Those Places Thursday - Only in Small Town America

I have been very lucky to visit one of my favorite cousins this past week in Homer, Cortland Co, New York. It is so relaxing. The weather is great and a little rain at night. The country side and all lawns and trees are wonderful shades of green - all shades of green NOT BROWN or YELLOW! OMG it is so green here, so beautiful, so green. Did I tell you how green it is here?   AND there are no fences.

I am staying with my cousin Barb (Barbara June Little Bean GEBHARDT). We have lived day by day, relatives and neighbors coming and going visiting, sitting on the front porch watching the world go by.

I was reading the local newspaper "The Homer News" (July 3, 2014 page 2) while drinking my homemade lemonade. (N o I am not sucking on a piece of straw)
The Letters to the Editor column caught my eye...... and after I read it I said to myself 'this would only happen in small town America.............. titled:

"THANK YOU FOR HELP WHEN POWER WAS OUT".......
To the Editor:

Last Thursday and Friday, along with many other Village residents, we experienced the longest power outage that I have experienced in 25 years of being in business, Outages never exceeded
4 hours or so even during the storms in the late nineties.  Our losses were significant and we must make preparations for occurrences to happen more frequently.

Gone are the days when the linemen from Niagara Mohawk lived and worked in the communities they serviced. Those days, the local workers knew the power grid inside and out, prevented problems and would be proactive at the first indicator of a problem.  Our aging electric infrastructure is now owned by a British Company and they rely on crews from up to hundreds of miles away.
When news of the long term outage began to spread, contrary to the reports from National Grid, we began to make preparations to move much of the savable product to off-site locations. We were able to accomplish this because of the kindness of local businesses as well as friends and staff. An enormous amount of work was completed in a very short amount of time, enabling us to reduce our losses.

We would like to than Laurence Beaudry, Kathy and John Sears and Gerry Contento for offering us the use of their refrigerators and freezers. Thanks also to Fran Endler and the folks at Contento's who dropped what they were doing and began work on obtaining a generator large enough to power a store, and to the many friends who were able to lend a hand moving product.
People say living/working in a small community where news travels fast and everybody knows everyone's business can be a drawback. Sometimes..... its a blessing.

Debbie and Kevin Williams