Hippity Hoppity

Easter’s on its way, and last weekend the kids in Ripley were treated to an Easter egg hunt and a visit from the bunny herself.

Although the weather on Saturday was brisk (aka cold) and the wind blowing, hundreds of children, swarmed the town park to hunt hidden, and not so hidden, plastic eggs, hoping for a prize number inside. Sponsored by Ripley Pride, each egg had at least a piece of candy hidden within it and a lucky few were able to claim bigger prizes. As in past years, Trudy Babcock donated the eggs, candy and some of the prizes. Additional prizes were provided by Sue and Sal Gambino as well. They tell me 1,540 eggs were hidden. That’s a lot of eggs! I know they try to collect all the eggs at the end to reuse next year, but a few prizes went unclaimed, presumably because the eggs weren’t opened and got taken home. Better check your baskets.

My almost 2 year old niece, Lauren, was in town for the day, so I got her mom and dad to bundle up and brave the cold. They all had a great time even though she didn’t find an egg with a number in it. At two, the fun is putting the eggs in the basket anyway.

The Easter Bunny (Pat Testrake) hopped into the fire hall for a visit with kids on Sunday. About eighty little ones were able to visit with the bunny and make their own ice cream sundaes (ice cream donated by Schwan’s.) Joanne Barnhart, president of the Ripley Hose Auxiliary who sponsored Sundaes with the Bunny, says there’s always a good turn-out and they try to provide a prize for each child. This year there were stuffed animals, coloring books with crayons and grab bags. Paul Dorman also donated 20 t-shirts that said “Sundaes with the bunny” that the Auxiliary sold to raise much needed funds.

I am endlessly amazed at the number of events and activities that are offered to our Ripley residents. Great job everyone!

Spring is Sprung

“Spring is sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where d’birdies is…”

The crocus’s are in bloom, the tulips and daffodils are poking their heads up, the flowering bushes are budding, spring is in the air. Well, except for this week when the temperatures decided to drop a bit and remind us Ol’ Man Winter may have a surprise or two yet in store.

Most of the snow around here has melted away, leaving behind road debris, stones and dirt. Those of us along the highway get quite a bit of it. Time for spring clean up. I’ve seen quite a few folks out already with their rakes. Just a reminder, please don’t rake your yard leaves and debris onto the street. It ends up in the storm drains, clogging them and making a mess. Or maybe that’s just in the cities. Do we have storm sewers here?

I grew up on South State Street in Ripley, beyond where the sidewalk ends. That’s always been an irritant of mine, the lack of sidewalks. The sidewalk extends from town to Lakeview Avenue and no further. It was bad enough when I was a kid walking to school. Every time a car would approach I’d have to move over into people’s yards to get off the street. That was back in the days when the kids actually had to walk to school if they lived less than a mile away. I measured it once; my house was 9/10s of a mile from the school. Walking up there was a dangerous but acceptable thing to do. Many years ago that was changed and the kids are bused now.

Now Route 76 has been blacktopped and built up so it is several inches above the level of the property on either side. And somebody’s wisdom thought it would be a good idea to fill the ditches on both sides of the road with large rocks. This makes it impossible to step off the road for oncoming traffic. When walking now I guess we’ll just take our chances that we won’t get hit.

I was walking on South State Street with my Dad and my husband the other day, enjoying the bright sunshine and warmth, checking out all the signs of spring, when I happened to look down along the side of the road. I couldn’t believe the garbage that was scattered there. Cigarette packs, beer cans and bottles, pop cans and plastic bottles littered the ditches and yards. I decided to get a garbage bag and pick up some of the trash thoughtless people threw out of their vehicles. Now keep in mind, the house I grew up in is only 1/10 of a mile from Side Hill Road. That’s only 528 feet, a fraction of a football field. In that short distance, on one side of the road only, I managed to gather a large garbage bag full. The most disgusting things I found were several plastic pop bottles filled with what I can only assume is urine. C’mon people. Where is our sense of decency?

Perhaps as we clean our lawns and yards for spring, we can take a little time to pick up the trash and litter that has been left behind. Hey, maybe somebody’s car window was open and the wind just happened to catch that pop can or McDonald’s bag. Or maybe not. It’s too bad the rest of us have to clean up after those who don’t care.

This post requires a bit of an explanation. A couple weeks ago a column appeared in the Westfield Republican, the same paper to which I submit my columns. In this column the editor complains about the use of the exclamation point. I wrote a rebuttal of his views. I have enclosed both columns so you can follow the reasoning, such as it is. Hope you enjoy!

The most worthless punctuation mark
By S. Alexander Gerould

You’ve probably seen the episode of “Seinfeld” where the character Elaine breaks up with her boyfriend because he didn’t use an exclamation point in a message announcing Elaine’s friend had given to birth to a child.

Here’s that part of the script from www.seinfeldlists.com:

Elaine: Ooh, Myra had the baby! Oh, my God that’s wonderful! Who called?

Jake: She did.

Elaine: She did? Oh, that’s so great!

Jake: Where do you keep the corkscrew?

Elaine: In the drawer on the right. Hmm...

Jake: What?

