Based on Experience
One event, two very different years
By the time you read this, the 2026 edition of the Silver Lake Experience will have passed; three days of arts, education, entertainment, and community all centered in the historic Silver Lake Institute and Camp Asbury area; the lake itself providing a shimmering backdrop.
Held every two years, I was honored to be asked to participate last time around and grateful to be invited back. As I was putting the finishing touches on my presentation, I started to reflect on how different things are now than they were then.
In August of 2024, I was working full time as a contractor in the National Comedy Center’s marketing department. I was stressed out of my mind. I know that sounds ridiculous, and that’s because it is ridiculous. My body felt it before my brain did. At first, I chalked it up to the challenge of navigating new territory, then realized it wasn’t that new at all. In time, I would learn all kinds of organizations regularly operate like newsrooms do when they’re trying to manage a breaking story. My boss’s wife would regularly tease him about having to respond to “comedy emergencies.”
The buzzy atmosphere really ramps up in August when the center hosts the annual Lucille Ball Comedy festival, typically around the Jamestown native’s birthday on August 6th.
Knowing I had already committed to the Silver Lake Experience, I was eager to find out when the festival was being held that year. They said they were still working out the dates and not to worry.
Naturally, the two events ended up happening simultaneously. I arranged to travel back and forth to honor both of my commitments, feeling what I can only describe as polite skepticism from some comedy colleagues who, it seemed clear, would never dream of leaving mid-festival. I reminded myself that I didn’t have a lot of choices; and simply communicated and prepared as best I could.
I could not prepare for everything.
As I drove back from a live television appearance in Erie, PA, I got a call from my sister. My mother was in the hospital. It wasn’t exactly serious, nothing broken or anything like that, but she was pretty weak and, having just turned 90 that June, being cooped up was not exactly doing wonders for her mood.
It was different than the phone call she placed to me in Albany when my dad went into the hospital after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer several years before.
“You should really come home,” she said then, the implication clear.
Trying to gauge things with my mom, I brought up that phone call and right away, my sister knew where I was going. “It’s not like that,” she explained.
My comedy center boss and I had talked about the challenges of aging parents. He was going through it with his father. Before I left Jamestown for the Silver Lake Experience, he stopped me and encouraged me to pack up my things and prepare to stay at home with my family instead of coming back for the rest of the festival.
“You can always come back,” he assured me, “but you should be with your mom if you want to be.”
It’s moments of kindness like this that stay with you, and I was so grateful to have his blessing to step away from the chaos and responsibilities that, if I’m honest, felt unbelievably meaningless.
As it turned out, there would be another Lucille Ball Comedy Festival, but my mother would not live to see her next birthday, let alone Lucy’s. She died about a month after the festival.
I recently came across a photo my husband took during my SLE presentation that year. I’m smiling, which is funny. I remember thinking that all I had to do was read the words in front of me, holding myself up at the podium. I remember being happy to be home, to be with my husband, to be near the lake, to be away from Jamestown, to be engaged in something other than wishing the persistent hum of dread and anticipatory grief would just go away. Ultimately, I quieted it with the gratitude I felt for having a job that allowed me to walk away for a while.
I didn’t know that Silver Lake Experience 2024 would prove to be a life raft that August, providing gentle passage from one kind of stress to another. Everything was so much lighter this year: a different life, a presentation I genuinely enjoyed more than endured; all the while reminding me that it never takes much to help people when they need it most.
This essay originally appeared in my column in the August 6, 2026 edition of the Perry Herald in Perry, NY.
another article written with dignity and grace which we desperately need now, thanks
Thanks Kate......the dealing with aging parents was particularly poignant.......love your work!