MAY 13 - MAY 19, 2000
MAY 19, 2K
The hummingbirds are back!
Good morning. It is 49.3 degrees at 6:21 A.M. and Happy Birthday to Bob Walker.
The hummingbirds are back and are they!
They have been back for about two weeks. I was sitting in my chair one evening when
outside the window was a single, very small, (even for a hummingbird) bird hovering and
looking in at me as if he was saying: "I'm back. Where is my feeder?"
Sharyn and I scrambled to find the two we put away last fall. When we couldn't, I
bought one at Value Home Center and within hours of filling it with my secret nectar
(which is still under investigation by Attorney General Mike Fisher and his Secret
Hummingbird Police) I had the little one and another. Boy were they hungry!
The warm weather got them moving early this year. The storms that swept through us in
late April - all coming up from the south, aided them in their journey northward. It is
those seasonal storms that the hummingbirds get into and kind of ride the surf north.
Even in yesterday's storm, in the midst of the heaviest winds and rains, the
hummingbirds were flying in and out and eating as if it was nothing. Not a single other
bird was out. Just the hummingbirds.
They are relentless little creatures. They buzz and fight one another for
their food. They do that all day except for the first thing in the morning and the last
thing before dark. At those two times they take turns and feed so they can either make it
through the night or get their morning fix. After that, it is all out war.
I bring my feeders in each night. Our friend the bear likes the nectar,
too. He took the one I bought a Value and literally destroyed it.
Because of me bringing them in, if I am not quick to get them out in the
morning I have a half a dozen or so peeping hummingbirds at my front window, all looking
for food.
The hummingbirds are one of my real enjoyments of the summer, and really,
so is the never ending battle with the bear. And like I said before, this is a nice place
to live. It really is, and it is a shame that someone like Slocum, who went out of his way
to destroy it, didn't get a stiffer sentence.
Your comments are welcome at editor@mlrmag.com.
MAY 18, 2K
Thoughts of Kathy Wilson
Good morning. It is 61.5 degrees at 6:09 A.M.
Twelve years ago today a thirty-four year old mother of three woke, got her
children ready for work, dressed herself, and went to her job in Falconer, NY. At noon she
went to the bank to make the company's deposit, bought a salad at a local Quality Market
store, and ate in her car in the parking lot of that store. Her name was Kathy Ann Wilson.
Just before 12:30 P.M. she moved her car from one location in the parking lot
to another that was less conspicuous and offered a bit more privacy being out of the
general path of ingoing and outgoing customers. There she was seen arguing with someone
who was described as "a boyfriend or a husband." She was never seen
again.
For a year and a half authorities searched for her.
They had clues. Her purse came home around six that night when it was found along a
well traveled road just over the state line in Pennsylvania. Her van was found late that
night in a shopping mall parking lot. And latent finger prints were lifted from several
areas of the van even though it was obviously wiped clean of prints.
But something happened in those first hours.
The police, had they known that Kathy was murdered instead of just missing, could have
solved the crime. They were probably speaking with the murderer, or if they weren't, were
very close. In all probability, they did speak with him in the first week. But they didn't
see it that way.
They keyed in on Jay William Buckley, a man with a criminal past who once had even
stolen a vehicle with the female owner still in it. When the resulting police chase went
bad and Buckley crashed the vehicle and killed the innocent driver of another vehicle, he
went to jail. Ironically, Buckley's probation for that crime ended at midnight on that
very date.
But Kathy Wilson was only a missing person. She was not the victim of a crime. And
people were seeing her in Florida and a number of other places. That went on until her
skeletal remains were found in late September, 1989. Then law enforcement authorities
showed themselves up as being truly inept and verging on downright corrupt.
With clues pointing in other directions, with Buckley and his munchkin like partner in
crimes all passing lie detector tests, even with them not even remotely matching the
fingerprints that were found; authorities, looking for a quick resolution to the crime,
keyed in on Buckley and Michael Ruben Brown.
Brown was only seventeen at the time. He lived at home with his pregnant girl friend
and after a series of private meetings with a lone Pennsylvania State Trooper, suddenly
came up with a vivid and very complete story of how Jay William Buckley abducted, raped,
and murdered the pretty mother of three.