Elaine: Oh it’s nothing.

Jake: What is it?

Elaine: It’s nothing.

Jake: Tell me.

Elaine: Well, I was just curious why you didn’t use an exclamation point?

Jake: What are you talking about?

Elaine: See, right here you wrote “Myra had the baby”, but you didn’t use an exclamation point.

Jake: So?

Elaine: So, it’s nothing. Forget it, forget it, I just find it curious.

Jake: What’s so curious about it?

Elaine: Well, I mean if one of your close friends had a baby and I left you a message about it, I would use an exclamation point.

Jake: Well, maybe I don’t use my exclamation points as haphazardly as you do.

Elaine: You don’t think that someone having a baby warrants an exclamation point?

Jake: Hey, I just chalked down the message. I didn’t know I was required to capture the mood of each caller.

Elaine: I just thought you would be a little more excited about a friend of mine having a baby.

Jake: Ok, I’m excited. I just don’t happen to like exclamation points.

Elaine: Well, you know Jake, you should learn to use them. Like the way I’m talking right now, I would put an exclamation points at the end of all these sentences! On this one! And on that one!

Jake: Well, you can put one on this one: I’m leaving!

I laughed at the situation, but I could completely understand where Elaine’s boyfriend was coming from – exclamation points are the most useless piece of punctuation out there.

Heck, give me a semi-colon, apostrophe or question mark any day and I’ll be happy. At least those types of punctuation marks add a little more character and pizazz.

After doing some research on our illustrious friend, the exclamation mark – yes, there has been research done and, believe it or not, I do have a life – I found that this horrid piece of punctuation was first introduced into English printing in the 15th century. At the time, it was called the “note of admiration” – probably because “most useless” was already taken and the ancient grammarians felt bad for the little guy. According to Wikipedia, the exclamation mark didn’t appear on manual typewriters until the 1970’s.

Meanwhile, another resource suggests that this mark is often the most overused piece of punctuation and the use of it can make writing seem “amateurish.” Too many exclamation points, according to www.writingforward.com, can make reading difficult and provide readers with “speedbumps” to their comprehension of a text.

So, you have punctuation which is overused and couldn’t even make it onto a typewriter until the 1970s – that just screams winner.

And here’s this piece of information. According to the “Associated Press Stylebook,” the Bible when it comes to journalism, a period should be used “after mildly exclamatory sentences.” The exclamation point should only be used after extremely exclamatory sentences. Sorry, exclamation point, you lose again.

Whenever my co-worker, Nette, has something someone wishes to have printed in the newspaper, she occasionally glances through it. She loves it when there are exclamation points.

“You’re going to love this one,” she’ll say.

“Let me guess – exclamation points,” I usually respond.

She just nods.

Meanwhile, I’m tearing my hair out.

I don’t need a line and dot to tell me to be excited about something. Good writing should have that already built in and shouldn’t require a little helper at the end of a sentence. If a bear is chasing me, I’m going to be excited. I don’t need to read: “Then the bear started to chase me!”

There are some people that I know who use an exclamation point after almost every sentence. Take a glance at your Facebook or MySpace page every now and then, and you’ll see that someone is “going to the store!” or “just made a yummy dinner!” The only way I would be excited about those is if the person went to the store to buy me a 52-inch flat screen television or was making me dinner. I might actually use an exclamation point in my status update if someone actually did that for me.

In closing, I leave you with this great – and true - quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of “The Great Gatsby”: “Cut out all those exclamation marks. An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own jokes.”


Useless Indeed!

With all due respect to the editor of the Westfield Republican, I take issue with his tongue-in-cheek column of last week entitled “The most worthless punctuation mark.” In it he asserts that the exclamation point is a useless, horrid piece of punctuation. Au contraire Mr. Gerould!

I’ve been thinking about why the exclamation point is a necessary part of our lexicon and I think it all stems back toward the common use of the written word. If the exclamation point truly came into being in the 1600s, that coincides beautifully with an upswing of the written language for the masses. Prior to that, the written word was for the religious doctrines, government documents and other dreary things. No excitement there. Ideas are exciting! Passion is passionate! There are times you cannot convey that in the written language adequately. Hence, the addition of an exclamation point to let your reader know you are excited or passionate about what you just wrote.

For instance: If I say to you” I’m going to the theater to see Hamlet,” it could be read in the monotonous monotonic manner of Ben Stein (of Richard Nixon and Ferris Bueller fame). But if I add an exclamation point it tells you I’m excited about this venture!

I will concede the ! is over used but perhaps Mr. Gerould’s distain of this worthy latecomer to the written language stems from the sad demise of the hand written letter. Letter writing is fast becoming a lost art. Typewriters, computer word processing programs (not to mention blogging, Tweeting and Facebooking) and most especially the hand-held phone text messaging all render letter writing obsolete for most people. With the plethora of smiley faces, winks and other visual candy available on electronic transmissions, the exclamation point has been rendered worthless.”

I intend to keep using exclamation points in my writing. Viva la !

(All “facts” and scenarios presented here are purely a product of my imagination and are in no way indicative of actual events.)

