I’m quite surprised I didn’t get a call this week from all the calendar watchers out there who figured out that I was jumping the gun by declaring the start of summer last week. The summer solstice, of course, isn’t until this Thursday, the 21st, not the 14th as I suggested last week. For those of you taken in by my bogus astronomical calculations, there is one consolation. You just got yourselves an extra week of summer that less gullible folks won’t have.

Marty Maciag says the monthly spaghetti suppers and bluegrass socials at the Methodist Church in Sandy Hook have become so popular that he doesn’t get finished until after 1 am, then he has to go around town collecting the signs advertising the event. Last time he was in his 86 pickup driving around – to the hardware store, to the entrance to the landfill, then off to the intersection by the high school – and he kept seeing a police car. He was driving through Fairfield Hills when the police finally stopped him, told him his truck had been weaving, and asked if he had been drinking. “I’m just tired,” he said. “I’ve been at an event at the Methodist Church all evening.”

“Are you trying to tell me that Methodists don’t drink?” the cop responded.

“Well, you’ve got me there,” Marty admitted. (He didn’t get a ticket.)

Jason Valenta arrived in Taiwan Monday to begin work on an engineering project. He went to eat in a restaurant in his hotel and noticed that attached to it was a garden room filled with little green birds that looked like finches. When he got up to take a phone call on the other side of the restaurant, the birds flew over to his table and started pecking around for crumbs. Then he was surprised when he arrived at the job site at lunchtime and saw all the workers asleep on the floor. He went into the office, and all the employees there also were sleeping, their heads on their desks. Jason said it looked strange – like a scene in a science fiction movie in which everyone was dead – but they were just taking their regular noontime nap.

Michelle Babyak is back from an expense-paid four-day trip to the luxurious Moon Palace Resort on the Mayan Riviera in Cancun, Mexico. She was awarded the trip for being one of the country’s most successful independent consultants with PartyLite Gifts, which markets candles and candle accessories.

Newtown Savings Bank opened its newest branch in Trumbull this week and officials celebrated the opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday afternoon.

Longtime Newtown teacher/guidance counselor Jack Quinlan was honored at a retirement party last Friday at Roberto’s Restaurant in Monroe. About 130 people turned out. Among the highlights was a performance by The Extremes, four gorgeous ladies dressed in fluffy wigs and sparkly dresses. They were Lynn Koratash, Michelle Hiscavich, Kathy Walsh, and Elaine Schwartz. NHS teacher Chuck Mann was in charge of the music, a relatively easy job, but one he somehow botched. Chuck finally got the music going, however, and the show was a big hit.

Also, Bob Tremaglio read his own version of “Jack and the Beanstalk” and Bill Manfredonia tried hard to dispel a Jack-ism about chickens and hormones.

Congratulations to Daniel McSweeney, who was awarded honorable mention in the elementary division in the instrument category at the highly competitive Manchester Young Artists Competition this past weekend. Daniel, a fourth grader at Hawley School, has been playing the flute for the past five years under the tutelage of Katherine DiPierro Isles, the principal flutist in the Danbury Symphony.

Bill Shpunt of the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire Company traveled across the state to North Stonington Saturday morning to pick up more lobsters after the fire company sold more crustaceans that expected on Friday night. Bill picked up an extra 400, more than enough for Saturday’s “fest.” Bill probably should have picked up more corn and rolls. They ran out late Saturday night.

I don’t know how anyone can drive an hour and a half across the state with 800 claws in the vehicle. I would have been looking over my shoulder the whole way home.

NHS graduation is scheduled to start at 5 pm Tuesday and will be outside in the stadium if it’s not raining. I hope the weather holds out for the graduating seniors of the NHS Class of 2001. They deserve a big crowd on their big night.

I’ll be back next week with a fair amount of pomp and circumstance, so be sure to…

Read me again.