SEPTEMBER 2 - SEPTEMBER 8, 2000
SEPTEMBER 8, 2K
Death, taxes, and the second judge
Good morning. It is 52.4 degrees at 6:23 A.M. What
a batch of mail I had this morning. Thank you for all of it and I am
trying to answer each of you individually. And thanks for all the laughs.
My sides ache from the humor and advice. What a great way to start a day.
Speaking of starting a day, there is The Error on
line. And I found George! There he was writing about the commissioners and
the second judge. But first, if you wondered about the Comedy Central
airing of Slick, here is the schedule. It has already aired once.
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Watch it at:
Friday,
Sep 8 10:00AM (ep# 3208)
Friday,
Sep 8 7:00PM (ep# 3208)
Monday,
Sep 11 10:00AM (ep# 3208)
Monday,
Sep 11 7:00PM (ep# 3208)
Monday,
Sep 11 11:00PM (ep# 3208)
Click here
for additional times.
Back to George -
Just when I asked the question following the staff meeting
on Wednesday my question is answered. George is alive and well and still
covering the commissioners. I opened up The Error on line and I
found the following:
Commissioners reject report from Commission
By GEORGE PETRISEK/Era Correspondent
The headline is of course misleading. The Commissioners
rejected the report, a separate report prepared by Joe Martin and Chris
Stovic, because it was an additional report and not designed to say what
they wanted it to say. In other words their report tells the truth and
that is something that we are not long on in Smethport these days. The
truth is something we have lost.
And there was Larry Stratton, awaken from his nap, ready
to take the report and study it. But mean old Mr. Bluster (Jim Weaver) was
saying he didn't want to accept it and Al went along, as usual. Keep in
mind, Stovic and Martin were added as an afterthought only when it
was pointed out how the commission was stacked to arrive at the result
that we all expected.
I support a second judge. I support one but not in the
terms that the imperial John Cleland does and is about to get from the see
no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, and sleep through it all, raise your
taxes Board of County Commissioners.
When I proposed a second judge as an election issue, and
it should have been one for sure, I said: "Only if the proper
economies could be found."
They haven't.
No one has a clue and no one really cares either. Will
Cleland give up the Family Master and the Juvenile Master? Of course not.
They will remain in place and a second judge is only, and I mean only, an
extension of his empire. We have a second judge already in the form of
visiting judges. Judge Wolfe is here nearly two weeks each month. Other
judges, like Judge Brown who is hearing my case the end of October, fill
in when conflicts arise. So what is the problem?
I pointed it out when I said we had a right to be judged
by someone local who understood local politics and we elected.
While I may have back Dick Cavallero for District Justice
over Chris Hauser, Chris was elected and he is ours. Carson Brown is not.
Regardless of political differences, Chris is fair and understands the
area and the people. That was my point when I made the statement about
having someone elected by us, not appointed by Harrisburg.
But do we really need a second judge?
We wouldn't if John Cleland would work five days a week
and we had a system that was dealing with petty crimes at the District
Justice level. Everything beyond barking dogs and music that is being
played too loud goes from the District Justices to Smethport for
consideration by the Court of Common Pleas. Other counties don't operate
like that. Only serious crimes, and I mean serious crimes, ever make it
that far. Simple assault and arguments between husbands/wives,
boyfriend/girlfriend, girl/girl, significant other/significant other are
dealt with at the DJ level.
The system that was set in place by John Cleland dictates
that we need a second judge and the District Justices are relegated to
handling speeding and parking tickets.
That system is very expensive and extremely time
consuming. That system is the reason we have a backlog of cases.
But fear not. The action, or non-action, of the
commissioners yesterday insures that we will have the second judge in
2002. Look for a large tax increase, say two to three mils, in December
2001 to pay for the second judge with maybe another mil or two thrown in
just for general reasons and overall mismanagement. Look for it for sure
and then in 2005 count on another reassessment to get the county millage
back in line so the spiral can begin anew.
Taxes in McKean County are already prohibitive but count
on one thing - they are going to get worse.
They have to as long as things continue as they are. And
now that the wall of secrecy has fallen once more, they are going to just
as they always have. And so my loyal readers, with that I will go back to
figuring out my schedule of columnists. The county will not make the
proper economies, so we had better figure out how we can. Home Rule would
be a great idea but that will never happen. The boys in Smethport will see
to that. Why would they want us to be truly represented?
Comments are welcome at editor@mlrmag.com.
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SEPTEMBER 7, 2K
The Staff Meeting
Good morning. It is 44.6 degrees at 6:11 A.M. We
had our first full fledged staff meeting yesterday afternoon and was that
ever interesting.