Whether the District Attorney who brought the initial charges was aware of what went on
is up for speculation. Richard Hernan brought the charges and could not have been that
stupid had he looked closely. He was leaving office and this suddenly was a media event.
He seized the opportunity and took the spotlight. Brown was arrested the moment he got out
of a hired limousine that was sent to New York to bring him down to allegedly collect his
reward for providing information in the case.
Oh yes. There were rewards totaling twenty-seven thousand dollars. Quite an incentive
for a seventeen year old with a pregnant girl friend!
And then there was Buckley. He was in jail for burglary. He had to extradited to
Pennsylvania to stand trial.
And the story goes on and on. Ultimately, Buckley was found not guilty of the crime,
Brown is now in jail, after many years of freedom for Perjury, and the DA and the State
Trooper are free as birds. And Kathy Wilson, and what was done to her, are forgotten to
all but a few of us.
Her family will never know how and why she was murdered.
Her children grew up without a mother.
Her husband, her friends, and even me, someone who never knew her in life but certainly
grew to know her in death, all of us are here and we remember her.
What was taken from her? What has she missed in these last twelve years? Why?
These are questions that will never be answered. That's too bad.
As you go about your business today, think of this woman. Think of her only for a
moment. She cried out for justice for so so long. At least we can hope she has found
peace.
Your comments are welcome at editor@mlrmag.com.
MAY 17, 2K
The laugh of the day
Good morning. It is 43.7 degrees at 6:04 A.M. and Sharyn and I are having our
laugh of the day right now.
Pru and Larry, two globe trotting readers of ours sent this e-mail:
Polish up the VOTES WAGON & GET ON THE STUMP...WE ARE PULLING FOR YOU! (from
the south of France).
While that is flattering, Sharyn would probably leave me if I even considered such a
thing.
"Yes," she said. "We spent the evening waiting by the phone for C.
Russell Johnson to call and ask you to run."
The Republican Party Chairman was quoted as saying, "We are losing a good
man."
Actually, C. Russell, as one of the Slocum aides, has lost a good job. Slocum never was
a good man, not for a long time. He was the puppet of the party and was the man they used
to introduce the legislation that no one else would.
Case in point is the bill to eliminate seasonal workers from unemployment compensation.
And up here with the winters we used to get and probably will in the near future, that
would be devastating on families and the local economy. But the Republican controlled
houses and the Ridge Administration cares little about that. They only care about the big
business backers that pump millions into their campaigns.
Slocum landed on his feet. He already has his state job lined up. That was the deal
with him resigning. Now the fancy footwork begins.
State Representative Jim Lynch, the man who first named C. Russell and Betty Comes,
"the pig" and "the cow," is backing Joe Scarnati.
Scarnati ran a write in campaign against Slocum in the primary and pulled in a few
votes. He narrowly lost to Slocum four years ago in the primary, probably only because of
Ron Orris' strong showing in his home county. Scarnati would be the logical choice; but
the animosity that has built up between the Christian Conservative Lynch and the free
wheeling Johnson and Ashe Khare, the Warren County Chairman, will certainly have the two
of them supporting someone else other than Scarnati and going directly in Lynch's face
over who will and will not control the party..
Whoever it is, they will have to promise C. Russell the same deal he had with Slocum. I
don't see Scarnati rowing Johnson aboard just as I don't see Johnson embracing Scarnati.
Either way, it is probably time for a change up here. It is time for a Democrat to hold
that seat and while Joe Calla and his qualifications concern me, look at Slocum.
No Pru. No Larry. I am out of politics. Unfortunately the people don't care and they
just don't want to know. I have four years of evidence on that and no matter what you do,
there is always someone there to twist it and make good things sound bad.
Losing the election was the best thing that ever happened to me. I am the happiest I
have ever been and am now pursing the project I really like. Thank you for being such
loyal readers. I have a few good and interesting issues coming very soon. That is the best
way I can serve.
Your comments are welcome at editor@mlrmag.com.
MAY 16, 2K
Hummingbirds and swimming pools
Good morning. It is 30.2 degrees at 6:10 A.M.
