The News From Oneida Lake Return to main
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5.
Winter is way too long!
First
I want to apologize to everyone for taking so long to write this
installment. I had originally thought
that I would wait until the ice melted on the lake before writing it, but it looks
like that may be a while yet. Yes, the
lake is still covered with ice, and this being the second week in April, it may
be June before all the ice has gone.
It’s been a very long winter, reminiscent of the
winters I remember from long ago when I was a student up at Oswego State. The
snow began falling at Thanksgiving and we’ve had snow on the ground up until
last week. We were hit with three
Nor’easters in the month of March, and some of us thought that spring would
never come. It’s not nice being on the
western edge of a nor’easter. The wind
is out of the north and comes down over the Great Lake Ontario covering
everything with massive amounts of snow.
It is official. This winter set
the record for snowfall here on Oneida Lake.
The old record was 217 inches. I
think we had over 1,173 inches this year, so that will be a hard record to
break, and we still have most of April to go (the average snow fall in April up
here on the lake is 7 inches).
But, spring is definitely here, although nothing has
turned green yet. Things are still of
that grayish brown color--the same as the end of last fall. Most of the snow on the south shore has
melted, although the north shore has a way to go before they see bare
ground. Some may ask, “How can you tell
that winter is over if nothing has turned green yet?” Well, to answer that question, I have compiled the top ten ways
to tell when spring has arrived on Oneida Lake.
1.
The
number of used snowmobiles for sale triples.
(This is similar to telling when summer is over here in that the number
of used boats for sale triples.)
2.
Old
men with metal detectors return to the beach at Sylvan Beach. (I don’t know what they hope to find. There hasn’t been anybody at the beach since
last fall.)
3.
Flocks
of birds return, or should I say gangs of birds, banging on your kitchen door
demanding that you put more bird seed in the bird feeder. (They’re all back -
Canadian Geese, Mallards, Robins, Purple Finches, Black Capped Chickadees, and
even Great Blue Herons.)
4.
Children
trade their mittens and sleds for scooters and skateboards.
5.
Thunderstorms
return.
6.
The
number of dead skunks on the highway drastically increases.
7.
Everything
turns to mud. (They’ve changed the name
of Long Point to Mud Shoals.)
8.
You
find that rake and hedge trimmer you lost last fall underneath a snow bank in
the back yard.
9.
There
are flowers blooming right next to a pile of snow.
10.
All
the snow that’s left turns gray.
Enough about the weather, I suppose I should update you
on some of the goings on here around the lake.
As you may remember, Chad Dimple was up from West
Palm Beach, Florida visiting Robin Starling over at the Fantasy Florists. About the second week in February they
decided they couldn’t take it anymore, so they headed on down to Florida; AND
they took Edith Truax and Old Ladd (including Old Ladd’s bottle of Viagra)
along with them.
Flo and Eddy, over at the Eat-A-Lot Diner have been
working very hard and have had an exceedingly profitable winter. With all the snow that’s fallen, people have
had nothing to do but go to the Eat-a-Lot and eat a lot.
Pete Sokal, over at the Bait-N-Brew, has installed a new live bait vending machine. This has amazed all the farm boys. They just don’t understand how you can get live worms out of a vending machine. Pete says that sales from the vending machine have been very brisk. Every chance they get, the farm boys have been stopping by the Bait-N-Brew to buy worms from the machine. With the lake still frozen over, Pete has been wondering what the Farm boys are doing with all those worms (knowing the farm boys, it’s probably something pretty weird). The Five and Dime Bar has been running a special beer tasting promotion every Friday night, which has resulted in a lot of yellow snow around the Bar. There might be a connection with the live bait vending machine and the beer tastings at the Five and Dime, but I’m not going to speculate on that one.
Stinky Williams has been wearing the medal that the
Governor gave him everywhere and has been boring everyone to tears with his
tales of that drive. (You may remember-- his chicken run to Buffalo during the
great pizza pie crisis). Some folks
have even threatened that if he doesn’t shut up they’re going to take that
medal and “shove it where….” Well never
mind. I’m sure you get the idea. Everyone is hoping that the ice on the lake
will melt soon so that Stinky will be so busy over at the
You-Sink-Em-We-Salvage Marina that they won’t have to hear that tale any more.
