Montrose – Judge A. B. Smith was sworn in as president judge of Susquehanna county, for a term of ten years, on Saturday. ALSO Through the generosity of Mrs. Winfield Martin, the Spinster club is being furnished with khaki yarn, which, when knitted up into sweaters, helmets, scarfs and wristers, is to be turned over to our local Red Cross.  Mrs. Martin has volunteered to keep the club members supplied with yarn as long as there is need for the knitted articles, thus materially aiding our Red Cross.

West Auburn – Glenn Hall, who was in training at Camp Meade as a soldier, died at the camp on Sunday night.  Death was due to measles, followed by pneumonia.  The young man had spent the Christmas furlough with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick S. Hall, and had enjoyed seeing his relatives and friends, but complained shortly before returning of feeling ill.

Springville – The ice harvesters are busy these days.  During this extreme cold wave the mercury has been reported as low as 30 degrees below in some places in this vicinity.

Apolacon Township – Michael A. Reardon has been appointed mercantile appraiser for the coming year by the board of county commissioners.

Scranton – To Mr. and Mrs. Frank H. Shafer, on Friday, Jan. 4, 1918, a daughter, Katherine Bentley Shafer.

Elk Lake – Mr. and Mrs. John Arnold were surprised by a company of friends gathering at their home on New Year’s eve to dance the old year out and the new year in.  Refreshments were served by the ladies.

St. Joseph – Leo Sweeney, aged 15, son of John Sweeney, died very suddenly on New Year’s morning. ALSO Serenus O’Connell, who has been spending his Xmas vacation with his mother, has returned to St. Francis Seminary, Loretta, Pa.

Harford – Will Robinson had the misfortune to have a cow struck by an automobile last Friday.  Her leg was broken and so they butchered her immediately.  Mr. Robinson seems to have hard luck and the neighbors sympathize with him in the heavy loss of the nice heifer.

Susquehanna – The Christmas music at St. John’s Catholic church was fine and greatly appreciated by those present, of which there were many Protestants as well as Catholics attending, with the musical part of the Christmas service especially in mind. ALSO The intense cold weather hit here as well as the rest of the county.  In different parts of the town, Sunday last, the temperature registered 29 degrees below zero, while up at Lanesboro it is reported as being 32 degrees below.  The worst of it is a lack of coal, although hopes of a supply this week are indicated.

New Milford – Moss VanCott, who went west about three years ago, spent Christmas with relatives here.  He recently enlisted in the engineer corps in Salt Lake City, and has been assigned to Camp Meade. 

East Lynn – Miss Lena Della Wiggins, the well-known elocutionist, will give some readings at the East Lynn school house, on the evening of Jan. 12.  During intermission Rev. Rumbaugh will give a reading; also a duet by Stark Miller and wife.  A large attendance is desired.

Lanesboro – A determined effort to blow up the big Starrucca Viaduct, was discovered by the day watchman, Adelbert Opie.  He started to walk across the bridge when he discovered the bomb imbedded in loose stones placed on the west end of the structure.  The glint of the tin in the early morning light attracted his attention.  Upon picking up the can he discovered it was a bomb with a fuse attached.  The fuse had been lighted and burned considerably, evidently going out when struck by the wind. Only four inches of fuse remained and this means that the big bridge, one of the largest in the world, was only four inches from destruction or serious damage.  Opie turned the bomb over to the Erie officials at Susquehanna.  The bomb was well made and carefully sealed.

Thompson – Miss Ruth Crosier returned to her home here, having completed her three years’ course in nurse training at Burns’ hospital, graduating with honors.  Miss Crosier is to be congratulated and we wish her success in her vocation.

Forest City – On Monday evening about 9 o’clock, eighteen cars were derailed on the Erie R.R. near the water tank in the upper end of the borough.  Traffic was suspended for several hours, the wreckage covering both tracks.

Clifford – William Lott, Sr., one of the oldest and best known residents of Clifford, passed away at the home of his son, Bert, on Jan. 4.  Death followed an illness of only three days.  Mr. Lott was 80 years of age and had been a life-long resident of Clifford.  For many years he carried on a blacksmith business and was a superior workman. He is survived by two sons, Bert and William.

News Brief: Now that coal is selling at around $8 a ton, one of the best investments you can make is an ash sifter—yes, one of those old sifters we used to use regularly 20 years ago when coal was around $4 a ton.  You cut a third off the coal bill.  They still sell those old sifters in any well-regulated hardware store.  Don’t be ashamed to ask for one.