Really, I would rather talk about my hummingbirds who are back once more. This
morning there were five of them. I have to bring in the feeder every night otherwise the
bear gets up on the front porch and takes it down, usually destroying it as he gets the
nectar. They are much more interesting than the headline today that announced:
Slocum Resigns
And it is about time. I did notice that Slocum took the time to blame John
Martin for all of his woes. He claimed that he was going to fire him for poor job
performance when he resigned. They always say that about whistle blowers! Slocum and his
cronies have that knack of turning the tables on good people and blaming them for what
they are and have done.
But don't fret about Billy Lowscum. He will land on his feet. The
Republican majority and none other than our esteemed governor have guaranteed the
disgraced State Senator a job that pays as much as what he made as Senator for going into
the sunset without any more fan fare. All's well that ends well!
The hummingbirds were only part of my day yesterday. We were
setting up an enormous 24 by 24 swimming pool. It took five truck loads of water to fill
it. I wowed my wife and after all these years that is not an easy thing to do. But alas!
Even with my wife praising me, the Three Stooges are at it again over in Smethport.
Cleaning up dumps not easy
No kidding!
Paul Howard is a nice enough guy. His thing is all of these little dumps
we have up here in the hills. Actually, some of the little dumps are not so little. The
only problem is that he thinks something can be done about it.
Maybe it could but he is certainly talking to the wrong people.
Moe, Larry, and Curley will never do a thing about the dumps and all it
that happens is they give a hack reporter something to write about and bore us to tears
every week.
Maybe that was a bit severe on poor old George. After all, we both
are alumni of good old California State College in wonderful little California, PA. And
the column was humorous today. It was because he quoted Moe and showed him up as the
cantankerous old man that he is. It all started over him not signing a letter.
Quoting directly from George Petrisek's article in The Bradford Error,
it went something like this:
Paul Howard, a Ceres Township resident who has been asking for cleanup
action for almost five years, noted that only Pingie and Stratton had signed the letter
and asked why Commissioner Jim Weaver had not.
Stratton replied that Weaver had been out of town, but Weaver jumped in to inform Howard
that it only takes two signatures to make a letter official.
Noting Weaver's obvious irritation, Howard said he had not meant to imply anything by his
question, and told Weaver "Don't take offense."
When Weaver said something more about only two signatures being needed, Howard again tried
to calm him and said, "Jim, it was a simple question, I don't think we need to start
a big discussion."
"I don't think we need any discussion," Weaver snapped.
He went on to say that the county has only one pickup truck, while most municipalities
have several trucks.
Mention was also made of a newspaper column criticizing the commissioners, and Howard told
commissioners not to bash the writer.
Weaver angrily replied, "Sure, he praised you -- you ought to think it's good."
My question is simple enough. Why didn't you let Jay Paul Kahle speak for
you Jimmy? You would have done better. This makes it look like when you aren't doing
something, you really are. And we wouldn't want that word to get out.
Mr. Howard needs to get a new life. Larry evidently didn't fall asleep.
Maybe the new medication is working. My question about that is what was the old
stuff? In four years working with him whenever I decided to show up, I never once heard
anything about the medication. Larry slept at meetings, snored occasionally, and we just
accepted it.
Heck, once when Route 219 was under construction and there were flag men
on the highway and you were stopped for as long as five minutes at a time, Larry and Jim
both fell asleep in Jim's car in the middle of the afternoon. If Larry was on medication,
you think he would have changed it then, and maybe got some for Jim, too.
But listening to Mr. Howard say the same thing over and over, and knowing
that Mr. Howard knows that the Three Stooges wouldn't do anything even if they could, and
they can't, is enough to put anyone to sleep.
So I will just blow all of this off pretty much like the Million Mom's
March and go about deciding if it is soon enough to put out the second hummingbird feeder.
I will do that and wait for it to get warm again so I can try out the pool.
Your comments are welcome at editor@mlrmag.com.
MAY 15, 2K
Who are "they"?
Good morning. It is 31.5 degrees at 5:59 A.M. Is that cold enough for you,
Mary? Better pack some long pants, sweaters, or at least a few jackets. The will be no
eighty degree weather for the next week or so, at least. It has turned into a typical
northwestern Pennsylvania May. And as you know, that could even include snow.
The million mom march was yesterday.
It was but no million moms showed up. And why would we expect them to in the first
place?
