“Whaddya want, honey?” That familiar question has been heard around parts of White Plains and Hartsdale for over 60 years now. You can attribute the quote to Joseph Villardi, the longest-serving ice cream man in America who’s known to many of us around the city as “Joe the Ice Cream Man.”

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan declared the month of July to be National Ice Cream Month, but Joe has been serving ice cream since 1946, when he began selling Good Humor products out of a pushcart in front of Yankee Stadium.
Joe had to stop serving his beloved ice cream to his patrons for two years while he served the nation during the Korean War, but since then, he has not skipped a beat and has always delivered to his customers from April to October, seven days a week, except for the occasional rainy day.

At a time when prices for everything are at an all-time high and gas continues its march towards $5 per gallon, Joe’s prices remain reasonable. In a recent interview, Joe recalled a time when a gallon of gas was only 18 cents; he now spends about $120 every other day to fill his Good Humor truck.

He can be seen around town riding his motorcycle, or enjoying a beverage at the Lazy Boy Saloon. At age 39, he’s young as far as religious leaders go, he’s a triathlete, and he’s way into the slow food movement. It might be easy to pigeonhole him as the “cool priest in town,” but the Rev. Gawain de Leeuw, rector at St. Bartholomew’s Church, is much more. In a recent interview, he came across as a free thinker but not a free speaker; he weighs his words carefully and delivers them deliberately and without apology or obfuscation. Father Gawain, as many people know him, was born and raised in Rochester. He has been in White Plains for 10 years and at St. Bartholomew’s for seven years (he was previously curate at Grace Church). Before coming to White Plains, he served in churches in Seattle and in Korea. He received his undergraduate degree in philosophy from Oberlin College, cum laude, and his Master in Divinity degree from the University of Chicago. He received his Anglican Studies certificate from the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church.

The War and Religious Institutions
Father Gawain is active with the White Plains Religious Leaders, an interfaith group of the city’s spiritual leaders formed last year in part to weigh in on the city’s and county’s treatment of the city’s population of homeless people who were unable or unwilling to comply with county requirements for participation in Department of Social Services programs. Father Gawain said he looks forward to participating in future discussions of mutual concern, which range from the environment to homelessness, reconciliation between faiths and international politics. “We’ll talk about absolutely anything,” he said.

The group’s April meeting included discussion of responses to the war in Iraq, Father Gawain said. “The reason why there has been little popular protest is because there isn’t a draft and the cost of the war isn’t equally shared by the citizens, although we all will be paying for it,” he said.

Father Gawain has obviously put thought into his role and the weight his words carry to various audiences. Making a point to say that the group of religious leaders wants to be effective and that part of their mission is to come up with ways to achieve that goal, he added that members of the clergy don’t have the same “cultural cache” they used to, since in general they are no longer the most educated members of the community. As a clergyman, he added, he is not considered “an expert on international relations,” but he can still use “the tools in my faith and tradition that allow me to speak about war and poverty.” His role is “relational” as opposed to authoritarian, he said. “People listen to what I say because I have a relationship with them. They may disagree with me on the war in Iraq,” he added, but his words still hold weight. Views on the war are not black and white, for and against, but more nuanced, Father Gawain said. “People are confused about the war and angry about how it’s been conducted.”

When it comes to affecting war policy or changing hearts and minds, Father Gawain said houses of worship have a limited but important role to play in creating relationships. “Almost every mainline denomination and the Catholic Church came out against invading Iraq, but it didn’t seem to have much impact,” he said. “I believe the most effective thing churches can do is build relationships. Those relationships in themselves create their own authority.”

Sharing Assets
St. Bartholomew’s runs a youth program that Father Gawain said is “deliberately small” and focused on ensuring kids finish their homework “so they can go home without any anxiety.” Father Gawain said that evidence shows, and he believes, that children who don’t have time to play with each other actually have more challenges paying attention and being social with their peers, “so we want to provide a place where kids can do their homework and also have a safe place to play without being burdened by the expectations that have been imposed upon them.”

