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COLUMNS: HALLSTEAD: As a heavily loaded wagon was being driven across the bridge spanning the Susquehanna river one of the heavy overhead timbers, known as a lateral brace, fell with a crash, carrying with it the electric light wires and barely missing the team and driver. For a time the tangled wires, some of which were charged, obstructed travel. This is a county bridge and many of the timbers are said to be in a decayed condition. MONTROSE: The Cherokee Indians with “Maud Olsen” arrived safely from Tunkhannock Friday morning where the day before they had trimmed that team 5 to 0. The lady, whose name suggests the land of “Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates,” or land adjacent thereto, simply had our stars guessing for the two innings in which she pitched. A bronze skilled lad named Leroy succeeded her and he was found for to singles at the start yet without a tally. Our only runs came in the fourth, Frank Shafer’s hit was too oily for Leroy, then Strous sent a nice one between third and short and Birchard reached first on an error, filling the bases and only one down. Walton then sent a fly to left which Jacobs failed to gather and Shaver and Strous crossed the rubber; from this on it was almost one, two, three order. Whipple was in deep water but once, but he issued forth like a Matthewson. The evening game promised to be highly exciting and spectacular and in fact for the first two innings it was, but the rain came and the lights began to go out one by one until nothing could be seen. Had it only remained a nice, starry evening, there would have been lots of excitement, spectacular plays and fun galore. HERRICK CENTRE: There was general rejoicing over the breaking of the drought by the copious showers of Friday evening and continued rain during the night. It seems as though for the amount of moisture we have had this season, lightning has more than done its share of destruction. Two barns, one in the vicinity of Fiddle Lake and one for John Howell, of Smiley Hollow, were struck and burned. One of its most miraculous feats was at Nathan Aldrich’s where lightning struck the house and ran down into a room where Mrs. Aldrich sat, singeing her hair, ran down her body, blistering her side and tearing her shoe from one of her feet. She was left alive to tell the story but is, however, confined to her bed suffering greatly. SUSQUEHANNA: The funeral of Mrs. Daniel Murphy was attended from her late home, July 30. Mr. Murphy, her aged husband, through grief and excitement incident to her death, has become insane and was so violent that it was found necessary to confine him in the borough lockup until further provision can be made for his care. CLIFFORD: Last Saturday afternoon our men laid aside their work for the day and assembled at Spedding’s field for an afternoon’s sport. Baseball was the order of the day, and the men and boys were having some fine sport when an accident occurred which called a halt to the score making which was going on at a wholesale rate and caused the crowd to gather round the prostrate form of Brayton Gardner, who had been hit on the head by a “red hot” foul driven straight from the bat. He was soon revived but has suffered a great deal from the blow and thinks the hay field will have more attraction for him than the baseball ground hereafter. Auburn: D. W. Stevens sold his farm and all personal property to D. C. Titman and he sold it to T. R. White. Mr. Stevens bought the Thomas R. White farm several years ago. It was considered one of the best in Auburn. Mr. Stevens was living in the west and moved here last spring but sold out on account of his wife being homesick. She was brought up in the west and could not be reconciled to the eastern hills and will go back to her former home this week to live. FLYNN: The stage driver from Flynn to Birchardville is contemplating the putting on of a two-horse rig to accommodate his increasing business in the way of freight and passenger traffic. FOREST CITY: An application has been made for permission to organize a second national bank in Forest City to be known as the Farmers’ and Miners’ National Bank, with a capital of $50,000. The applicants include some of the best-known businessmen. H. P. Johns, Martin Muchitz, T. J. Pentecost, H. W. Brown and E. A. Bloxham, of Forest City; G. H. Reynolds, of Tirzah; and W. F. Hill, of Huntington. Mrs. Hill is president of the Pennsylvania Grange. ROYAL: Our little town is pretty lively just now. The landlord of the Royal Hotel is having his hands full in preparing and looking after his company guests and parties. Last week he had 14 boarders, surveyors and helpers in surveying the new branch of the D. L. & W. railroad. Friday evening he had an ice cream festival and dance, all well attended. Orchestra furnished by the violinist and wonderful dance timer, J. M. Brownell. The same music plays at the Crystal Lake Grove every Wednesday night. UNIONDALE: A wagon with grocery supplies from the Union & Pacific Tea Co., of Carbondale, will pass through this place every month beginning with August. LYNN, Springville Twp.: Marco Welch, our mail carrier, is driving the fast limited express along with the mail, which is also limited, especially when the train is late, which is often the case; but we are getting kind of used to it now, so we don’t mind it so much. KINGSLEY: Tunis Miller had the misfortune to lose one of his horses, and the neighbors turned out and cut his hay and put it in the barn for him. RUSH: W. H. Wheaton has a cane, presented to him by his son on his last birthday. The cane represents a great deal of careful labor with the knife and has a myriad of emblems upon it. A snake winds around its entire length, while an eagle and shield, flag, Knights of Pythias emblem, stars and numerous other symbols are upon it. An employee of the Hallstead roundhouse carved the stick during spare moments, and it is an object to be proud of and carefully guarded. CHOCONUT: While peeling bark in the woods on the K. Tierney place, near Choconut, W. H. Fairbrother and Ford Pierson ran across a large rattlesnake. It skidooed before they could kill it. FLOWERY VALLEY, Liberty Twp.: Mr. Vandermark, of Hallstead, has been visiting his daughter, Mrs. J. F. Shea. He brought three rattlesnakes with him, one of which had eight rattles. NEW MILFORD: Ed Lindsey’s horse was killed at the railroad crossing on Monday. Lindsey had left the horse and buggy in the shed at the Eagle hotel, and the horse backed out of the shed and instead of going in the opposite direction toward home, went on to the crossing and was killed. The buggy was completely demolished.
