{"id":2164,"date":"2026-03-25T16:14:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T16:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/?p=2164"},"modified":"2026-03-29T19:41:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T19:41:23","slug":"anthony-brendan-cashen-1935-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/anthony-brendan-cashen-1935-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Brendan Cashen 1935-2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
I always knew my stepfather Tony was a bit nuts.

He entered our lives in 1972, when he married my mother and took responsibility for raising six school-aged children and paying two expensive mortgages in Westchester County. But just two years into this arrangement, he bailed on his high-paying Manhattan job and bought a hardwood lumber company located smack-dab in the middle of the Adirondack Park. This involved commuting weekly, 5 hours in each direction, and living in a timber peg hunting cabin, two miles up a treacherous access road, that was pretty much off the grid.

One night in early 1975, we all drove up for a winter weekend to find that the tiny power line was down, and the little generator that was not much more than a lawn mower engine refused to start. So, I got to explain to my 6th-grade buddy that his ski vacation was going to feature a first night sleeping in sub-zero temperatures with no light or heat. That was a cold miserable night, and it became my touchstone tale for explaining to any new friends just what this guy Tony was capable of. \u00a0

Unfortunately, the ADK lumber industry collapsed, and so Tony moved on to many new things. But along the way he bought that little cabin, had it taken apart, moved to a nicer and more accessible location, and spruced up a bit. Importantly, it now has a (slightly) more dependable electric line and a back-up generator. For the past 50 years it has been the happiest of places for all of Tony\u2019s children and their children too.

\u00a0*** \u00a0

Fast forward to yesterday. On our planned travel day from Jersey to our ADK spot, we got the news that Tony had died. It wasn\u2019t entirely unexpected as he had been in Parkinsons decline for some time, But the timing of it coinciding with our trip was certainly poetic. We arrived at his cabin at dusk, to find the driveway covered by 4 inches of snow. But since it\u2019s downhill all the way in, we just plowed our way through it. \u00a0

We parked right outside the garage\u2026 \u00a0

We unlocked the door\u2026 \u00a0

We hit the light switch\u2026 \u00a0

Bupkis. No power. No heat. The whole lake community was dark. The line in from the main road was apparently down. \u00a0

No worries. I started up the generator. Which \u2013 hooray! \u2013 powered up a few lights in the kitchen. However \u2013 boo! \u2013 there was no juice to the thermostat. Which meant no heat. \u00a0

We headed back to the car. We were gonna have to spend the night in a hotel in town. But having come down the hill in snow meant we weren\u2019t gonna get back up it until the plow comes in the morning. \u00a0

Did I mention we had no heat? \u00a0

And did I mention the temperature was 14 degrees? \u00a0

Somewhere Tony was laughing his ass off. \u00a0

Or\u2026maybe not. Just as we were considering whether to fire up the sketchy wood stove that hasn\u2019t been cleaned out in years, there was a surge. A light or two blinked, the blue screen on the thermostat flashed, and the ancient basement furnace roared to life right under our feet. \u00a0

We unloaded the car and got busy around the house, which kept the chill off while the cabin warmed up VERY slowly. We slept under a few extra blankets. By this morning it had reached about 60 degrees. \u00a0

*** \u00a0

Life with Tony was always a somewhat risky adventure. You might find yourself getting spit at by a llama. You might find yourself swirling in the deadly undertow of a Colorado River rapid. You might get caught in gale-force headwinds while passing over Mt. Marcy in his single-engine Cessna. And you might just find yourself dancing under the stars, high on a hill, at a farm in the middle of nowhere, overlooking the Hudson River valley, when the cops show up because travelers along the Taconic Parkway four miles away saw your massive bonfire and called to report a conflagration! \u00a0

Tony created all that and much, much more. But you could always have faith that he\u2019d pull it all off. And that he\u2019d be there when you needed him. \u00a0

And somehow, last night, on his last day on this Earth, on his way out the door, Tony turned the power back on.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I always knew my stepfather Tony was a bit nuts. He entered our lives in 1972, when he married my mother and took responsibility for raising six school-aged children and paying two expensive mortgages in Westchester County. But just two years into this arrangement, he bailed on his high-paying Manhattan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ABC.jpeg?fit=819%2C1024&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2164"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2169,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2164\/revisions\/2169"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}