44 HOLIDAY 2013 boatingonthehudson.com
It was a beautiful August day
on the deck of the Croton Yacht
Club, where four generations of the
Kooney family assembled for an af-
ternoon lunch. The river was calm
and glass-like and reflected the
deep blue sky and lofty clouds as a
mirror image. It was an impromptu
pizza party, with the goal of getting
my 92 year young mother out of
her house on a gorgeous day. Join-
ing us was my mother’s aide, San-
dra, my wife Kathy, my daughter
Nicole and my youngest grandson,
Matteo.
As we waited for my wife Kathy
to deliver the pizza, I watched my
mother gaze out into the mirror
of beauty before her as she recon-
nected to this special place that has
meant so much to our family. That
tranquility was interrupted by a
single syllable word, “Pop”; Matteo
had arrived.
Matteo now 15 months, was intro-
duced to the river months prior and
ever since, it has been his primary
focus. Like my other two grandsons,
Colin and Jack, Matteo was “bap-
tized” in river water before his first
birthday. In each case the ritual
was simple. Pick up a rock and toss
it into the water and watch the
river do it’s magic. Matteo would
stand there for what seemed like
hours tossing one rock after an-
other, approaching the water a little
closer with each toss until he was
up to his ankles in river water and
thereby “baptized”.
Matteo quickly realized, the larger
the rock the larger the splash. My
task was to feed him rocks to throw
while holding him from going
deeper into the water. If the rocks I
was supplying were not big enough,
he would turn to look for his own-
The Fourth Generation
By Dennis Kooney
Dennis Kooney and One Year Old Grand Son Matteo
HOLIDAY 2013.indd 51
11/7/13 7:50 AM