Ah, it did work! I wasn't sure the photo was going to go through because all I saw on my screen was a bunch of letters and symbols. Anyway, this photo was taken at Poetry Night at the library last week, where we read some of our own poetry. My hair looks green from the florescent lights! lol

From the March 4th edition of the Westfield Republican newspaper, a tribute I wrote in memory of a friend of mine.

Tribute to Joel Ferree

I read the following on a friend’s Facebook page: If you knew you would never see me again, I wonder what one thing you would want to tell me.

We always wait too long, don’t we? A friend to many of us, Joel Ferree, passed away recently. Many nice things will be said of him, but how many of us said those things to him personally during his brief stay with us here on earth? I hope many of you did.

Joel was a man of many talents and interests. I hadn’t gotten to know him well enough to know he played several instruments, including the kazoo. We played kazoos at his funeral. I wish someone had given a brief lesson on how to play a kazoo, however. It was a new experience for me. What a loving tribute to a man who lived his life looking for the unusual and bizarre. I’ll bet he was looking down and laughing.

I knew Joel as a writer, although I had no idea to what extent he wrote. His tongue-in-cheek column in the Dunkirk Observer was only one facet of his wit and humor. I remember talking with him about an idea for his next column, about a snowflake who wanted to be different. I wonder if he had a chance to work on it. His powers of observation of the humor condition (no, that’s not a typo) were wonderful to behold.

I once wrote a column called Ripples, and how we all make some sort of impact on others during our lifetime. People like Joel don’t make ripples, they make huge splashes. From the stories and anecdotes I’ve heard, his life was an amazing one, particularly in his ability to connect with those of us less gifted, less insightful. As Rev. Dale Francis said, Joel was out of step with the rest of us mortals. Rev. Francis suspects Joel was a half-step ahead and I don’t doubt it.

A lovely comment was made at his funeral that I’d like to share. Joel, and his lovely wife, Mo, are two people who make it easy to love them, out of proportion to our knowing them. That’s not exactly how it was said, but basically it means that even if you didn’t know them well, you just really, really like them anyway. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be that kind of person? Someone you really want to know better, and be around because they make you feel good about yourself.

To paraphrase Ecclesiastes 3:4, there is a time to mourn the loss of Joel in our lives, and there is a time to rejoice in knowing he spent some time with us here and that we will enjoy his company again someday.

Scraps & Strings & Paper Things, a scrapbooking store owned and operated by Kris Thompson of Ripley, is now open in the lower level of Pillowcasegram in North East. This isn’t your grandmother’s scrapbook. Scrapbooking has become a full blown passion among those who do it. Gone are the old photo albums, crammed with every picture available into plastic covered pages and gone are the books filled with magazine pictures. “Scrapbooks,” says Kris, “are memory keepers. There are so many more options now, with all the embellishments, colors and designs.” Scrapbooking is a way to not only show off those photos but to help create the memories that go along with the pictures.

The store walls are covered with buttons, bows and bling. Supplies come from Cosmo Cricket and Maya Road among others. “I’ve been scrapping for years,” or leading an “alternative lifestyle” according to her sons Dennis and Mike. “I have a lot of the newest things,” Kris says, ignoring her offspring’s comments, “and trends change. What’s current now is webbing, a special painting technique on paper that makes it look like it’s got a web on it. Hybrid albums are big now too, part photo album, part scrap book. And I try to carry papers that aren’t found in chain stores.” A line of hand-made greeting cards, made by daughter Debi Lintz, are available as well.

The idea for a scrapbooking store started over two years ago when Lesley Rackowski of Pillowcasegram saw Thompson’s displays at CrossRoads, the “mall-ternative” shops located between Westfield and Sherman, New York. “Lesley asked if I’d like to rent space in her store. I have a degree in business management from Edinboro (college), but I’m self taught when it comes to scrapping,” states Kris. “I started moving stuff in January and I’m still rearranging, marking and receiving new merchandise,” she says.

Classes, workshops and “crops” (all day scrapbooking sessions) will start in March. Use of a Criscut, Bind-It-All and Cuttlebug, worth checking out just for the names, will be available for a small fee. Ms. Thompson also offers a scrapbooking service for those who don’t have the time to pursue it on their own. She explains, “I have them fill out a form to determine their tastes, what colors they like, and go through the pictures to identify who or what is in them, and then I put it all together.” Her best advice? “Mark your pictures before you forget!” Rates vary, depending on how simple or complex the pages.

The Grand Opening of Scraps & Strings & Paper Things is set for Saturday, February 27 from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. The first 25 customers will receive a free goodie bag and there will be a “pick-your-own-discount” from a fishbowl while they last. Demonstrations will continue throughout the day. Current hours of operation are Monday, Wednesday and Friday 10 a.m. ‘til 6 p.m., Tuesday 10a.m ‘til 4p.m. and Thursday and Saturday from 10a.m. ‘til 5 p.m. “Hours are currently based on Pillowcasegram and are subject to change,” Thompson explains. Extra hours are by chance or appointment. To get more information or to sign up for the Scraps & Strings & Paper Things newsletter check out www.scrapstringspaperthings.com or call 814-725-1681.