I didn't call it. I am not really sure how it came
about but I believe the night before Tom Clark and Red Jacket were having
a few at the Bradford Hotel and it came out of that. Anyway, at two sharp
everyone began arriving. We met in the dining room of the Rainbow Inn.
The first to show up was Tom Clark. He was driving
his pickup truck and had a large sign for a bar in Ellicottville in the
back. He was wearing his work clothes and immediately I had a vision of
his brother, Jerry, going to the tourism meetings at the hoity toity
Bradford Club (not to be confused with www.bradfordclub.com
) and the old birds being upset at his appearance. But it didn't bother
me. I had been canning tomatoes and peppers all morning and I was covered
with stains and the like.
John Gates called in. He was painting and couldn't
make it, but about the time I hung up the phone a brilliant light appeared
on the front steps. A huge bubble came down from the sky and as the bubble
opened up, out stepped Glinda.
Now that was a sight to behold. She was dressed in a
flowing white gown and had a gold crown on her head. She held a wand in
her hand and four little yellow birds flew around her head. The door
opened for her (how that happened I still don't know. Maybe it was Larry
Ely or his ghost but doors are always staying open there for some reason -
it was just the first time I ever saw it happen and open on its own.). She
took a seat next to Tom Clark who was already into a cold one.
Mommy Erma came next. She was not what I expected by any stretch of
the imagination and was a bit of a looker. (Actually more than a bit and
it seemed to disturb Glinda.) Pushing fifty or so she had a short
skirt and a tight sweater. She was a little bit of a throw back to the
early eighties when the short skirts came back, but she made Tom Clark sit
up and immediately introduce himself. Glinda was cool and when Erma
introduced herself to the Good Witch, I could see the cackles go up on her
back.
And as usual Red Jacket was late. He came in
Cornplanter's red Cadillac with Cornplanter driving. When the two chiefs
came in I invited Cornplanter to stay and listen.
"Feel free to add into the conversation at any
time," I said to Cornplanter, knowing full well that he would whether
he was invited or not.
"What's that smell?" Mommy Erma asked.
"Skunk," Cornplanter said. "We saw a
dead one on the road and Red Jacket insisted we stop so he could get the
liver."
"Oh," she said moving to the other side of
the table.
Glinda, on the other hand, seemed to overtaken by the
aroma and began smiling at Red Jacket. I couldn't help looking around as
that happened and thought what an odd staff I had assembled.
We talked about the usual stuff: expense accounts,
assignments, deadlines and the like. When we got through that, Tom Clark
brought up what was on his mind.
"We want definite days for our columns to
run," he said.
"Yes," Glinda agreed. "And when I
submit a column, I expect you to run it and not set it aside and lose it
like you did with the one I sent you last week."
"I'm new," Mommy Erma interjected.
"But it would help if we knew what to expect. I am forced to agree
with Tom and Glinda."
"I want Wednesday's or there will be war,"
Red Jacket said. "The rest of you can figure out what you want, but I
get Wednesday's." He looked over to Cornplanter for support and the
chief folded his arms across his chest and nodded in the affirmative.
"War," Cornplanter said, agreeing with Red
Jacket.
About that time, Anita poked her head into the dining
room. "Can I get you anything, Bud?" she asked.
"Whiskey," I told her. "And make it a
strong one. Don't water it like you always do to me."
She disappeared to get me a drink and I began trying
to explain how this column, my column works.
"It's called the Publisher's Page," I said.
"Not the staff writer's page. It is my column and I use your work as
filler. Generally, I use your work when I am hung over and not feeling
very creative. That way the readers, and I might add, there are thousands
and thousands of them, don't get cheated."
"Wednesday or war," Red Jacket repeated.
"Monday," Tom Clark insisted.
"I like Friday," Glinda said.
"I wanted Friday," Mommy Erma said, and
with that the two women went at it.
"How would you like me to turn you into a
toad?" Glinda said to Erma.
"What? So I can look like you?" Erma shot
back.
Anita brought me my whiskey and I took a huge gulp. I
knew that I was getting trouble when I took on Tom Clark and Red Jacket.
But having two women on the staff was sure to be the end of me. And now
with Sharyn leaving the hospital to come home to work for us and take over
www.antiqueavenue.com full
time, I was sure I would go nuts. What was I going to do?
"And," Glinda added. "When you run my
work, I want my full name in the by line."
"How's that?" I asked.
"Glinda The Good Witch," she said.
