North Country Briefs

These tidbits were selected for me by my father from the past few months' Watertown Daily Times, and now I'm passing them on to you. None of them are as good as the windchime theft article (a windchime had been removed from a porch; "no suspects [had been] identified"), and no way do any of them come close to the DWI case of the guy driving his lawnmower home carrying a pizza who fell asleep stopped on an overpass on the way home. Still carrying the pizza. He had lost his license for DWI (in a car, one presumes), and also had been arrested once for trying to "direct traffic" while intoxicated. Nor do these match the item that covered a sad weekend when a woman both threatened her husband with a hammer and then later smacked him with a pair of pants, landing her in custody. But they will do.

Woman Cited in Assault In Frying Pan Incident

LAFARGEVILLE - Paula E. Snyder, 46, of 36768 Sprucedale Ave., has been summoned to town of Orleans court following a domestic fight Saturday night when she allegedly hit a man in the face with a frying pan, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department. She is charged with third-degree assult of Christopher Gushlaw, 35, same address, deputies said. Mr. Gushlaw declined treatment for a black eye, deputies said.

Frying pan assaults seem to crop up in the North Country Briefs often enough that my father has a tidy collection of them, spanning years.

Man Charged in Theft Of Beer Bottle in Pants

A Watertown man was charged Friday afternoon with petit larceny after he tried to walk out of a grocery store with a bottle of beer in his pants, city police said. Earl Tooley, 59, of 653 State St., Apt. 1, attempted to steal a 22-ounce bottle of beer from the Great American supermarket, 672 State St., police said. He is to appear in City Court on Oct. 27, police said.

Part of the fun of these briefs is how very much info they pack in about a tiny, tiny incident. Quotes from the pants-slapping victims, the high school the DUI-suspect attended, the number of ounces in the beer you shoved down your pants, EVERYone's exact apartment number. I mean, this is such a small town community, when you lay out a photo montage of North Nosebleed AKA Adams Center, my (and Melvil Dewey's! our celebrity can out-librarian your town's celebrity!) home town, taken from the local grain elevator, the whole thing fits in 6 photos (handily fits). The area is full of tiny hamlets like this. Even with Fort Drum expanding now and then, the whole county only has 100,000 people, maybe. The only public transport connecting us to the world, the Greyhound route from Massena to Syracuse, has been cancelled due to lack of ridership. I used to know that bus schedule by heart, catching the bus at the end of my road to go somewhere (anywhere). Shouting over my shoulder "I've got my key, don't wait up!"


And lastly, from the very place where I went to school (the next field over from the high school):

Golf Cart Found Sunk

ADAMS - A golf cart at Tomacy's Golf Course was found submerged in a water hazard Sunday morning, according to state police. Somebody removed the cart from the area of the pro shop between 11 pm Saturday and 6 am Sunday, police said.

Part of the fun of this one is that - you may notice - it's a crime being handled by the State Police. Not the local police. Why? Because there are no local police. No professional fire fighters. A smattering of EMTs. When my horse kicked me in the head a local EMT happened by some miracle to be driving by and see me fall in the manure pile, so I got primo care and a fast ambulance ride. Otherwise, who knows when I'd have gotten help. We only get about about two dozen cars on the road all day. When my sister and I set up lemonade stands we always had to eat the costs. No customers up this way.

Speaking of my sister, she is also passing through the Nosebleed and today we went cross-country skiing, which put us in the mood to reminisce about how we had to do this for gym class throughout our school years. We skiied around the elementary school track, noses and eyes tearing-up in the wind and cold, and talked about how stinky and awful the shoes would be by the end of the day. The way they'd conduct the first couple classes every year without poles, a great hilarity for the many students with weight problems. The way the school would be pondering whether to close early because of terrible wind and blinding snow, but we'd still be out there on the ski trail, doing timed laps. One year I had a first period gym class (i.e. skiing in the dark AND the snow AND the wind), and honestly the skiing section of the year was a little more fun-- dry shoes, a clean trail (instead of a plaster-smooth sheet of skid marks) - even the chance to break the trail, which I got to do once or twice. But this time I was with my 3-years-elder big sister, and we didn't even discuss it-- she broke the trail.

She is, after all, stuck in a condo in Manhattan the rest of the year. I get California.