very pleasantly asked us how far up the trail we’d gone, and i said, “Just to the cemetery,” and he said he didn’t even know there was a cemetery there, but the other one did. So i started telling him all about our Jewish cemetery that we had finally cleaned up and fenced off, and they seemed greatly interested in it, its age, etc.

Then i asked them what they were doing there and Tim, always observant, said, “Genie, they’re policemen! Don’t you see their guns?!” And only then did i notice that they had police pistols on their hips. They looked at each other and one said to the other, “Is it OK if i tell them?” And the other one just shrugged and smiled and said, “OK, sure,” and so the first one said, “Well, look over there: There’s a man in the lake.”

Sure enough: There was a dead white guy with no shirt, floating face-down, near the opposite shore, and on that shore stood about 5 uniformed officers and three guys dressed in regular clothes. Then our two cops asked us if our car was the blue Civic at the trailhead, and i said yeah, and one said, “You probably better move it, because there’s gonna be a lot more cars parking there in a few minutes.”

So we ran the remaining 30 yards or so to the trailhead, but: Too late! We’d been hemmed in by about 8 cop cars, marked and unmarked. So i ran back to them again to ask them to move a car or two so we could get out, which one of them very quickly did.

Of course, i asked Tim to drive home, so i could call Doyle, the Record’s ace Newburgh reporter. Doyle thought it was very cool, and I’m sure he’ll have the whole story by the time i get to the office tonight.

For a moment there, the idea crossed my mind to not brag about how i’d seen a dead body, but that idea was – much like the white guy — dead in the water.

I have recently taken up again with an old love, Snapple.

I first tried it because I liked its ads in the 1970s and early 80s: “Made from the Best Stuff on Earth.” It seemed to be appealing to environmentalists, and touting the fact that it was healthful, in some way. And its bottles – its very heavy bottles – were made of thick glass, with pretty leaves embossed on them.

And it tasted good. I liked it.

Then in the ’90s, I guess it became a bit passé, and, not being a really big tea-drinker anyway, I sort of forgot about Snapple. In recent years I have been keen to try cool new “hip and healthy” drinks like those made by Harney & Sons, Honest Tea, Tazo, Fuze and other “green” companies. They’re all so darned expensive, though! Meanwhile, I’ve been buying Arizona-brand tea in those tall, 20-oz. cans with “99 cents” printed near the top of them. They have very pretty artwork, and flavors like “ginseng and honey.” How healthy-sounding can you get?! So I figured: Good deal, right?

Then the other day I read a report about new research on BPA, the crap they incorporate into a lot of plastics. Seems BPA-infused plastic bottles can cause cancer. This was pretty well-known; that’s why we all switched to stainless-steel water bottles a year or so ago, and are using our plastic ones as planters.

But the new research showed, depressingly, that BPA is also in most CANS, as well! Like, canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, tuna fish … you name something in my pantry, and it’s in a BPA-riddled can. Most horrifyingly, it’s also in cans of infant formula! I guess BPA in the lining of cans prevents them from rusting, thereby dramatically prolonging shelf-life, and that’s why most food companies use it. There’s one, called Eden Foods, out of Ann Arbor, Mich., that uses some kind of wax-based alternative to BPA. But other than Eden Foods products, lots of luck finding any kind of foods OR drinks that won’t kill you, on your grocers’ shelves.

So I’m listlessly gazing at the refrigerated section of my favorite gas-station/convenience store a week ago, when I notice my old pal Snapple! They still sell them in those heavy, ornate glass bottles. I hoist one out of its row and inspect the ingredients, sure I’ll see corn syrup or its high-fructose cousin. But – YAY! – I’m wrong. It’s got just filtered water, cane sugar, tea leaves, and citric acid (which I think is a good thing).

Best of all, their caps still have “Real Facts” printed on them! Among the things I have learned lately, thanks to my re-acquaintance with Snapple: Neither emus nor kangaroos can walk backwards; and Tennessee was once called “Franklin.”

Snapple: BPA-free, corn syrup-free, a wealth of information and Made from the Best Stuff on Earth.

At my local Price Chopper yesterday, i saw a “shower cleanser” that’s for, it says on the label, all bathtubs, showerheads, tub enclosures and, get this: shower curtains, too. I thought, “Oh, goodie! Now i can cleanse my shower!”

