CREATE Daily

Back on Breezy Island -Oakdale, NY

Along the shore of Great South Bay, on Long Island, hidden in dense scrub oak, is a colony of exiles. So wrote Alexander Kidd, in "Country Homes on the Connetquot River," April 1901. These colonists in question were millionaires, seeking a retreat from the hectic demands of life in New York City. And the verdant fastness they had discovered was called Oakdale. Oakdale is located in the town of Islip, some 60 miles east of New York City. As Kidd goes on to relate, the forest was not all that den

CREATE All Season Sports and Fitness

CREATE The Heartbeat of Community

Many years ago Chevrolet began an advertising campaign called "The Heartbeat of America." Obviously it was successful and the idea carries on today. The hard truth about our love affair with the frame that is designed with the combustible engine is like the Joe Camel in cigarettes. The allure and mystique is killing us. Driving back into our community it is a fact that climate change is causing both visible and invisible long term effects for our time on earth. As I walk my mountain valley prope

CREATE A CORE Weekend

CREATE Weekend is often the day that we bring community into focus with responsible, entrepreneurial ideas — for us, the greater good lives at the intersection of journalism, advertising, and music. Within this context, I have spoken with several firefighters who have been working to contain the Aspen Acres Fire, which has remained within an hour of our home and studio. Westcliffe is the dispatch area for a fire that has ravaged forest, town, and mountain. In the organizations that I represent

CREATE- The Folk Musical Life

No matter where I travel, I can be portable and integrate my words, music, and style. My wife, Jill, started Music Mountain Instruments for Travel and Camping. Here we live, work, and are in community, and we extend that wherever we travel. As we do, I work with authors as a singer-songwriter and guitarist. As a writer, producer, and host of radio shows, and as the curator of the Sound Century Academy of Recording Arts and Broadcasting, I talk to a lot of writers, singers, and communicators. Thr

CREATE Poetics in Music- A Workshop for A Musical Life

July 15, 2026, Start here. Richard: I would have loved to be a music student in the academic year 1939-40. To just be an observer as the professor began his 6 lecture series on "Poetics of Music." I was unaware of the concept until a telephone call in early March with my father Robert Beattie. I was working on an album and concert series with the Richard Beattie band, two fingerstyle guitarists, flute and winds, and a percussionist. We were doing a concert series in Denver and I wanted to be

CREATE — The Heart of the Hearth

"You know, music is like when you're getting married. Something old — traditional, something new — original, something borrowed — songs worth saving, something blue — like a good man feeling bad!" Music is never meant to be where I am up on a stage and you are out in the darkened audience. Folk music is meant to be shared across kitchen tables, in a living room, parlor, or a front porch..." — Pete Seeger (with emphasis from Richard Arnold Beattie) My earliest memories of a musical life come fro

CREATE: Music to Heal Community

"Because the World needs Great Songs" — Richard Rogers And the world needs great healing. Healing is not a cure. The cure to climate change, mental illness, parasites, pain, to loss, or to change can be found in the music. When I was standing at one big intersection of my life, a pastor told me, "There's more to your life than music." When I reflect on it, at the turn of this century, in my thoughts and in my words, what I have done and what I have failed to do — what matters is music. And alth

CREATE- A Musical Life of Healing

Richard Arnold Beattie — A Musical Life Richard Arnold Beattie’s musical journey began in the early 1970s on Long Island, where he, his brother Ronald (later Charles), and sister Barbara won the Suffolk County CYO Talent Contest and went on to win the grand prize at the Long Island 1970 talent competition mylocalpress.com. Their early fame led to an audition for The Sound of Music at Riverside Plaza, where Richard played Kurt and Barbara played Gretel, becoming part of the seven Von Trapp childr

CORE Recreation and Travel

Community Organizations for Responsible Entrepreneurship and Beattie Communications Studios are pleased to be moving forward with ventures we are sharing with our communities: 1. Beattie Communications and Studios are the authorized regional dealer for Bucket Golf for Park and Recreation Centers in the Rocky Mountain Region and together with FlingGolf will be partnering with Parks and Recreation and hosting workshops. I have a six Bucket demo that I will travel with. 2. Beattie is entering in