200 Years Ago from the Montrose Centinel, January 10, 1818.

*We had no mail last Monday which must account for the barrenness of our paper.  We know of no excuse the carrier can make unless it be that it was rather foggy one night.

*TAKE NOTICE.  Notice is hereby given, that a meeting will be held at the house of C. Carr in this village on Saturday evening next, for the purpose of forming a LIBRARY.  All persons who may wish to become members are requested to attend.  Montrose, January 10, 1818.

*PAY THE BLACKSMITH.  All persons indebted to Curtis & Coy for work done at their shop are requested to call and settle between this and the first of February or they may depend on being called upon in a different manner.  All those that calculate to pay in grain must bring it by the 20th of the present month.  CURTIS & COY.  Montrose, Jan. 9th, 1818.

*MARRIED  In this Township on Thursday last by the Rev. Davis Dimock, Mr. David Wilson to Miss Sabre Tanner, all of this Township. [Probably Bridgewater Twp.]

In November 2012, Desiree Reason was a customer at Kathryn’s Korner Thrift Shop in Philadelphia, which was owned by a local church, Holy Redeemer, through a holding company, Drueding Center, Inc.  After Reason had paid for her merchandise was leaving the store, another customer, Tamika Thomas, attacked Reason inside the store and the physical altercation ensued which continued outside of the store itself.  Thomas was the daughter of the cashier, Nadine Riley.  During the course of the altercation outside of the store, three men were passing by on bikes, saw the altercation, stopped and held down Reason so that Thomas could strike her repeatedly.  Employees of the Thrift Shop stood outside watching the fight but they did not intervene to stop it.

In response to the situation, the cashier (Riley) hit a panic button which she believed notified the police of the situation, but the button only alerted someone at the offices of Drueding Center, which dispatched an employee, Calvin Collins, to the Thrift Shop to investigate the situation.  After about ten minutes of no police response, Riley called the police from her cellular phone.  Collins arrived before the police and he broke up the fight.  The police eventually arrived and interviewed the parties and witnesses.

Reason filed a civil action against the Thrift Shop seeking damages for the physical injuries she sustained as a result of the beating.  Reason contended that the Thrift Shop failed to protect her from a violent customer while she was on its business premises.  Reason alleged that Riley, as the mother of Thomas, was aware that Thomas had a mental health condition, that she could be violent, and that she allowed Thomas to remain on the business premise despite having knowledge of the risk that Thomas posed to patrons of the Thrift Shop.  Reason also alleged that the Thrift Shop employees failed to aid her in a timely fashion while she was being beaten outside the store.  The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the Thrift Shop and Reason appealed.

The Superior Court acknowledged that the Thrift Shop “had a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect [its] business invitees . . . from harm that might result from the intentional or negligent acts of third parties if [the Thrift Shop] had reason to anticipate such conduct.”  The record, however, failed to disclose any evidence to support Reason’s assertion that Thomas had a history of mental illness that led to violent behavior.  Instead, the record showed that Thomas had been sought mental health treatment in the past as a result of feeling overwhelmed – there was no evidence that she had engaged in any violent behavior.  Because there was no evidence that the Thrift Shop had knowledge that Thomas was a violent person, the Superior Court agreed that the Thrift Shop had no duty to protect Reason from Thomas.

As to Reason’s claim that the Thrift Shop failed to render aid to her to prevent the beating, the Superior Court noted that a business owner is only required to seek law enforcement assistance – not to actively risk injuries in breaking up a physical assault.  The Superior Court compared the situation to one where a business patron needs medical assistance: “Just as a business is under no legal duty to don the mantle of a medical professional to attend to an invitee’s medical need, so too is a business not required to act as a policeman in the face of an ongoing assault.  Indeed, imposing such a duty could place business employees at risk of harm and impose liability on the business if the employees are injured.”  The Superior Court concluded: “[A] business satisfies its duty to aid a business invitee by calling 911 or another source of professional medical or police assistance.”

Once and for all, does coffee kill?

Jess, 25, came into the pharmacy with her usual cup of cappuccino from the coffee house across the street. She said to the pharmacist, “It seems that one year I read coffee is good for you and the next year coffee is bad for you. What do you think?” The pharmacist agreed with Jess. There have been contradicting studies which have revealed that coffee can help you live longer or make you die sooner. Once and for all, which is it?