From the Desk of the D.A. A few weeks ago, I did a column on the question of whether business owners could prohibit people from bringing guns into their business establishments, i.e., similar to a “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service policy” except applied to firearms. In response to that column, a reader provided me with information concerning a group in Georgia that has been filing lawsuits seeking to strike down restrictive laws that prohibit the possession of firearms in various locations. According the news source, since August, 2006, the group, known as GeorgiaCarry.org, has filed 13 state and federal lawsuits challenging various gun law restrictions, and the organization has been successful in all but two of those cases. In reviewing its website, the organization contends that it has been successful in its litigation in the following ways: requiring a Georgia carry permit to be issued within 60 days, eliminating the requirement of providing a Social Security number and employer information on a carry permit application, and invalidating a local ordinance that prevents permitted gun owners from carrying their guns in public parks. In reviewing the website, the group states its position as follows: “All we want is to be able to move freely about our society, welcomed by our community as armed men and women. We don’t come brandishing weapons, inflaming situations or inciting violence. We simply want Georgia’s legislature and citizens to acknowledge our right to self-defense and to respect the freedom of possessing arms.” In furtherance of this position, the group has now filed a suit against the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, seeking to declare invalid a law that prevents the possession of weapons on airplanes and within the airport’s public terminal. And the group has also declared its next target as well – a Georgia law that prevents the possession of a firearm (or any weapon) at any public gathering, including such places as churches or political rallies. Does this change my initial position that a private business owner may exclude a person carrying a firearm from his or her business? No. The Georgia group has been having success challenging the conduct of the government toward gun ownership rights and privileges. As I said before, the Constitution only protects you from government conduct – not the conduct of a local business owner in regulating his or her own place of business. Unless the government has specifically told a business that they may not discriminate against a person based upon a particular criteria, the business owner retains the freedom to do business with whomever he or she pleases. A perfect example would be “smoke free” restaurants – a smoker may have the right to smoke a cigarette, cigar, or pipe, but the business owner also has the right to regulate the business to eliminate smoking. The same analysis applies to the possession of a firearm. The discrimination laws currently in place protect people from a variety of forms of discrimination. A business is not allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, disability, and various other protected classes. Gun ownership is not included within those protections – at least not yet. If such legislation were enacted, then a whole new arena of potential civil rights litigation would be created. Of course, even if you have a constitutionally protected right, this never means that the government cannot regulate or limit the exercise of that right in certain circumstances. Such regulations and limitations, however, are viewed with strict scrutiny to determine whether the government has a compelling interest to justify the restriction. When it comes to gun possession and ownership, there are not many Supreme Court cases describing the extent and scope of the regulations that will be permitted as a reasonable restraint upon the Second Amendment right. Given the actions of this Georgia group, there is a good chance that there will be many more opportunities for the Supreme Court to revisit the issue. Please submit any questions, concerns, or comments to Susquehanna County District Attorney’s Office, P.O. Box 218, Montrose, Pennsylvania 18801 or at our website www.SusquehannaCounty-DA.org or discuss this and all articles at http://dadesk.blogspot.com/.
The Healthy Geezer Q. I’m having an MRI and I heard that tattoos can present problems for this test. True? True. Tattoos can create a misdiagnosis with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) because there is metal in many tattoo pigments. Magnets attract metals. So, tattoo pigments may interfere with the quality of the image from an MRI. In some rare cases, people experience swelling or burning in the tattoo when they have an MRI. If you have a tattoo, you should discuss it with your doctor before undergoing an MRI. A tattoo is made with pigments injected into the skin's top layer. A needle connected to a machine with dye tubes pierces the skin repeatedly. A large tattoo can take several hours. The process involves some bleeding and pain. Tattoos are very popular today. According to U.S. News & World Report , there are more than 20,000 tattoo parlors operating in the United States. The magazine ranked tattooing as the sixth fastest growing retail business of the 1990s. A recent study done by the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology found that almost one in four Americans between 18 and 50 are tattooed. I was unable to find any statistics about how many seniors are getting new tattoos. My suspicion is that there aren’t many of my contemporaries heading to tattoo parlors, although there are some with body art left over from their youth. During my research, I found an auction on eBay for “Over-the-Hill Temporary Tattoos” for senior parties. I could not resist sharing some of these: Bite Me with dentures in a glass, Retirement Home Boy with skull and cross bones, Born to Ride across an electric scooter with flames, and Who’s Your Grand Daddy? over an anchor. Complications from tattoos are relatively uncommon. However, there are risks that include: blood-borne diseases such as hepatitis, tetanus, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS; granulomas, which are bumps that can form around tattoo; keloids, which are scars that grow beyond normal boundaries; local bacterial infections, and allergic reactions. If you decide to get a tattoo, make sure the establishment is licensed and reputable. Many people who get tattoos decide they want them removed because the artwork faded, became blurred or because their body changed with age. There are a variety of removal methods, but none of them is perfect. Removal methods include: Laser. A surgeon removes the tattoo by treating the pigment with a high-intensity laser beam. Many treatments may be needed to lighten the tattoo. The process may not completely erase the artwork. Laser surgery is the most common method used today. Brush. The tattoo is removed by dermabrasion, a technique that uses a wire brush or a diamond wheel to remove skin. This technique may leave a scar. Scalpel. A surgeon cuts out the tattoo and closes the wound with stitches. This technique is effective in removing some tattoos This surgery can leave a scar. Tattoos can be removed by a dermasurgeon on an outpatient basis with local anesthesia. If you have a question, please write to fred@healthygeezer.com.
