Date: Fri 23-Jul-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

mountain-zucchini

Full Text:

TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN

It was only a matter of time. Long green vegetables have begun to appear in

odd places around the office. It started when The Bee 's front office

receptionist and secretary Sandy Tannone tried to slip cucumbers into the

morning mail. The cukes were actually pretty nice, but it was what they

portend that is worrisome. Where there are cucumbers, there soon will be

zucchinis -- big zucchinis, big as baseball bats. People will be slipping them

into unlocked cars in parking lots, in front porch milk boxes, behind screen

doors. They'll be everywhere before you know it, so watch your step.

The warm weather recently seemed to have lengthened the duration of the

mid-day naps of the little sparrows waiting to fledge from this nest recently

spotted on Hall Lane.

INSERT BIRD PHOTO HERE

The little ones can get very noisy at dinnertime, but during the day even an

intrusive photographer with a flash couldn't get a rise out of these guys.

George Mattegat celebrated his 70th birthday on Monday this week. George

doesn't look his age, but according to his wife Carol that's because he

married a child bride. George still occasionally ventures out at night looking

for excitement, so the night after his birthday he decided to attend the local

Republican Caucus, which was so exciting that they forgot to endorse a

candidate for first selectman in this year's local elections. That was pretty

exciting for Democratic incumbent First Selectman Herb Rosenthal, who will now

run unopposed.

The big excitement of the night for George, however, came before the caucus

when he had to run out on porcine patrol in his capacity as dog warden to

remove a pig from a road where it was blocking traffic.

Carol Mattegat, on the other hand, is content with little or no excitement, at

least until her broken shoulder mends. Carol injured herself in a fall.

Another one of my friends had a serious accident recently. Theater manager Tom

Mahoney is recovering at home from hand surgery that was performed after the

ends of two of his fingers were cut off in an accident at Edmond Town Hall.

Tom was trying to fix a malfunctioning air conditioning unit before Friday

evening's movie when the mishap occurred. Hope to see you at work again really

soon, Tom.

The old slate walk in front of the town hall was torn up and replaced recently

because it was a hazard to walkers. Tell that to Jan Andras of the first

selectman's office. No sooner was the new slate installed then Jan tripped and

scraped up her knee.

When Rev Robert Weiss arrived to take over as the new pastor at St Rose, Msgr

George Birge gave him a tour of the property including the former McLachlan

Insurance building at 38 Church Hill Road that the church purchased last year.

Father Weiss needed to use the building's rest room, but when he shut the door

it locked and refused to open again. Msgr Birge was ready to call a locksmith

to get Father Weiss out, but the new pastor found a simpler solution. He

climbed out through the window.

Stuart Hanjac is now doing his part to brighten the economic future of

Newtown. Stuart is a WestConn student who is working for six weeks this summer

as an intern in the town's community development office.

After Newtown got a glowing review in the real estate section of the Sunday

New York Times a couple of weeks ago, Stewart Edelstein wrote a note to First

Selectman Herb Rosenthal suggesting, "Maybe you should change the name of

Newtown to Utopia." I think that may be stretching it a little far, however.

Maybe we should just settle for Newtopia.

There are a lot of utility poles alongside Main Street and Church Hill Road so

I called CL&P to ask what the poles are for. CL&P said the poles are SNET

poles. So I called SNET. A SNET spokesman sent me a FAX several days later to

explain that they are replacing existing poles with larger ones to accommodate

new cable that will be placed on the poles by CL&P. When any of this will

happen is anybody's guess.

You don't have to guess when I'll be back. Next week, same time, same place,

so...

Read me again.