Date: Fri 19-Jun-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

Mountain-rain-summer

Full Text:

TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN

Summer starts officially on Sunday, but I don't know anyone who has packed

away all the sweaters just yet. In the middle of all the cold rain last week,

more than a few householders wished they still had some dry wood left on the

porch from last winter. Let's just hope we won't have to wear thermal

underwear to our Fourth of July picnics.

Legislative Council member Donald Studley is recovering at home this week

after undergoing triple bypass surgery June 9. Don had a setback Saturday when

he suffered a collapsed lung. However, he is now reportedly feeling better.

Bob and Margot Hall planned to visit Don in the hospital on Monday and called

to confirm he was still there. He was, they were told. So up they went.

However, when they arrived, Don was gone. He hadn't escaped, he had simply

been discharged minutes earlier.

Several members of the council have been cooking Don meals and bringing them

to his home, an act that some feel could be far more risky than any heart

surgery.

Dick and Marie Sturdevant headed up to Vermont last weekend for their son

Mike's wedding. And despite the wet weather, the event turned out to be a

success.

One would think that after spending millions of dollars to renovate the high

school building and grounds last year, someone could have come up with the

money somewhere in the budget to fix the lettering near the building's main

entrance. Maybe over the summer break, we could buy an "I" for the side of the

building, so that visitors no longer walk into NEWTOWN H GH SCHOOL.

Susan Hills was at a meeting at St Rose Church on Tuesday evening despite the

fact that it was her 25th wedding anniversary. Monsignor Birge led everyone at

the meeting in a rousing rendition of "Happy Anniversary" to mark the date for

her. Afterwards Susan confided that she and Clark celebrated their anniversary

in Boston last weekend.

Rich Rauner is making a name for himself at Temple University Hospital in

Philadelphia where he is waiting for a heart transplant. "I'm a social

butterfly," he admits. "Everyone knows me. I feel like a 22-year-old again."

Rich says that if the weather is good, he gets to sit outside for an hour each

day and feed the pigeons which, unlike the staff and other patients, don't

tease him about his fluorescent shorts.

Next Wednesday is the annual Regional Hospice breakfast at The Fireside Inn.

The customers don't have to pay for their breakfast but they are expected to

leave big tips for Hospice. Event organizers Marilyn Alexander and Janet

Hovious invite everyone to come. The breakfast is from 8 to 9 am so don't be

late.

Marilyn is getting ready to host six of her nine grandchildren for her annual

"grandmother's camp" next week. This year she plans to get everyone involved

in a Tai Chi session every morning to commemorate the birth of the children's

cousin, Thomas Mitchell Alexander, who was born in January in China to

Marilyn's son, Peter, and his wife, Zhang Qing.

It was a little too wet last Sunday night to play bocci, but the Head O'Meadow

neighborhood should be back next Sunday night at bocci court at The Pleasance,

the small park maintained by The Bee at the corner of Main Street and Sugar

Street. On the first evening of neighborhood play, a couple of weeks ago, the

Giarratanos took top honors. Plenty of neighbors are willing to challenge the

champs in the next set of games, however.

You may have noticed that The Ram Pasture sign is missing. According to Jim

Crick, of the Newtown Cemetery Association, which owns The Ram Pasture, the

sign was taken down to make way for a new sign, which should be installed

before too long. In case you're wondering, the old sign can still be seen by

the public -- only it's inside now, out of the weather. It can be seen on the

back wall of the classified advertising department at The Bee.

Speaking of Jim Crick, he was recently spotted driving around in a little red

sports car with the convertible top down. When an acquaintance caught up with

him at a stop light, he was asked "Jim, is that you?" He simply replied,

"Bond. James Bond."

Bob Tendler was out driving as well this week, and when he turned into the Big

Y parking lot, he was very disappointed to find that the shopping center

management had painted lines on the newly paved parking lot. Bob liked it

better without the lines. "When there are no lines," he told a friend, "you

can park anywhere you want." And he did just that.

I don't care where you drive this week as long as you park yourself back here

next week in time to...

Read me again.