Date: Fri 06-Nov-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

Mountain-election

Full Text:

TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN

I haven't been able to put my finger on why I've been feeling so depressed

lately until I felt the pall lifting on Wednesday. Then I realized that it had

been more than a day since I had seen a negative campaign commercial. Suddenly

the world seemed a little more cheerful.

Some of the attack ads weren't very subtle in their attempts to get people to

switch their votes. Not at all like the very subtle attempt at persuasion that

one man thought he spotted on election day. The staff in the first selectman's

office received a call Tuesday from a resident complaining about something he

found disturbing down at the polls. He said he received a slip of paper which

had Abraham Lincoln's face on it. This is wrong, he said, the last face you

see before you vote is that of a Republican. (So that's how John McKinney got

elected.)

Even Honest Abe wasn't always a winner. In 1858, when the Illinois legislature

elected Stephen A. Douglas instead of Lincoln as senator, a friend asked

Lincoln how he felt. He replied, "Like a boy who stubbed his toe; I am too big

to cry and too badly hurt to laugh."

Not wanting to stub his toe, Jim Maloney did a blitz campaign on the weekend

before the election, visiting 27 towns in the Fifth District. He was at the

transfer station/recycling center in Newtown between 8 and 9 am on Saturday.

The congressman topped his Republican opponent by 117 votes in Newtown and he

figures some of those votes came from his visit to the landfill.

The cut-a-thons held at Ricci's Salon and The HairWorks recently were a great

success, raising more than $2,000 for the family of Thomas Ward. Thomas, who

turned 13 recently, is home from Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York,

where he spent months undergoing cancer treatment and battling a persistent

infection that has threatened the amputation of his leg. After more than a

dozen hyperberic chamber treatments (which cost more than $12,000 a session),

he was improved enough to come home but soon must begin another round of

chemotherapy.

The Newtown Police Union is holding a hamburger/hot dog dinner at the Sandy

Hook Firehouse Friday evening, November 6, to benefit Thomas and four-year-old

Whitney Balakier, another local child with a health problem. Dinner will be

served from 4:30 to 8 pm at the firehouse on Riverside Road.

Rich Rauner reports from Temple University Hospital, where he has been

confined since May 6 waiting for a heart transplant, that he is doing fine and

appreciates all the cards, letters and visits from friends back home. Richie

spends much of his time boosting the spirits of the other patients -- he's

known as the social director in the transplant unit -- and making benches for

children as part of the unit's activity program.

Dick Sturdevant knew what to do in the week after he sold his business,

Sturdevants Photo Video Corp in Danbury. He played golf three times. Dick

explained that he had to act quickly before winter weather set in and before

Marie forces him to get a job.

Next time you see Louise Tambascio at My Place, say happy belated birthday.

She turned 56 last week.

If you plan to go skiing or skating this winter, don't miss the Winterset Ski

Club's annual sale in the Edmond Town Hall gym on Saturday from 10 am to 2 pm.

This is the 28th year that the club has held the sale which includes out-grown

skis, skates, clothing and equipment. Anyone who still has items to sell on

consignment should bring them to the town hall at 8 am on the day of the sale.

While you're at town hall, take a look upstairs at the murals that David

Merrill has almost completed. He would have finished the project last week but

he and his wife, Beryl, who works in the tax assessor's office, took some time

off to go on a cruise. David has become almost a fixture at town hall since he

began the project more than ten years ago and his presence is going to be

missed.

The Newtown chapter of American Field Service is holding its annual citrus

sale. Orders for navel oranges and grapefruit must be placed by November 16 --

call Thyra Wilson at 426-5355 -- for pickup on December 12. Thyra went to

Australia on the AFS program and now has a student, Connie Staub, who is from

Switzerland, staying with her and attending classes at the high school.

Legislative Council member Peggy Baiad was shopping at LL Bean in Freeport,

Me., this past weekend when she ran in to a former neighbor -- Vivian Dorman.

Vivian and her husband, Dan, a former Newtown High School teacher, moved up

north just within the past year. The Dorman family lived on The Boulevard for

many years and still keep up with the latest Newtown news in The Bee .

Its seems Mrs Baiad runs into lots of interesting people whenever she heads up

north. Last year, she saw former President George Bush at the Salt Marsh

Tavern in Kennebunkport.

You can also run into a lot of interesting people right here each week, so be

sure to...

Read me again.