55 degrees and WET! Not a good day for sports, but yesterday was fine:
Waterville's Varsity Football Team played it's first home game on the super new artificial turf at Brothertown Stadium, last night, and celebrated with a 39 - 13 win over Rome Catholic!
With the weather's cooperation, the D.O.T. and TIOGA lost no time in designing, digging, forming and paving the sidewalks at the corner of Sanger Avenue and Park Place.
Amanda Briggs held "Story Hour" out in the Children's Garden at the Waterville Public Library while, inside, some not-terribly-fearsome scarecrows guarded the entrance to the Book Room.
Out on Main Street............
.......... the new steps in front of the Uptown Salon were unveiled and pavers were being set in place next to the newly-graded section of sidewalk at the front door of the Bank building.
I had a chance to speak with Mayor Jim Younes for a few minutes - I wanted to tell him how grand the new Buell Avenue Sidewalk is!! - and he told me three things that readers will be interested in knowing:
- 1. There WILL be a crosswalk indicated on West Main Street, probably at the "bulb-out" in front of the medical center. Not "accessible," but at least a crosswalk!
- 2. There will be some changes made in the curbing in front of Morgan's Hardware --- you know, the place where so many tires have lost battles with the granite curbing!
- 3. The Department of Transportation will hold a special Highway Reconstruction Project Celebration here in Waterville on Friday the 13th. (Details when they're available.)
Two special treats for me, last week: because I'd taken so many pictures of the gardens at the library, over the past few months, I telephoned the gentle and generous lady who provided for the gardens that have already given us so much pleasure and asked if I might mail her copies. (I wasn't sure of her New Hartford address.) We had the nicest conversation and she said that I could share it with all of you.
She told me that her late husband, Howard Lally, was born in Sangerfield and went to school in Waterville. (I remembered that "Pete" Peterson had spoken highly of his former student and she recalled her husband saying the same of his teacher.) His first job was at Waterville Textile, where he and his brother Kenneth were both employed, silk screening Charlie McCarthy T-shirts! From the Waterville mill, Howard went to work at Utica Knit. "Betty" was from Little Falls and ready to move away from home when she answered a Waterville Knit advertisement, took the job, and met Howard. "The rest," she said, "is history." When her husband died, eight years ago, the New Hartford Library was being built and she provided the garden there in his memory and when she heard that a new library was going to be built here, in Howard's home town, she said that she was/is "priviledged to be able to give this garden in Howard's memory." There will be a formal dedication ceremony at a date yet to be determined.
Back on September 11th I asked if anyone still made Elderberry Wine and my friend Valerie Schenk said, "Yes! My father does! Maybe I can get you a bottle!" And she did and now I know why that particularly soothing elixer has been a favorite - especially of old ladies! - for so long!
For Val and the vintner, Mr. Gordon Folts of Vernon,
Thank you both for your Thoughtfulness and Generosity!
Thank you both for your Thoughtfulness and Generosity!
