Melissa Stagnaro

Seven years ago today I received a phone call from my brother, Dennis. “Are you watching TV?” he asked. I’d been heading out the door, but noticing something in his voice, I grabbed the remote.

Plans were immediately forgotten as I watched images of smoke and flames loop on the screen. I stayed in front of that TV for hours watching footage of what was happening in New York and Washington.

I juggled phone calls and tried to reach family members and friends. My efforts to reach those in the New York and DC areas grew more frantic every time I heard the words “all circuits are busy.”

I had countless relatives and college classmates living and working in and around the World Trade Center at the time of the attack. I had lived in Northern Virginia for several years, just a few miles from the Pentagon, and still had many friends in the area. Even though all of my loved ones made it home that day I can’t think of each of their stories, let alone write about them, without crying. I thank God for keeping them safe.

So many families were torn apart on that day seven years ago. My story is insignificant compared to theirs. I feel guilt and sorrow for the losses they deal with every day. My thoughts and prayers go out to them even more today as we look back and remember.

Previous generations talk about where they were when they learned of Pearl Harbor or Kennedy’s assassination. We’ll talk about where we were on September 11th. As I sit here typing, I am back in my sister’s living room all over again, witnessing the world change on 32″ screen.

I remember looking at the calendar that day, determined to commit the date to memory. Like any of us would or could ever forget. I know I, for one, never will.

Jessica Lewis

Some people are more technically advanced than others. That much is obvious. That’s why it doesn’t surprise me when I meet someone who doesn’t have a computer or know how to send a text message or who has no clue what a blog is. However, I think the technology of an answering machine is something that everyone should be embracing by the year 2008.

According to About.com’s history of the answering machine, the first automatic answering machine was invented in 1935, and machines were being sold in the United States by 1960. They may not have been popular and readily available until the 1980s, but I think 48 years is long enough to become acquainted with a product and to figure out how it works.

I know there are people who dislike answering machines and voice mail, and I’m okay with that. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but if you’re a public official, I think you should be required by law to have some type of answering machine. I’m not sure how any public official could keep up with their constituents and the important news they need to be aware of without some type of answering device.

Maybe I’m the only one who is annoyed by the fact that I can’t leave messages for some public officials, but try calling a number everyday for a week, getting no answer and having no ability to let them know you called, and you might just get annoyed too, so if any public officials are reading this, please, for the good of my sanity, submit to modern technology and get yourself an answering machine.

Melissa Stagnaro

The change of season seems to have come overnight to the hillsides. Perhaps it is Colorscape’s spell that has inspired mother nature to pull out her pots of autumn-tinted paints and drag her brushes with practiced hand across the landscape, weaving a full spectrum of crimson and gold through yesterday’s palette of verdant green.

I can understand because I, too, feel myself inspired by the festival. As I walk through this gathering of musical and artistic talent for the first time, my thoughts are of osmosis. I fervently hope that the passion and creativity surrounding me will leach through my skin and be absorbed by every cell.

I breath in, savoring the scent of paint and lullaby of music in the air. And then I exhale with the hope that I am making some small contribution to the creative melange on the wind. My addition to the mix? The love of poetry and prose.

Patrick Newell

“I wonder why the powers that be in Norwich and Sherburne don’t schedule each other. We’re both Class B, I think. We play some of the same teams that Norwich does know. If Norwich played Sherburne instead of each playing some of these northern communities, I estimate that the citizens of both communities would save $4,000 in gas. Really. Let’s schedule these games closer to home. We’re 13 miles apart.”

This comment will appear in an upcoming “30 Seconds” column, and I don’t often have the opportunity to address statements from that forum. And I cannot call them up and offer a brush-up or clarification on the realities of scheduling, due to the callers’ anonymity. As much as anyone, If it made sense, I would love to see the Marauders and Tornado play more games. In the case of Norwich – and conversely Sherburne-Earlville and Otselic Valley – it is in a “league” all of its own. The Tornado have competed as a member of the Southern Tier Athletic Conference (STAC) for over 35 years. Most of Norwich’s opponents are Triple Cities-area teams, or those of like school size – Class B or A. There is, though, a small window for Norwich to play local schools, all of whom are much, much smaller in size. In the past two years, Norwich has faced various teams from Sherburne-Earlville (basketball), Unadilla Valley (basketball), and Greene (football). Other than those rare non-league crossovers, the opportunities to square off against Chenango County neighbors are rare. Sherburne-Earlville, as informed readers may know, positioned itself in Section III about six years ago, and plays teams primarily from the Utica area. It is true, Sherburne-Earlville and Norwich are only a dozen miles apart, yet the centerpoint of each other’s leagues covers about 90 miles. We also need to consider the competitive balance of each school. There will be years where the smaller school (S-E) will have a strong, competitive team in a particular sport. Perhaps that team will beat Norwich. Heck, I know of at least two or three sports where Sherburne-Earlville would consistently upend Norwich. In reality, the overall competitive balance swings heavily in the Tornado’s favor, and old rivalries that took place in the ‘70s and ‘80s are a thing of the past because of Norwich’s dominance. And as for the gas prices, I feel your pain.