Father Gawain said he sees his church (at 82 Prospect St.) and all churches as “fundamentally voluntary and cooperative institutions.” He added that “one of our primary strengths is our physical plant, which we want to share with people in the community. We’re able to provide organizations a place for their events at less than half the cost of other institutions, because we want to support the community; that’s our job.”

Father Gawain also sees establishing “soft connections” as integral to his role and that of his church. Such connections, as described by Father Gawain, are acquaintances in the community as opposed to close friends. The health of a community depends deeply on soft connections, he said, just as it depends on close friendships and family relationships. “The church is an organization that’s not the government and not business that provides a venue for people to build these ‘soft’ relationships.”

Community-Based Agriculture
St. Bartholomew’s Community Supported Agriculture Cooperative is just one example of the church’s going beyond its own building and its own parishioners to effect change. “I believe that the practice of my faith revolves around shared meals, fellowship and hospitality,” Father Gawain said. “One aspect of God’s promise is the land’s abundance.” The cooperative has participants from Irvington, New Rochelle, Greenwich and beyond. To live ecologically, he said, is “a consequence of good stewardship.” The cooperative provides shares to participants who in turn get to buy directly from organic farmers; the produce is brought to the church the day after it is picked (for more information, visit stbartswp.dioceseny.org/node/165).

Father Gawain is interested in the slow food movement, saying we need to take more time to build relationships and to eat together.

“We live in a culture that’s too fast and too convenient,” he said, “and it’s destroying us.”    

Thirteen-year-old Richard DeMarte, a fourth-generation White Plains resident, was recently selected as one of the top six young fishermen across the United States to be a Kids All American Fishing team member and was awarded a $5,000 scholarship along with a trophy. His Web site (nyctfishing.com ) has had more than 250,000 visitors since it launched earlier this year and has become recognized as one of the premier saltwater fishing reference sites for the western Long Island Sound. Additionally, DeMarte was invited to be a featured speaker/presenter at this year’s New York Boat Show.
Richard’s fishing expertise and passion for saltwater inshore fishing was put to the test recently in an exciting fishing adventure along the east coast of Florida, where he fished for tarpon, permit, amberjack, barracuda, shark and snook. Here’s his report.

I just got back from an amazing trip where I fished the inland waterways in Stuart, Fla., and hooked into some nice nook and then headed farther south and fished some wrecks in 250 feet of water off the Miami shore as well as some nighttime fishing, which resulted in some explosive tarpon action. In Miami, after a short stop where we landed a dozen or so pinfish in the intercoastal waterway, we headed straight out to a few wrecks a few miles offshore with our guide Captain Gavet Tuttle in his 26 Andros center console. Within the first 30 minutes I was hooked into some big fish: grouper, amberjack and a monster cobia, all of which fought like freight trains.

While bringing one up from the depths I felt a strong sharp yank as a big shark—within 100 feet of the boat—snapped up the 40-pound amberjack on my line. As the sun went down my arms ached like never before...but I loved every minute of it. We then made the short run to an inlet named Government Cut, which gave me a chance to gulp down a drink and let the feeling come back in my arms...but not for too long. At Government Cut, the tarpon bite was slow at first, but as the moon climbed in the sky, the unmistakable sounds of large (very, very large) tarpon slurping down shrimp all around our boat got my blood boiling. The boat’s captain described that sound perfectly, saying it sounded like someone slamming a bowling ball down into the water right next to the boat. With a dozen or more hook-ups over the next few hours, I was fortunate enough to have extended battles with four of those tarpon that ranged in size from 70 to 120 pounds. The line screamed off the reel as they jumped and their giant sizes came into full view as I fought them to boat side in the dark. Their massive silversides lit up as they came in range of the spreader lights— a sight to behold.

At the end of the night, with all the fish safely released (except the one that was the shark’s dinner), we headed back to port by running back about 15 miles along the Miami shoreline. The ocean was dead flat and the lights along the Miami shore are burned into my memory forever...as are the extended battles I had with those monster tarpon.