A 2013 study found that coffee drinking is linked with a higher risk of death in men and women younger than 55. In the study, published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, men and women in their mid-50s and younger who drank 4 cups of coffee a day had a much greater chance of dying than their counterparts who were not so salaciously besotted with their percolators. But wait. Two large 2017 studies that lasted 16 years concluded that people drinking 2 to 4 cups of coffee were less likely to die from heart disease, stroke, diabetes or cancer. In fact, coffee drinkers were 18% less likely to die during the study period than teetotalers. What, huh?

Drinking coffee has become a daily routine for most Americans. According to the National Coffee Association, approximately 6 of 10 American adults drink coffee each day, and among coffee drinkers, the average coffee consumption in the US is 3 cups per day. Hence, a Starbucks on every corner. Yet, despite its ubiquitous nature, coffee has long been suspected to contribute to a variety of chronic health conditions. Over the last 4 decades, the association between coffee consumption and chronic health outcomes has been investigated in relation to conditions such as obesity, hypertension, and coronary heart disease. However, studies on coffee consumption in relation to cause-specific mortality are limited, and the results are often controversial. Several studies have found a positive association between higher levels of coffee consumption and death from any cause, while others have found an inverse association with mortality in both men and women, only in women, or only in men.

One problem with many of these clinical studies is how they are set up. People who drink gallons of coffee tend to have other bad behaviors. Rabid java drinkers tend to not sleep well and that is a health issue. The results of the 2013 study showed that there were more smokers in the group that drank more coffee. We know cigarettes kill. Or perhaps the study subjects were people who have Type A personality traits – aggressiveness, competitiveness, hostility, impatience. To sort out which of the factors is really the culprit is difficult. Maybe it’s the whole combination – a stressed out lifestyle plus coffee plus cigarettes – that kills. Also, define “a cup of coffee.” Whether it is a triple-shot espresso grande with whipped cream in the shape of a heart or a watered down cup of instant, no 2 cups of coffee are alike.

Notably, the 2017 studies looked at both decaf and caffeinated coffees, which rules out caffeine as the offender (at least for 2018). More likely, the longevity of the study population came from the fact that coffee contains antioxidants which inhibit cell damage. Whatever it is all about, very few people are going to give up their morning brew, especially that first, fresh, piping hot, aromatic mug. Jess agreed with the pharmacist, coffee is one of the things that make life worth living. Come what may. 

Ron Gasbarro, PharmD, is a registered pharmacist, medical writer, and principal at Rx-Press.com. Read more at www.rx-press.com

It always seems like the holiday season brings out the best in our communities but as they quickly pass us by to a new year, we need to remember keeping communities strong and united should not be a seasonal charity event. Even though the term community service today is correlated with some kind of tedious punishment for those that are trying to stay out of jail, the term should have more of a positive connotation that is applied to all of us in a society as a whole. The reason being, community should be about all of us protecting each other, watching our families strive, and being able to fight against the things that lessen the strength a community can possess together.

As we see community participation die across our great country, we leave ourselves and those we love open to the shadows that walk our streets, school halls, and sometimes right through our front doors. These shadows have no faces and no names but have quickly been related to the death of many communities and many deaths across the country. Some of these deaths are happening in epidemic proportions. The thing is that it isn’t because these shadows are ghosts that walk mysteriously through the night, like the Grim Reaper, it is because we choose to no longer pay attention to those shadows. We possess the capability to simply ignore the ugly unpleasantries of life and hope that someone else can deal with it. We have become too busy and too tied up in our personal affairs to worry about the community as a whole.

The sad and unspoken truth is that eventually, this unwelcomed shadow will touch you in some way, be it through a close friend, a family member, a co-worker or your neighbor because it is taking over entire communities. It does not care about race, social status, gender, or religion. It takes who it wants, when it wants and ignoring it will not make it go away; in fact, it makes it stronger. Hopefully by this point, the shadow that is being referred to is quickly taking a form inside your mind. It is the unwanted, embarrassing, family destroying, addictive effects of chemical substance abuse. No one speaks of it as the robber of life and happiness like we would if someone broke into our homes, but it walks into our neighborhoods and steals from everyone. It takes our money, our happiness, our families and we turn our heads hoping it walks out the door while still leaving something behind for us to continue our lives with; sadly it does not! We can't call 911 or our government officials and have it swiftly removed, so instead the hands are thrown up in the air and it is said out loud, mostly through social media these days, “It isn’t my problem so what can I do about it?!”