Pastor Pomeroy has been trying everything he can
think of to increase attendance at the Rock of Ages Stone Church. He was thinking that with all the snow,
people would have nothing better to do than come to the church. They’ve had chicken and biscuit dinners,
spaghetti dinners, pancake dinners, and a Christian music sock hop (which fell
to pieces when the farm boys showed up fresh from the beer tasting across the
street and proceeded to spread worms everywhere). He even tried a radio-controlled model monster truck rally for
Christ (pastor was hoping that this would attract some young people to the
church), but, his efforts have pretty much been unrewarded.
Poor Pastor Pomeroy. The past six weeks have not been too good for him. Along with the failures of his ideas to
increase attendance, he had a terrible trip down to the Denominational Spring
Rally last weekend. Every spring the
statewide denomination has a rally at one of the churches where members from
all of the churches from around the state get together to worship and enjoy
each other’s fellowship. Pastor Pomeroy
said that he would drive the church van down to the rally and whoever wanted to
come could ride along with him. The
rally was down in Endicott, which is near Binghamton by the Pennsylvania State
Line. Pastor Pomeroy is originally from
Endicott and was looking forward to getting some spiedi’s and hot pie, two
delicacies that are native to that area.
All of the members of the Christian Ladies Fellowship decided that they
wanted to go to the rally, so Sunday, right after church, they all climbed into
the van and headed south toward Endicott.
Right from the start, the conversation in the van
was about Edith and Old Ladd and Viagra.
“How could they have such relations, and not even married, it surely had
to be a sin.” “And Edith, with Old
Ladd, how could she do it without her stomach turning” From there the conversation proceeded into
more detailed discussions of women’s “plumbing” and the techniques that would
have to be employed to accomplish such a feat.
This was definitely something that Pastor Pomeroy did not want to hear
about.
Not more than fifteen minutes into the trip (even
before they had reached Syracuse), one of the women tapped Pastor Pomeroy on
the shoulder and said that she needed to make a stop and soon. He was glad to make the stop and hoped that
the conversation would change once they were all back in the van. So Pastor Pomeroy took the North Syracuse
exit and stopped at a McDonald’s, which later he realized was a mistake. When they all got back in the van, everyone
had a large cup of coffee.
Just after they passed Syracuse, someone else tapped
him on the shoulder – another pit stop.
So Pastor Pomeroy took the Tully exit and stopped in at a Mobil Station
thinking “ah, no coffee here.” But when
they all got back in the van, every one had bottled fruit drinks, which they
had purchased from a vending machine in the gas station. They had also seen an advertisement for a
gift shop in Homer and asked Pastor to stop there as it was half way between
Oneida Lake and Endicott and would be a good time to take a break. “What about the last two stops?” Pastor
mumbled to himself.
He took the Homer exit and stopped at the gift shop. After 30 minutes of shopping, they were back in the van and heading south again. Right before Cortland there was another tap on Pastor’s shoulder and so he pulled off at the Cortland exit and stopped at a tourist information facility. “No drinks here” he hoped. It was then they realized that they had left one of the women back at the gift shop. So Pastor Pomeroy left them all there and headed back north to Homer. He got to the gift shop and found the missing “Christian Lady” and then headed south again to Cortland. He got back to Cortland, loaded everybody back into the van, and headed south once more. “Good, it’s only thirty more miles to Endicott. There shouldn’t be a need for another stop,” he thought to himself. Of course he was wrong.
Right before Binghamton they all wanted to stop and get something to eat. They had left church so fast that they hadn’t had a chance to eat. “Why didn’t you get something to eat when we stopped at the McDonalds in North Syracuse?” Pastor asked. “We don’t like McDonalds. We want Burger King,” they all replied. So Pastor took the first Binghamton exit and spent about 25 minutes driving around looking for a Burger King. He finally found one and they all got out and went in. After about 30 minutes, they were all back in the van and headed to Endicott again, which they reached this time without a stop. They were an hour and a half late and had missed the first half of the rally. The rally got over, but they didn’t leave for another 45 minutes as the ladies were telling anyone that asked about Edith the sordid tale of Edith, Old Ladd and the Viagra. Pastor had hoped to get over to a small market he knew in Endicott and get some speidi’s and hot pie, but with all the stops and the discussions about Edith after the rally it was after 6 PM when they left and the small market would be closed. Luckily for Pastor Pomeroy, they all fell asleep and the trip home was without incident or stops, but he was disappointed that he had not had any speidi’s or hot pie. When they got home, Pastor Pomeroy told his wife that it would be a month of Sundays before he would do that again. That’s about right. The next denominational rally is scheduled for late November.
That’s the news from Oneida Lake where all the women
like to make pit stops, all the men are excited by live bait vending machines,
and all the children like to squash worms with their skateboards.