When Janet Mayer became Middleburgh village clerk in April 1973, Richard Nixon was still in the Oval Office, soldiers were just beginning to come home from the Vietnam War, Sonny and Cher were singing and telling jokes on TV and most teenagers were wearing bell bottoms.
The names of the mayors and trustees change on the door of the entrance to the Middleburgh village office but the name on the door of the clerk's office has remained the same since April 9, 1973.
Ms. Mayer, now 76, was the secretary to the business manager at Schoharie Central School when then-Mayor Garry Wilkens asked her to become village clerk to replace Doris Slater, who had resigned.
Beatrice Dyer, the town clerk at the time, recommended her for the job.
The decision was a simple one, Ms. Mayer remembered.
"It's the perfect job for me," she said sitting in her office in the front of the village hall last week. "I was there in the morning when my kids left for school and there when they got home in the afternoon. That said it all for me...I liked being home by my kids."
Mr. Wilkens was the first of nine mayors she has worked for.
Following him in office were Theresa Youmans, Larry VanDyke, Raymond Swing, Charles Slater, Art Wargo, Gary Hayes, Bill Ansel-McCabe, and Matthew Avitabile. Mayor Avitabile was born more than 13 years after Ms. Mayer became clerk.
"I don't know where the time went," Ms. Mayer said sitting in her office in the front of the village hall last week.
There have been many changes in the village since the spring of 1973.
The Main Street and Railroad Avenue housed many more businesses including a drug store, several grocery stores, a department store, and two meat markets.
"It was a thriving community," Ms. Mayer remembered.
She has dealt with many people and several different types of mayors during her tenure.
Theresa Youmans was the first woman mayor of Middleburgh from 1975 to 1977.
"That was an experience and a half," Ms. Mayer noted without elaborating too much.
Ms. Youmans was a "very, very hands on person. She was very interested in the village.
Mayor Slater was the longest tenured mayor while she was clerk.
Other mayor and board members had heir own quirks and foibles, she added.
There were a lot of stories she could not elaborate on.
"I could write a book," she said.
During the last 40 years, the village has undergone several large projects including the installation of a new sewer system and the restoration of the village pool, both in the 1980s, and the town offices leaving for the old Agway building in the 1990s.
The village had to condemn the school property behind the track and baseball field for the sewer plant, remembered Ms. Mayer, who also served on the school board in the 1980s.
The redoing of the pool was very important, Ms. Mayer added,
Having swimming lessons are extremely important in the community, she continued.
"There are so few things people can actually see for their tax dollars."
She remembered that Dr. Best cut the ribbon for the reopening of the pool. He had also cut the ribbon for the pool when it opened in the late 1960s.
The summer band concerts in front of the high school are an important long-standing tradition in the village.
"I have kept them going, completely."
Ms. Mayer played in the band when she graduated from MCS in 1954 and continued to play the clarinet in the summer band.
The concerts are a great way for "people to greet and meet. It's nostalgic. It's a tradition."
She did not like that the town offices moved in the 1990s.
The old bank which houses the village offices was left to the town and village in the 1960s.
When the town left to open its own office on Railroad Avenue, it meant that residents had to go to two places for local governments.
When the town moved, it meant "we weren't going to be able to give the same service we did...We had one-stop shopping. Now people are going back to that."
Despite the sometimes difficult issues and people, Ms. Mayer still enjoys coming to work each day.
When she does decide to retire, she will miss the people the most.
"That's why I like my job...
"I don't hate getting up and going to work each morning like a lot of people do."
She also enjoys her office in the front of the village hall.
The office was once the bank president's when it was Central National Bank. Its windows give a perfect view of the comings and goings on Main Street from the post office all the way down to the bridge.
"I'm part of everything," Ms. Mayer said looking out the window.
The village hall is very interesting, she added, housing three safes, and a dumbwaiter.
On the wall behind Ms. Mayer hangs a colorful painting of Vroman's Nose in the autumn.
Long-time teacher and resident Araxi Dutton-Palmer gave her the work, which was painted by Reverend Edginton, a former minister in the Methodist Church.
The painting has been hanging there for a long time, though not nearly as long as Ms. Mayer has been the village clerk.
Ms. Mayer, 76, knows she will not be clerk forever.
She does not know how much longer she will remain in office.
"I know pretty soon it's coming to an end. It's time."
She does not know if she is the longest tenured clerk in the state "but definitely the county."
Until she retires, Ms. Mayer remains a font of information.
Resident Mike Saccento came in Friday morning seeking the address for a former code enforcement officer he needed to contact.
Ms. Mayer had the information.
"I came here because if anybody had it, Janet did," Mr. Saccento said.