With that, Tom Clark began to laugh. "The
Error has three named bitches, we have a four named witch."
"That's not funny," I said.
"No. It isn't," Glinda said. "How
would you like to be a toad?"
Tom wisely ducked as she aimed her wand. Poor
Ferdinand, the bar cat, caught the brunt. The cat was transformed into a
toad and the toad, or Ferdinand, was hopping around meowing.
"Turn that cat back into a cat!" I
insisted.
"I can't," Glinda said matter of factly.
"He will turn back on his own in eight hours. And besides, I don't
care for cats. Keep him or it away from me."
At that point Red Jacket added his two cents.
"We want our pictures to run with our columns, too. Just like
yours."
"And I think you should get a new picture, Mr.
Beck," Erma said. "You have lost so much weight and you are
wearing your hair different and longer, the people should see what you
look like as you write your column. They have a false image of you."
The bickering continued. Red Jacket threatened war
and Glinda turned Jack the Bear into a donkey (for eight hours only - she
must have had a special on eight hour spells) and threatened Tom Clark
several more times. Lucky for him he was quick on his feet. Had he not
been so quick he had the opportunity to be any one of several barnyard
animals and most of the smaller variety that hand out in ponds.
After everyone left I went into the bar and had
several more whiskeys.
"Rough meeting?" Anita asked.
"You have no idea," I muttered. "I
wonder what George Petrisek is doing these days?" I said aloud.
"I wonder."
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SEPTEMBER 6, 2K
Out With The Old...BY TOM CLARK
I had a chance to say farewell to an old acquaintance last week. He has
served his purpose on this planet and his fate is one of demise. I can't really call him a friend, even though we have shared a few good
times in the last thirty years.
Last Thursday was my final trip to Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.
I thought it was going to be a sentimental time, with memories of concerts and ball games past in the cement and steel structure racing
through my mind as I watched the Pirates get their rear ends kicked by the
San Francisco Giants.
I guess it would have been a trip down memory lane had I not arrived
early enough to walk around and check out the new stadiums being built
on either side of Three Rivers. It was a little like visiting Grandpa on his death bed in a hospital, then going to see your new nephew in the
maternity ward.
The new stadiums are shaping up quite nicely. I really don't care
much about the football stadium and doubt that I'll ever be in it, unless the Buffalo Bills play there and I wind up with tickets to the
game.
PNC Park, the new home to the Pirates, will be a beautiful stadium, judging from the pictures I saw in the game
day program and on the Pirates website (www.pirateball.com). With the
skyline of the city as an outfield backdrop, PNC Park should provide a cozy atmosphere to watch a game.
Three Rivers Stadium served us well. I remember going to Pirate games
in my college days, sitting in the cheap bleacher seats and sucking down
Iron City drafts with my pals. And, the concerts, who can forget them?
Dave Mason, Frank Zappa, The Rolling Stones, Robin Trower...
I was part of the biggest audience to that date in the history of the
city when I saw Bruce Springsteen at Three Rivers Stadium in the summer
of '85. A couple of my co-workers at USAir and I drove up from Virginia
to go to the show, then crashed on another friend's floor after the concert.
I checked out the website for Three Rivers Stadium www.threeriversstadium.com
to see what was listed in their chronicles
of stadium history. The first night game in World Series history was played there, when the Buccos beat Baltimore 4-3 in October of 1971.
The Steelers' Franco Harris' "Immaculate Reception" happened in a
playoff game vs Oakland two days before Christmas in 1972, and will be
forever remembered as one of the luckiest occurrences in sports history.
As recent as 1997, history was made when two All-American boys,
Francisco Cordova and Ricardo Ricon, combined to pitch the first extra
inning no hitter in baseball history, as the Pirates beat the Astros 3-0.
I'm anxious to check out PNC Park next season, but will probably wait
until the novelty wears off, perhaps in August. By that time the Pirates should be firmly entrenched in last place and the fickle
Pittsburgh fans, who will only turn out for winners, will stay away, thus opening up the choice seats for the rest of us.
So, in closing, I bid a fond adieu to Three Rivers Stadium. Thanks
for the memories, etc. And, if the Steelers fans are lucky, no one will warn the football team to evacuate before the wrecking ball swings.
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SEPTEMBER 5, 2K
Finding it at home
Good morning. It is 42.6 degrees at 6:18 A.M.
Autumn weather has begun to set in on the hills of Northwestern
Pennsylvania. Already the sugar maples are changing color and soon the
entire forest will give us our fall show. Then we know what is on the way.
I had a wonderful Labor Day weekend and hope all
of you did, too.