Then i read on to the instructions, where Step One (of 3) says, i swear to God: “Start with a clean, dry tub enclosure.” (Yoohoo: If my tub enclosure were clean and dry …)

i also saw a bottle of lemon juice whose list of ingredients included “artificial lemon flavoring” and, two aisles over, a bottle of dish detergent whose ingredient list included “real lemon juice.” Memo to dish-detergent manufacturer and lemon-juice bottler: Maybe you folks could profitably get together? Just saying.

Things i’ve been meaning to look up when I get a minute but always forget when I’m in front of my computer:

1. difference between “sewage” and “sewerage,” so I can show colleague I was right in changing her headline when I put it on the Web
2. whatever happened to Fred Savage, the cutie from “The Wonder Years”
3. Is Nikki Yanofsky, my new favorite jazz singer, Jewish, or what? And how can I get my younger son to marry her? He’s creeped out by the fact that she’s only 16, but I’m trying to convince him that she’s not stuck at that age, and that by the time he meets her (she’s from Montreal) and learns French so he can speak with her, she might be, like, 21. (At which point, Sam would be 26. Not a bad age difference, I say!)
4. Why do they say it’s good for the stock market when there’s high unemployment?
5. Why can’t we outlaw the buying and selling of loans? When somebody lends you money, they should not be allowed to exchange that loan for dough, nor for other people’s debts, nor to “bundle” it with other debts and sell them all together, etc. If you have a loan, the only thing you should be allowed to do is pay it off; if you don’t, the lender should be allowed to own part of any money you make for the rest of your life till you do pay it off. How is that not fair?
6. True or false: The US can “denaturalize” a naturalized citizen.

7. Whatever happened to Dion’s Belmonts, Gladys Knight’s Pips, Herman’s Hermits, Freddie’s Dreamers, Maurice Williams’ Zodiacs, Smokey Robinson’s Miracles? Did their 1960s songs make them enough money to live on? Did “oldies radio” rescue them?

8. Where is the guy who sang “Wooden Heart,” who fascinated and enchanted me by breaking out into German in the middle of the song?

9. Do we want the dollar to be “strong” or “weak” against the yen, euro, yuan, etc., and why?

10. Whatever happened to the disk jockey Lee Gray, who worked at the Albany, N.Y.-area WTRY (980 AM) in the 1960s and called himself “Beatle-Buddy” Lee Gray? He looms large in my legend because it was by calling his show within the allotted 98 seconds that I won a ticket to see the Beatles at Shea Stadium on Aug. 23, 1966 – the highlight of my life so far (no offense to my husband and offspring, whom it was a thrill marrying/delivering).

On May 12 (Wednesday), a long piece ran in the New York Times about Newburgh’s drugs/gangs/crime/violence problems. It was quite good, for the Times — nothing that the Record’s Doyle Murphy hadn’t written 148 times in the past, but a decent summary of it all. The next day, federal, state and local cops launched a HUGE sweep here, busting into houses at 6 a.m. and arresting 78 gang members on federal charges. (i teased Doyle about it: “See? When the New York Times does a story, they get results!”) But a lot of people were upset about the “negative picture” the Times story painted of Our Fair City, and i was drafted to write a “rebuttal.” Since neither the Times (“Letters to the Editor must be 150 words or less”) nor anyone else will ever run my 750-word reply, i will paste it below, lending credence to the saying that “the power of the press belongs to those who own one.” ( i guess anyone with a blog “owns one.”) Oh: To be completely tedious, i also sent it to David Shipley, the Times Op-Ed page editor. Here it is:

May 12, 2010

Ray Rivera did a good job in these pages (“In Newburgh, Gangs and Violence Reign,” May 12) of pointing out the violence in my “dilapidated” hometown of Newburgh. I know he was taking a snapshot, not producing a travelogue. But he must have shut his eyes to many of the city’s treasures in his search for the all-too-obvious evidence of gangs, crime and drugs. Many of us are wondering how he could possibly have missed:

Washington’s Headquarters, a major tourist attraction and the nation’s first state historic site;

The Karpeles Manuscript Museum, an eccentric surprise situated in an imposing former bank;

the Ritz Theater, where Sinatra played and Lucille Ball got her start in vaudeville;

the Downing Film Center, an independent, locally-owned-and-operated movie theater showing foreign and art films;

the Dutch Reform Church, a magnificent Greek-Revival-style national historic landmark;

Downing Park, designed by the landscape architects who designed New York’s Central Park and named for their mentor, Newburgh’s Andrew Jackson Downing;

Caffe Macchiato, a Zagat-rated restaurant with European charm;

the Wherehouse, offering beers from every single microbrewery in the state, as well as pub-fare lunches and dinners; and

the plethora of first-rate Peruvian, Mexican, Guatemalan, Colombian and Italian restaurants throughout the city (plus one taco cart that was featured on the Food Network).

