CATHERINE LAKE ELLSWORTH
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Someone once told us that the older one gets, the faster time goes. We remember being somewhat dubious about this at the time, but we do think we have become true believers. In fact, given the fact that we are fast approaching the middle of June, we have come to the conclusion that time is flying by so quickly it must mean we are somewhere in the antique age range. We seem to have misplaced the spring and have suddenly, we know not how, been thrust into the summer season.
The seventh annual Upper Pioneer Street Block Party has come and gone. Neighbors gathered the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend to catch up with each other after the long winter and to try to figure out how the street’s many children had grown so much since last fall. And although it was a smaller gathering than usual, given that many people were otherwise engaged, it has nonetheless proven an excellent beginning to the summer season.
As our trusty Eagle Street reporter, Robin Lettis, has pointed out in the past, the Upper Pioneer Street Block Party starts the season and the Eagle Street Block Party ends it. To our knowledge, these are the only two block parties held on a regular basis in the village. However, if we are wrong about this and we have somehow missed other block parties, we most certainly would like to be updated on them.
We note that the next meeting of the Literary Discussion Group, sponsored by the Women’s Club of Cooperstown, will be held on Thursday, June 24 at 2:30 p.m. at the home of Pat Duncan.
The book for discussion will be ``The Help’’ by Kathryn Stockett. For more information, including directions to the meeting, please contact Pat at 607-264-3258. Not long ago we received an e-mail from former area resident, Bob Hart, who wrote to let us know that the book ``Hart’s Original Petpourri Vol. 1 Miscellany, Fact, Fancy, Trivia, and Whimsy about Pets, Veterinarians, and Owners,’’ has been listed as a finalist in the INDIE awards for the independently published book competition for 2010.
Our congratulations go out to both of the Harts, Bob and Ronnie, for their success with the book.
We recently journeyed to Troy, New York to attend a birthday bash for Shelley Eckler Davison who celebrated one of those annoying big birthdays this year. But we hasten to point out that Shelley, who is the daughter of Alice and Harvey Eckler of Fly Creek, does not in any way look her age. In fact, she could, without much trouble, pass for the age we claim to be, namely 29. Of course, she is not nearly as far removed from 29 as we are.
And we must say, her good friend Michael Sullivan, who was responsible for the festivities, does know how to throw a great birthday party.
We were treated not only to a lunch of hamburgers, hot dogs and sausages with peppers and onions plus chips, deviled eggs and fruit salad, but also to a full chicken dinner later in the day. It was definitely a total blowout in the food department. We were in heaven. Unfortunately, we had to miss the cutting and devouring of the cake as our 29-year-old eyes are not big on driving after dark.
However, we did get a sneak preview of the cake which looked absolutely yummy. All in all it was a great day. And we can but hope that, since we are reasonably certain that Shelley has a birthday each and every year, it will be repeated sometime in the future.
One of the nice things, we think, about the late spring/ early summer season is that it gives us the opportunity to partake of places, such as Pop’s Place, before the tourist season is really up and running.
As we do each year, we have thus far made several trips to Pop’s Place where we greatly enjoy either the shrimp basket or the barbeque pork sandwich. And we have also partaken of our beginning of the season sundae, something which we, given our great restraint, do not do each and every time we visit. And we will, no doubt, continue to slip in visits to Pop’s Place at times when we think there might be a lull in the volume of business we know they tend to do.
And this year, before things were in full swing, we also dined at the new Polar Scoops, where we enjoyed the sub combo. We would recommend their chicken salad sub as well as their red potato salad.
We were also most interested to discover that they used cold drink cups which are made from corn and are biodegradable. In fact, we brought one such cup home and plan to plant it in the compost pile in order to monitor its rate of decomposition.
We also understand that their silverware is made from cane sugar stalks. We assume they are also biodegradable although we are not certain about it. Throughout the months ahead, we hope to be able to support Polar Scoops as we continue to support Pop’s Place. After all, we tend to like to eat each and every day although we tend not to like to have to fix the food, particularly during the summer months.
In closing, we are always on the search for thoughts about time whether it is flying by or weighing heavily on our hands. To that end we quote C.S. Lewis who said: ``The Future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.’’ Of course, according to Zall’s Second Law, ``How long a minute is, depends on which side of the bathroom door you’re on.’’
And it was Denis Waitely, author and motivational speaker, who said: ``Time is an equal opportunity employer.
Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can’t buy more hours. Scientists can’t invent new minutes. And you can’t save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you’ve wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow.’’
Thus we suggest that tomorrow’s time be used to its best advantage, lest it simply fly by.
PLEASE NOTE: Comments regarding this column may be made by mail at 105 Pioneer Street, Cooperstown, NY 13326, by telephone at 607-547-8124 or by e-mail at cellsworth1@stny.rr.com.