If we step out of our own bubbles and listen to the talk around the community, it will be realized that the epidemic that is happening is not because we are weak individuals or inhumane towards our fellow man but because standing shoulder to shoulder has become difficult. This difficulty has become the crack in our mortar, the sore for infection, the lie that no one wants to expose. Is it because we feel that in order to address it we may have to expose something of ourselves that we want no one else to see? There is one simple fact that everyone needs to realize and it is a very simple concept, if we stand together we can beat anything. We need to start putting a name and a face on these shadows. Call them out! Push them back!

We need to start having the real conversations about drug abuse. Stop asking children simply to sustain from use but discuss and show them the real consequences to their lives. We need to stop saying it isn’t my problem because it is a community problem. Unless you are living on a private island, we all make up part of some community. As a community, search for organizations that help, and not solutions that incarcerate the victims. The shadows are the criminals and we have given them the power to stay nameless and faceless. As we start giving names and faces to the shadows, they become exposed to the communities. The communities then know who to stand up to and fight against.

We need to start discussing solutions as a community. The community is not weak or unimportant! A few can make a difference but a community together, as a strong united front can solve problems that seem overwhelming and uncontrollable. Some may say this is just an open rant on blaming someone else for someone’s poor choices, but it is a plea for us to take back our communities and make a difference that will be seen in many ways. Everyone knows what comes into a community with these epidemics…crime, poverty, and death. As all these factors start increasing, families start leaving, allowing more of the drug epidemic to take a stronger hold. As a community we need to stop allowing this to happen because it is chasing us from one community right into another one, leaving behind total devastation.

US News reported in October of 2017 that the United States is feeling the effects of a drug epidemic and that the US government is declaring it a nationwide public emergency. If you don’t think this is true, how do you explain 91 people dying every day from drug overdoses (Trimble, 2017)? Take a room of 91 people made of friends, family, and neighbors and bury one of them every day. Then replace the one removed with someone else’s family member, friend or neighbor and repeat this every day. Eventually, everyone will be touched by a tragic story of that person they lost to the drug epidemic.

It is also spoken by some that the fight to keep drugs out of our communities is what we pay our taxes for. Hello! How’s that working for us? These days there are more laws protecting the drug dealer than there are the citizens being victimized. Why is this? Let’s stop pointing fingers at local, state, federal government officials and start pointing them at the shadows walking through our streets. We are not hesitant in calling out those that rape or murder. Why is being a drug dealer any different? Are we afraid for our lives or are we simply scared that we may be standing alone in the fight. We can use social media, for example, as a means to stand out as a community. We don’t necessarily need to fill government halls to have a voice, but if we did, it could carry community concerns further because we are also seen and not just heard. Additionally, we need to start walking on our streets and letting the shadows know the sidewalks are not theirs to take anymore. That they are being watched and their names will be spoken to those that have the power to act on illegal activities.

Success stories do exist when communities pull together to take the power away from those that decide they own the streets and can hold communities of people as hostage. Take for example, a story on NPR about Rutland, VT that pulled together as a community to fight one of the worse drug epidemics it has ever seen. Once authorities gathered information brought to them from citizens about the activities they saw, police were able to identify, address, and track where the problems areas were (Keck, 2016). If we, as a community do not help those that are there to help us then where does the true blame reside?

This all sounds simple on the written paper, but getting involved is the real work. It definitely will not happen overnight but someone needs to start somewhere. We need to learn to work with our local law enforcement officials, who can provide information and legal means of community participation in helping making our communities strong and safe again. We should not be vigilantes but be actively vigilant in this stance.

About the authors:

Tracy Grennell is a longtime resident, a mother, an aunt, a sister, a daughter, a friend to many, and a recent nursing college graduate. She understands how the drug epidemic has personally affected her community and those she loves. She wishes to fight shoulder to shoulder with those that care about their communities to help make a difference, even if only in one life. We will stand shoulder to shoulder to build our own wall!

Tammy Grausgruber resided in this community for many years and is there often to participate in the care of a loved one. She has many family members still there that she cares about deeply for. Not only is this a problem in her current home, in the city of Richmond but she sees the impact on smaller communities as well. She is a mother, an aunt, a daughter and an individual who believes information has power and so do the people who hold it. She is working with Tracy and other close family members in starting a nonprofit organization to help communities and families find information that will help those that suffer from the many fallouts of this drug epidemic. She has personally felt the pain of loss and seen what this has done to people she holds dear to her heart. She no longer wants to see this take over any neighborhood, including her childhood home. So she too… will stand shoulder to shoulder to build our own wall!

Anyone interested in discussing what we can do, as a community to fight this epidemic is welcome to contact: Tracy Grennell at tgrenn@aim.com; or Tammy Grausgruber at tgrausgruber@cox.net .