Book excerpt: I was once asked the question: What did you like about growing up in the Tarrytown--Sleepy Hollow area? It wasn't so much that I liked it. At some point, as a preschooler, I just came to realize that I was a kid growing up in this New York State village. But I certainly had no inclination to move anywhere else, anytime soon. A number of us who grew up in one or both of these villages like to recall our coming-of-age through a celebration of our beloved former merchants. Sleepy Hollow has become well-known this century as a center for the observance of Halloween. It had first become famous much earlier, of course, some time after the publication of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving. But what of our first families, those having had a presence here for generations? Get ready for a slice-of-life in North Tarrytown in the second half of the last century. (This village of ours has, by now, taken back its Colonial name, Sleepy Hollow, and has been known as such for the past 25 years.) Also included is a similar glimpse of everyday life--as we lived it in Tarrytown--Sleepy Hollow's neighboring sister-village.