The Hickory Reading Club meeting of October ninth was hosted by Jane Brand, Jackie Stamm, and Pam Waters at the Brand home in Hickory. The soups-sandwiches-sweets menu, decor of squirrels and acorns, and harvest moon helped set an autumn mood. The evening's devotional reminded listeners that human hands with abilities for work and creativity should also be used as Christ's hands, blessing and reaching out to others.
The reading program was Pam Waters's seasonal discussion of Washington Irving's classic story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," part of the collection The Sketch Book. Opening summary included the early Hudson River area, the Hudson River School of art, and a biography of Irving. The 1820 Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow story uses the awkward, superstitious, greedy, besmitten schoolmaster Ichabod Crane to offset his rustic, athletic, fighter/frolicker rival "Brom Bones" (Abraham Van Brunt) in vying for the affections of wealthy, flirtatious local beauty Katrina Van Tassel. Irving's story blends history and folklore to include real New York state locations, the multi-century international Headless Horseman character type, and real-life career military man Ichabod Crane, the antithesis of the fictional one. The story's influence, portrayed accurately or far afield, ranges from silent movies and Disney productions to poems and video games, and can (perhaps) best be shown by Tim Burton's movie Sleepy Hollow, starring Johnny Depp and Christini Ricci.