This is politics as usual with us, as usual, on the receiving end..
The Gore Democrats against the Bush Republicans, claims on the Sunday morning news
shows that one side is stone walling the other. The same old stuff: we need more laws and
more law enforcement. Get guns off the street! Get them out of the hands of children. And
so on and so on and so on.
We all close our ears to it and we go on planting our flower gardens and cutting the
grass. We are secure knowing we have our handguns safely stored away in our homes. None of
this really affects us, or does it?
Anytime they can stage a rally in Washington, DC with 400,000 mothers showing up, we
should take notice. We should because we are about to keep on losing rights and as we lose
them, then it affects us.
This recent push is nothing more than the government going for the throat on the gun
issue. They are going for nationwide gun registration and taxation and they are doing it
by amending the tax code.
That's right. They want to amend the tax code so that each and every one of us will pay
a "nominal" fee of say $25 a year on each gun that we own. That, they are
telling us, will give us the control over guns that this nation needs.
You and I are law abiding citizens. We work every day and we pay our taxes and we want
the best for our families. Many of us own guns because we hunt, we target shoot, or we
want them for person protection in our homes. No matter how many laws they pass, there
still seem to be those out there that ignore the laws and break into houses to steal,
rape, or murder. And with that in mind, we have some peace of mind in knowing if that
would happen, maybe we just might have a fighting chance if we had one of the deadly
things around.
I know that is far fetched and not good thinking; but, that is the main argument for
having them - aside from the fact that it is and has been our right since this nation was
founded.
Watching it all unfold yesterday morning I saw rude people arguing on both sides. It
seems whoever yells the loudest thinks they stand the best chance of winning. After awhile
it all sounds the same. I am sure that is what "they" really want.
"They" want it all to sound the same so that "they" can do what
"they" really wanted all along - to tax us, to control us, and to make us
dependent on "them."
The utopia of the seventies following the Vietnam War gave us a generation that expects
the government to do everything for them, including telling them how to think. We have
replaced our parents as the old fogeys who don't have a clue. One in five wore a uniform
during the Vietnam War, so many of us within our own generation have no concept of
national service or what this country has stood for. Instead, we are bombarded with
statistics that "they" say justifies what they are going to do to us.
Looking at death statistics - death statistics per thousand from gun related causes -
we are the most violent nation in the world.
14.2 per thousand deaths are caused by guns in this country. Then "they" go
on to point out that 4.4 per thousand occur in Canada; 4.2 per thousand in England; 2.1
per thousand in Germany; and 0.9 per thousand in France. And, "they" will tell
us that has to change.
The statistics prove we are a violent nation. But aren't we the nation that won World
War II? Aren't those other nations the nations that lost or had to be saved by us in that
same war? Weren't they glad back then that that Yanks were so violent?
We have parted from the old line of thinking. It used to be that boys would fight - I
mean have fist fights on the school playground. It was part of growing up. But now if two
boys get into a fist fight the District Attorney is involved and felony charges are
brought because we have laws against that sort of thing. So, instead of fist fighting,
they bring in guns and shoot it out. What are we doing? What have we done?
Maybe our Constitution is obsolete. Maybe we do need to begin giving up our rights to
have guns. Maybe, but what comes after that? When the police have us under control and
only they, when they decide they need to, can protect us from the real criminals, what
comes next? Do we start the thought police? Do they control what people like me write? And
when that happens, will the people who write or teach or believe differently than
"they" do, what then. Do those people disappear in the night? Is that what is
ahead?
Your comments are welcome at editor@mlrmag.com.
MAY 14, 2K
To all the lovely ladies who have been so loving and caring for so long
Happy
Mother's Day
MAY 13, 2K
What's this supposed to mean?
Tom Clark e-mailed me:
I
received this one as response to yesterday's column.
From: "Todd and Pam White"
To: <tcclark@2-cool.com>
Subject: thanks
Thanks for remembering Sorrell Booke. I thought I might be the only one who thought
he should have a street first. After all, he was not only a star, but he was the kind of
guy who could have been a county commissioner here. He looks the part.
Now, is that some slam at me or what?
If you have a comment on this article please click here.
[ Top ] [ Home ]
[_private/toc_for_second_level_pages.html]