Yesterday was one of those lazy days. Sharyn and I
went for a ride to the west toward Warren yesterday morning. We took Rocky
along with us. It was the first time he went in the car with both of us
and I warned Sharyn up front that if he didn't like the back seat, she
would have to switch places with him. After all, he has been used to
riding up front with me for a very long time.
But Rocky adapted well and we took a nice little
morning drive.
In our travels we happened on a local market that we
have purchased vegetables and fruit from in the past. The place is called
the Hatch Patch and it is located in North Warren behind the Warren Mall.
The Moose Club in Warren (of which I am a member) gets its corn from them
every year when they have the Corn Roast and picnic. They steam it and
everyone raves over how good it is. Between John Gates and me we manage a
dozen or so a piece. We haven't done any canning to speak of so Sharyn
suggested we stop and see what they had.
Generally, we do what we like. That would be pickles,
corn, tomatoes, salsa, and my tomato/sweet pepper/hot pepper mix that we
use with certain dishes that I make or just for a snack with chips and the
like. We don't get carried away and everything we do, we generally use by
the beginning of the next season. It is a fall ritual with us and over the
years we have acquired the proper tools to insure we don't poison
ourselves or anyone else in the process. And shopping for the raw material
to can is part of the fun. However, our stop at the Hatch Patch was
anything but that.
The highlight of the stop was running into Nick
Mangione, owner of Crescent Beers in Warren. From there it went down hill
rapidly.
Sharyn asked about tomatoes.
"Do you sell them by the bushel?" she
asked. They had tomatoes out but only in small amounts.
"Are you on our list?" the woman asked back
to Sharyn.
List? What list? We hadn't heard of any list. The
answer to Sharyn's question could have been easily answered by the woman
behind the counter by saying: "We take orders and then call you when
we have it ready. It should be a day or two. Would you like to place an
order?" Had she said that I probably would have said yes and been
more than happy to return the follow day or the next to pick it up. Warren
and Bradford are about the same distance from our house. But she didn't.
Instead she stood there like we had done something wrong by not being on
their list.
Scrap tomatoes.
Then we asked about corn.
"Corn," she said. "Are you on our
list?"
In the meantime I had picked up two splints of
cucumbers and a hand full of hot peppers. It seemed I didn't need to be on
any list to buy that but when I picked up the dill weed - and I stress
weed - I was in for another shock.
"Dill is fifty cents a stalk," she informed
me. I had a dozen or so stalks and I was not paying any $6 to $10 for dill
weed. I put it back. So we had two splints of cucumbers, five or six hot
peppers, and then Sharyn added a pint of red raspberries. About that time
the phone rang.
A young man answered the phone and then the fun
began. The woman behind the counter which had no cash register, only a
hand held adding machine, and the young man began a three way conversation
between the two of them and a woman on the other end of the phone about a
sick child and whether or not the woman was coming to work. In the midst
of the conversation the woman looked up at us and said: "That will be
$19.85 please." I held out a twenty.
The conversation continued. "Is her boy in the
hospital?" she asked. "Is she coming in today?"
The young man didn't get a chance to answer. She
looked back at us and began to recalculate. "I made a mistake,"
she said. "I over charged for the peppers and added in an extra
splint of cucumbers. That will be $15.75 please." She took the twenty
from my outstretched hand.
The conversation about the woman and the sick child
continued anew. In the meantime, while the conversation went back and
forth, the young man being the middle man relaying from one woman to
another, she began packing our cucumbers and peppers in a paper bag.
Finally, as she finished and in the middle of a sentence, still not making
change for my twenty as of that point, she realized a pint of raspberries
was sitting on the counter. Once more, still carrying on a conversation
about coming to work and a sick child, she recalculated.
"That will be $18.25," she said finally
making change and handing me $1.75 and the bag of cucumbers. "Thank
you for being so patient," she said.
As Sharyn and I walked away after being at the
counter for a good ten minutes and a long line of people formed
behind us, also with no corn and no tomatoes, we never knew if the boy was
in the hospital or not or whether the woman would ever come to work that
day. We were just happy to be out of there and we drove straight home. At
home we were silent, still in shock over what happened.
"Should I call and get on the list?" I
asked. Sharyn just laughed.
Later that afternoon Sharyn and I went to Bradford to
see John and Eileen. We stopped at Boser's South Side Fruit Market. Greg
Boser quickly said hello.
"Mrs. Beck. Mr. Beck. How are you today?"
he asked.
I looked down at a dozen or so bushels of tomatoes
sitting there. "Do I need to be on a list to buy them?" I
asked.