CREATE Daily — A Newsroom for All Generations

In the early part of this century, a critical book was written about the state of journalism called "Bias" by Bernard Goldberg. Goldberg wrote about his thirty-year career at CBS and how "media distorts the news." He also outlined remedies and how journalists could overcome bias. In the 25 years since that book was published, journalism has gone through significant growing pains — and perhaps some major pruning. Newspapers — local, national, and hybrid — have given way to citizen journalism and

CREATE- A Musical Life

Prelude- Radio airwaves You're on the air with Roger Ramsey- on the Long Island Sound. The question of the day is a Long Island historical one. Three kids from the South Shore suddenly in the limelight. They begin their musical lives at the Long Island 1970 CYO Talent contest, which begins at the parish level. Three kids from Oakdale, compete at St. Mary's in East Islip on January 24, 1970. In early 1970, Richard, Ronald and Barbara Beattie win the St. Mary's competition and move on in February

CREATE One Thing Everyone Needs

Everyone needs recreation as much as we need water! In 1953, a New England grandfather saw a need for his grandson to play ball. He went back to his shop and molded a plastic ball, put holes in it, made a long plastic thin bat, and invented a national pastime surrounding our national pastime — Wiffle Ball. Everyone needs recreation. FlingGolf Anywhere New England also produced a new take on golf. In college, a few guys who played lacrosse for their school were looking for something to do during

CORE Respondents Wildfires- Independence Day

As of 2PM on Friday, the 3rd of July, the Aspen Acres Wildfire is now increased to almost 77000 acres and evacuations for towns near Florence are in effect. Highway 67 from Florence to Wetmore is reportedly closed and anything west of Highway 67 in that stretch is on evacuation status. Since tge Federal Prison is on the east side of the highway, it is not being evacuated. Alternate route to Westcliffe is Highway 50 to Highway 69. For many years I felt that journalism needs a network of indepen

CREATE Audio Books and Music

Lowell Busenitz writes in his book, Soul Work. "My story. I was born into a family of six boys and one girl in rural Kansas, where my parents were grain and livestock farmers. By kindergarten age, I was bringing wood into the house for tomorrow's heat and helping in the garden with pulling weeds and harvesting potatoes before my playtime. My days started with my father calling up the stairs at 6 a.m. Boys, time to get up. If I was slow in waking up, my oldest brother would soon call to me, Lowel

CORE Performing Recording Arts and Broadcasting

Pete Seeger famously described Folk Music as "Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue." In the big scope of royalties, streaming, podcasting, and broadcasting, going that route in presenting music is the only way to share music. Traditional songs in the Public Domain, and Original Music are the ingredients for creative success are the best ways for a performing musician in the performing and recording of music and literature, and that is a good thing. Music- Literatu

Are You Being Served or Are You Serving Others?

"In a small town our strengths and our flaws slam together against the senses. In a small town our only cause is jam-packed into a basket for someone in need. Peripheral vision." — Richard Arnold Beattie All Generations In our bookend small towns, where one end is Silver Cliff and the other is Westcliffe, within the big Wet Mountain Valley, we are an aging population. If your community is not aging, then people are either leaving or dying. And so it is with community. If our community is not re

CORE Values

Today is Junteenth. The day of emancipation. To celebrate it's a good time to look at giving something back. We often look what our return on investment is. What about the people who were taken and stolen from their communities as slaves? What about the indigenous people who had their land stolen? And what of the land itself? Stewardship is returning the investment of the land to a lasting and richer state. A healthier state. This is a CORE Value of leadership. To CREATE Daily, in the communi

CREATE: The Spirit of 76

Writing on Trains (The Parent's of my Friends Back in High School) Down at Oakdale Station, I waited for the destination, going to the city with my friends, who were going to school at the Fashion Institute. And there were all the Wall Street Business Pursuits in their Brooks Brother’s Law-suits, going over the Journal, at 4:48 in the morning. They are the parents of my friends from High School. Change at Babylon, Change at Jamaica, Spare change from the Daily News and spare change- make or Br

CREATE A Story

When I close my eyes I can see it all again, the people, the places and stories of my friends, the same as it always was, coming home. Living here together, working arm and arm, Giving and receiving grace on the ranch and on the farm — Same as it ever was, from before I was born, Coming home as it ever was — Coming Home." — Richard Arnold Beattie, Portraits, Landscapes and Moving Sculptures Homestead Road This evening in our little towns I sing and play guitar songs that I wrote for a book tha