We were watching a documentary on, of all things, Barney the Dinosaur, when I spotted something familiar. 

“Wait a second. Rewind that?” I asked my husband. 

He’d just flipped back a few seconds when my suspicions were confirmed. Steve Burns, better known to the world as the original Blue’s Clues Steve on the popular children’s TV show, was wearing an “Anti-Racist Catskills” hat. 

Falling down a Google rabbit hole later, I found confirmation that the actor lives not here in Sullivan County but only about an hour away. 

That celebrities live among us here in the Catskills is hardly a surprise. We live here, don’t we? We like it here? Why wouldn’t they. 

Celebrities, despite all attempts by gossip websites to convince us otherwise, are just like us. They eat food, go the bathroom, sleep, and do all the things that we do every day. They also love their families, worry about the state of the world, and enjoy looking out their windows at deer and eagles and all the wonders of our little corner of the world. 

They’re just humans, like us, who needed a place to live and happened to choose the pretty spectacular one that we all call home. 

Aren’t they lucky? 

Of course, there is a difference. They tend to have a lot more money than most of us who live here. 

And OK, one more difference: They have a platform, a means for getting out the word about things that are important because people want to hear what they have to say and everything from gossip rags to serious documentaries will give them opportunity to speak up and out. 

And when they use it to amplify local causes and local needs — whether it’s a wearing an Anti Racist Catskills hats on documentaries or championing fights to retain our clean water and air – we’re listening too.