He looked at me blankly. "No," he said.
"Cash and carry."
I smiled. "Do you suppose you will still have
them tomorrow morning?" I asked.
"Sure," he said. "And if we don't we
can get more."
I looked at Sharyn and felt real stupid. "How
about corn?" I asked.
"All the corn you want and no list," Greg
told me. "Can I get you anything today?"
"How about dill?" I asked.
"We have dill," he said and quickly ran
into the back only to return with a healthy bunch of dill weed.
"How much is that?" I asked.
"Two dollars," he answered.
I pulled two dollars out of my wallet and silently
counted stalks of dill weed. Thirteen was the count and for two dollars.
As I paid him and walked away I said to myself: "Thank you for
shopping at Boser's South Side Fruit Market. You have saved $4.50 by
shopping here and didn't have to listen to some nit wit and a three way
conversation and have three difference calculations, none of which were
accurate, thrown at you."
Sharyn commented to me: "So much for not buying
in Bradford and how everything in Warren is better," she said.
I quickly answered. "This is Bradford Township,
not Bradford."
She didn't answer. She knew I was right. She also
knew that none of the merchants on Main Street were like the Boser family
either. Perhaps if they were, Main Street wouldn't have died like it has.
But I have learned my lesson. I have always gotten my
corn and my tomatoes from Bosers. There is no reason to ever go anywhere
else. Again I have proven to myself that there is no place like home - at
least where my canning needs are concerned.
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SEPTEMBER 4, 2K
Pictures and letters
Happy Labor Day or is it Merry Labor Day? Oh well.
Sam and I went to lunch on Friday for his birthday. Amy, a lovely young
lady, took care of us and Lonnie, my buddy, joined us. Of course Tommy,
the greatest bartender in the world was there too.
First we stopped by to see Sam's Granny. She was
at work.
Then we went to lunch at the Ironstone
in Jamestown, N.Y. - a great place to have lunch any day, not just on
birthdays.
Sam likes his celery. We had fun from
the beginning.
Sam was smiling at his buddy Tommy.
And he flirted with pretty girls, too.
Then came his birthday cake and guess
who had fun then.
Sam had a great birthday and his gramps
enjoyed himself, too.
And now a letter I received. What do you think
about this?
Dear Mr. Beck,
My name is Erma and I stumbled across your column the other day when you
were looking for writers. I see that you, yourself, write about
the
crooked politicians in your area. I see that you have a
Mr. Tom Clark,
who seems to write from a rather "male perspective". I
see that you
have an old, skunky Indian on your staff who likes to dig up the dirt
and expose people like the racist, bigoted Error reporter. There
was a
poet on your staff that made me laugh 'til my sides split. I think his
name was Ghostwriter. And even a child wrote you a
lovely, melancholy poem. But nowhere do I see a writer who
writes representing the "softer side". You know, us
women!
Someone told me that last March you got rather irritated when a reader
brought up Women's History Month. They told me that you got
sick and
tired of whining women demanding their equality. Sounds pretty
bigoted
to me, Mr. Beck!
Because of that, I thought that I would offer you a column a month from
a mother's perspective. You seem to like your little grandson,
Sam, an
awful lot. But do you know what his mother goes through every
day? No, not many men do! They seem to think that
raising children in the new millennium is a pretty easy thing to do.
No one cares about scrubbing dirty bathtub rings and stepping on toy
dinosaurs in your bare feet. No one makes a sniffle when the
Lipton
chicken noodle soup is out of stock in the pantry just when Mom comes
down with pneumonia. Sure, they have made pumping gas much
easier for the female side, but no one yet has come up with a fumeless van
with two rows full of car seats with side windows that don't roll down
while
you're pumping the darn gas! No, you have to shut the engine
down and
cook the kids. And some male businessman has put
eye-level candies and goodies right within reach of the smallest hands
when paying the
cashier.
But, I have him beat! I got me one of those new debit
cards so you
don't have to go inside to pay anymore with that screaming, crying kid
who has just thrown up because the van was too hot and the fumes were
too strong when the windows didn't roll down. He won't get my
last
dollar on green-slime candy. No, I'm fighting back!
What do you think, Mr. Beck? Can I join your staff, too? After
all,
you have some fairy named Glinda chasing rainbows writing for you. Show us
women that you are big-hearted and let us show your readers just what this
year's Women's History Month can really be. Put a woman on your
staff. You just might learn something new!
Sincerely,
Mommy Erma
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SEPTEMBER 3, 2K
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOM RIEL
SEPTEMBER 2, 2K
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