These are just a few attractions Rivera could have at least mentioned. But most stunning was his silence on the friendliness and kindness of the city’s residents, perhaps developed through our long years of grief, or by having to communicate across cultural and linguistic barriers. Beyond talking to one mother and one former gang member, did he not stop to even ask directions? He talked about our “narrow avenues,” but failed to say that Broadway is the widest main street in America.

By the way, he seemed baffled by Newburgh’s nickname, “The 6^th Borough.” Of course, it was never intended to refer to the city’s size or density, but rather to its ethnic and racial diversity – a fact of which we are proud.

We’re also proud of our excellent schools and thriving arts community. Newburgh Free Academy routinely sends its seniors on to Ivy League colleges and universities. NFA’s physics students win the national solar-car Race Across America just about every year, in a car they designed and built themselves. And our boys’ basketball and boys’ and girls’ track teams are our pride and joy.

The Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra produces a full season of concerts in the high school’s auditorium, featuring performers whose “other jobs” are with the New York Philharmonic but who choose to live in the beautiful Hudson Valley.

Has Rivera never heard of Newburgh’s ReadNex Poetry Squad? They perform their socially-conscious form of rap all over the world, and were recently welcomed by cheering youths in South America. Our homegrown band The Morning Of is starting a nationwide tour, and Perfect Thyroid plays to standing-room-only crowds.

Local artists’ paintings, drawings and sculptures are on display at many Newburgh galleries and businesses, as well as at City Hall. Book clubs and poetry and literary societies flourish here, holding regular meetings at the top-notch Newburgh Free Library, which not only serves the city and surrounding areas with its books, e-books, videos, newspapers, magazines and DVDs but also lends laptops to those who have none. The Newburgh Actors Studio puts on experimental plays and classics that the entire community enjoys.

Perhaps most importantly, we have a collection of civic-minded, good-government groups determined to eliminate the city’s raging crime problems. Among them are the Newburgh Lyceum and the newly-formed Mothers and Others and Mothers for Upward Movement.

With our deep-water port on one of the widest stretches of the Hudson River, Newburgh still has the recreational, transportation and scenic chops that inspired Henry Hudson’s first mate in 1609 to write in his journal that this would be “a pleasant place to build a town.”

“Dilapidated?” Sure, but we’re coming back! Newburgh, named an All-American City in the mid-1950s, is like a beautiful woman of whom people say, she has “good bones.” That’s the real story of our city, and future coverage should not ignore it.

(Ms.) Genie Abrams, 32 Bay View Terrace, Newburgh, N.Y.

845-569-2075 (home); 845-764-0635 (cell)

Now that, thank the good Lord, the FBI, the ATF, the state police, the Regional Gang Task Force, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and the Newburgh City Police have captured 78 drug dealers in Thursday’s raids, i wonder what happens to all their pit bulls.

These doggies loyally guarded their drug-dens day and night, and you could see young black men walking their pit bulls on the bluff (how sweet!) while arranging deals on their cell-phones 24/7. But when they busted into 44 homes at 6 a.m. Thursday, did they take the dogs, too? The SPCA should have been part of the sweep, pulling up right behind the paddy-wagons.

(Do they have the right to stop barking ’til they hire a pit-bull lawyer? i know a few they could call.)

Sheikh Khalid Muhammad, whom the news media universally refer to as the “mastermind” of Islamic terrorism (and can’t we think of a better word than “mastermind”? It’s wrong on so many counts) has made me rethink my lifelong aversion to men shaving their chest hair.

I used to figure: You’re a man! That’s what men look like! So unless you’re gay, or have some other legitimate reason for being consumed with grooming, just leave it!