Straight From Starrucca No Straight From Starrucca This Week
What’s Bugging You? Red Milkweed beetles: distastefully colorful A casual summer stroll along a country road is a rewarding experience. The variety of summer blooms and their attending butterflies are some of nature’s finest displays. Host to the well-known Monarch butterfly, the common milkweed not only boasts a showy bouquet of attractive pink blossoms, but also conceals one of the most colorful, yet less noticed insects, the Red Milkweed beetle. At this time of year, nearly every milkweed plant serves as a host to a mating pair of these brightly colored beetles. Although they are bright red with four prominent black spots right behind the head, these beetles successfully remain concealed among the milkweed leaves and blossoms. They are capable of flight and will drop down and fly away if disturbed. Their long antennae place them in the “long-horned” beetle family, Cerambycidae. As their scientific name, Tetraopes tetraophalmus implies, these beetles have four eyes. Actually the antenna divides the eye on each side into two separate portions, thus creating two eyes. 2 1/2" pic. #1 (eyes) The divided eyes of the Red Milkweed beetle. The Red Milkweed beetles are one of only a few insects (including the Monarch butterfly) that can safely feed on milkweed plants. Their presence is given away by the circular holes chewed in the milkweed leaves. There are 28 known species of milkweed beetles. Each species only feeds on a specific species of milkweed. They store the milkweed toxins (cardiac glycosides) and use them as an effective defense against predators. Birds make the mistake of eating one these beetles only once, since they are so distasteful that the bird will become ill and vomit. Insects that feed on milkweed are often aposematically colored. This means that their bright colors serve as a warning to potential predators who have learned to avoid them after an initial unpleasant encounter. This aposematic coloration is so effective that other insects, which actually are not toxic, will mimic that appearance and also be safe. 2 1/2" pic. #2 (adult) An adult Red Milkweed beetle. The adults deposit 8 to 20 eggs inside grass stems in near proximity to a milkweed plant. In about 10 days the hatching larvae drop to the ground and burrow down to the milkweed plant roots. They bore further down into the plant roots where they overwinter. There they pupate in the spring, with the adults emerging in late June or early July. The life cycle is completed by fall. The adults are capable of creating squeaking sounds by the rubbing together of rough areas on their thorax. Unlike most of the infamous members of this long-horned beetle family, such as the Southern Pine sawyer or Asian long-horned beetle, the Red Milkweed beetle has little negative impact on the environment. Instead, they add a unique touch of color to an already attractive plant. Questions, comments and suggestions regarding this article, identifications or any other insect-related matters are welcome. Please email them to bugman95@gmail.com.
Food For Thought No Food For Thought This Week EARTH TALK No Earth Talk This Week
Barnes-Kasson Corner Immunization Awareness Week August 3 – 9 By Cara Sepcoski Barnes-Kasson is celebrating National Immunization Awareness Week. The goal of this week is to spread awareness about immunizations across America. Immunization is one of the most outstanding health achievements of this era. Immunizations have almost eliminated many diseases that have plagued humankind for years. Diseases such as smallpox and TB are rarely ever heard of, thanks to immunizations. Some people think that because some diseases are almost eliminated, they don’t have to get the immunization for that disease. The fact remains though, if that the disease has not been fully eliminated, once you stop vaccinating people, the disease will spread again. In 1974, Japan experienced a very successful pertussis vaccination program, with the majority of all Japanese children vaccinated. No deaths from Pertussis occurred that year, and only 393 cases were reported throughout the entire country. Somehow, the next year rumors spread about the vaccine not being safe anymore, and by 1976 only 10% of Japanese children were vaccinated. By 1979 Japan was suffering a major pertussis epidemic. Over 13,000 cases and 41 deaths were reported. In 1981 the Japanese government started vaccinating more for pertussis, and the number of pertussis cases decreased dramatically again. Some myths talk about how vaccinations have deadly side effects, but the truth is that the majority of these stories are false. Not getting your recommended vaccines is putting yourself and your family at risk for disease. Don’t forget to help celebrate National Immunization Week by getting you and your family up to date on all of your immunizations.
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