Melissa Stagnaro

I made the mistake, I mean decision, to take a road trip over Labor Day weekend. In a roughly 72-hour period, my boyfriend and I traveled the 1,740 miles round trip to visit my brother Dennis and his family for approximately 30 minutes. OK. Maybe we were there for a little longer than that, but not a whole heck of a lot. I’m still recovering.

We departed for our southern destination on Friday afternoon, “enjoying” construction related traffic jams and inclement weather much of the way through Pennsylvania. The mountains of western Virginia are gorgeous, but difficult to see in the dark.

After close to 12 hours on the road, we finally stopped for a few hours of rest. We were just three hours or so to our destination in Dunlap, Tennessee, but too tired to continue on.

An early start saw us enjoying the beautiful morning meandering through the Tennessee mountains thanks to the scenic route our GPS had mistakenly assumed would be faster and more direct than that recommended by Dennis. I tried to make the argument that perhaps, since my brother had actually lived in the area for several years, we should follow his directions. I was overruled. Apparently I lack the required testosterone (or internal electrical circuits) to make decisions of that nature.

Once we arrived at the mountain-top lake my Tennessee brethren call home, we had a great time. We spent blissful hours fishing and paddling around the lake. I lost count of the number of puzzles and board games with my 7-year-old niece, whose birthday prompted the visit.

The time flew by and, all too soon, we were packing the car again to head north. Our trip back was relatively uneventful. The weather was gorgeous, and it the drive was mostly enjoyable. Other than the whole driving part. And being in the car.

I’m not disappointed that we took the trip. I have always believed that the purpose of travel is to open our eyes to the world around us. And let me tell you, my eyes were opened to one thing in particular. The huge disparity that exists between gas prices here in Chenango County and those outside our area.

Gas was easily the biggest expense of our trip and I paid close attention to prices along our route. The most we ever paid for gas was before leaving New York State: $3.63 a gallon outside of Binghamton. Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee? All cheaper. I’d have to take a closer look at my receipts to give you an average, but I’ll tell you this–I nearly wept with joy when we filled up for $3.44 per gallon at a service station somewhere off Interstate 75 in Tennessee.

I did weep when I returned to Chenango County and saw gas stations along the Route 12 corridor still at over $3.80 a gallon. And it certainly was not with joy.

Tyler Murphy

Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin says she won’t support sex-explicit education… but said she doen’t just support abstinence only programs. What exactly is in between? Talk about semantics. When you add pro-life (anti-choice) with pro-abstinence programs you get… a pregnant 17 year-old daughter.

“Sex-explicit” is a political term designed to make a health class that teaches proactive measures in avoiding STD’s and teen pregnancy sound dirty because many religious traditions forbid premarital sex.

I understand the agony of using words like penis and vagina in an educational high school environment, it must be torturous. Even more terrible is actually acknowledging the glaring statistics of teen sexual activity and then not trying to address it.

Shocking I know, but pretending that kids aren’t having sex or that they’ll stop if we pretend it doesn’t exist doesn’t make HIV or teen sex vanish. If someone is really pro-life how about taking proactive measures on sex education and birth control to help avoid it?

The U.S. has a deplorable teen pregnancy rate compared to other countries.An abstinence ideal might soothe the minds of parents but in practice it’s a religious fundamental joke.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7593735.stm

Jessica Lewis

If I told you the only way to ever lose weight was to never eat any of the foods you enjoyed, you would probably not be the least bit interested in being healthy. There would be some people who were willing to ignore temptation and be healthy individuals, but many would probably be tempted into cheating at least once in a while.

I think abstinence only education has about the same chances of working. Ever since hearing that Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, an advocate of abstinence only education, is the mother of a pregnant teen, I’ve beet thinking about all of the failures of this type of program. There are going to be some teens who are for it. They’re going to hold firm to their beliefs and wait until they’re ready to have sex. Other teens are going to determine they are ready and like it or not, they’re going to do what they want.

I think it’s obvious that abstinence only education isn’t the answer for every kid. A cookie cutter solution isn’t going to stop teen sex, and if you ignore all of the other options, you’re basically sweeping the issue under the rug and pretending it doesn’t exist.

I know there are those who think that teaching kids about sex education is like giving them permission to have sex, but I think in the long run, you need to give kids the ability to be safe and responsible and hope that they make the right choices. If you’re preventing them from getting the knowledge they need to make informed decisions, you’re just setting them up for failure.