But Sheiky’s photo has been running in the paper a lot lately (I guess various officials are weighing in on where he should be tried, or something), and the only photo we seem to have of him — the same could be said for every other paper in the country, by the way — is that skanky-skeevy one of him in his white boat-neck T-shirt, with massive crowds of black curlies popping out of the top of it and crawling halfway up his neck. Even his face could use a shave, for that matter — he looks like a Newburgh cab driver after a 20-hour shift.

Anyway, we must’ve run that photo about 20 times in the past two weeks and, after much consequent thought about men shaving their chest hair, i’m thinking, y’know what? Go ahead.

i just realized why G-d made St. Patrick’s Day be right before Passover:

So you can get rid of all your beer.

Among the bits of paper piled in loose heaps on my desk, which i’ve been trying to organize for months, i find a headline ripped from the Oct. 4 paper that drew attention from the boss as a Bad Example. Needless to say, i wrote it. But i’m keeping it in case i ever get a teaching job again, because i think it’s very instructive.

The head reads, “Italy mudslide toll climbs.” There was a horrible mudslide in Italy with loss of life; this was the “second-day” story, in which rescuers had found even more bodies. The boss insisted that that headline never should have made the paper — instead, he claimed, it should have said, “Italian mudslide …”

Somebody on the desk agreed with him (there’s always one of those), saying, “Yeah, like you don’t say, ‘France soldiers’; you say, ‘FRENCH soldiers.’” The truth is, and when i run a paper, i’ll tell all the copy-editors this: It’s a matter of ear. No, you DON’T say, ‘France soldiers.’ But you DO say, ‘U.S. soldiers’; in fact, we say it all the time. And G-d knows we say, ‘Newburgh police,’ ‘Middletown festival,’ ‘Ulster officials,’ etc., multiple times in every paper.

i say — and i say it often, with thanks to John Lennon each time – ’Whatever gets you through the night.’ i would have had to come up with, in 5 7/8 inches, another way to say the same thing, or reduce the headline by about 5 points (the designers would have bounced that right back to me) to get ‘Italian’ in the place of ‘Italy.’ On deadline.

To me, an “Italian mudslide” is a dessert you’d order at a TGIFriday’s, or a drink at some bar in an Italian neighborhood in Syracuse. It would have espresso coffee in it, and Kahlua, and vanilla ice cream and brandy, and blackberry liqueur. (Wait here a minute while i retch, will you?)

There. All better. Anyway: ‘Italian mudslide’ just didn’t sound right to me, and it still doesn’t. What do you think?

Did you hear that the N.Y. Mets have hired former player Mookie Wilson as their minor-league “Baserunning Coach”?? My immediate reaction was: PLEASE RE-THINK THAT, GUYS.

There’s no way i couldn’t do that job, and i’d do it for probably a tenth the salary they’re paying Mookie (… which would no doubt quadruple my current salary: a win-win!)

OK, i could never keep a secret: Below is exactly what i would do if hired. Here, my friends, are the 3 steps that every successful Baserunning Coach must master.

1. Wait till someone hits the ball. (With the Mets, this could take a very long time.) Anyway, the moment bat meets ball, leap from your seat and charge up the dugout steps, yelling, “Run, you bastard! Run!”

2. When a hitter arrives safely at first base, that’s when you really swing into action. Of course, there’s already a first-base coach there — whom the Mets are paying WAY more than they’re paying you, but let’s not think about that. Instead, think about The Signal you and the players have set up for this very situation. The Signal consists of you, the professional Baserunning Coach, ”wiping your nose” in a secret and very clever way so as to hide the fact that you’re actually “pointing” across the field to the third-base coach — who makes more than you and the first-base coach combined, but let’s ignore that. The goal here is to remind your baserunner to watch the third-base coach, who will tell him how big a lead to take, whether and when to steal, and when and how far to run. In other words, he’s five times more important than you’ll ever be – and makes 20 times more money, but we don’t really care.

3. Go and sit down in the dugout again, looking very thoughtful and clapping your hands a few times. This makes viewers, players, and managment think you’ve done something.

And there you have it. Mookie, take notes and practice, practice, practice; you’ll get it. But meanwhile, i already have it.

So, Mets: If on second thought you realize i’d be every bit as good a Baserunning Coach as the Mookster, and quite a bit cheaper, just give me a call! I’m available.