Letters to the editor

Posted 12/11/19

December 12 to 18

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Letters to the editor

Posted

Happy 95th birthday to you, Barbara Yeaman!

The Upper Delaware Council, Inc. (UDC) is taking this opportunity of marking your upcoming 95th birthday on Monday, December 16 to express our appreciation for your enduring legacy of contributions to the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River Valley.

After coming to the Upper Delaware region in 1979, you played an integral role in establishing the National Park Service Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River. You were key in developing the River Management Plan and land- and water-use guidelines through your service on the Land Use Guidelines Committee and representation of the Sierra Club and National Audubon Society on the Plan Oversight Committee.

Your educational background in art and environmental science, experience working in Washington, D.C. for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Water as a public-education consultant, and tenure as a journalist and photographer for The River Reporter preceded your decision to found a land trust to protect Upper Delaware private properties through conservation easements.

The 1994 formation of the Delaware Highlands Conservancy (DHC) to act as the first accredited land trust for Sullivan and Delaware Counties, NY and Wayne and Pike Counties, PA blossomed under your leadership and guidance to its prominent role a quarter-century later in protecting over 15,000 acres and branching out to address natural heritage issues. Your name is now literally associated with DHC through the establishment a college scholarship and the dedication of the eagle observation blind in the Town of Highland in 2015.

We recognized your environmental activism from your home base at the Butterfly Barn nature center in Milanville, PA with the Upper Delaware Council’s 1991 Volunteer Award, but that was merely an early indicator of your ultimately far-reaching accomplishments.

On behalf of our board and staff, have a very Happy Birthday!

Harold G. Roeder, Jr.
UDC 2019 Chairperson

‘We are blessed’ with community journalism

In an era in which many communities find themselves starved of local reporting as newspapers decline, suffering from the negative consequences of the inability to hold power to account and unable to celebrate/acknowledge all the day-to-day actions and accomplishments of its citizens, students, volunteers and athletes, we are blessed indeed to have multiple newspapers out there muck-raking and covering the myriad of actions and events that make up a community—be it government, scholastic, business, or non-profit, and be it good, bad, or ugly. A community without a newspaper strains the community, and far too many communities are left to fill that void with national news that means little to each of us on a daily basis, if at all.

To all the publishers, editors, copywriters, opinion writers and gum-shoe reporters, thank you. I know it’s the best couple of dollars I spend each week.

Chuck Petersheim
Eldred, NY

Thank you, Eileen Hennessy

I would like to thank your newspaper and columnist Eileen Hennessy for the article printed about our coupon campaign for the military. Because of the publicity, we have started to receive coupons from new contributors. We have now managed to attain our goal of $100,000. In fact, we have been able to send $102,700 worth of coupons to the U.S. Navy Base in Rota, Spain. Thank you for your help.

Fran Kerwin
Beach Lake, PA

‘River Muse’ elicits nostalgia

Reading Cass Collins’ River Muse column about small-business owners, which appeared in the December 5 issue of TRR, brought home a sense of nostalgia.

As young newlyweds in 1982, my husband Brian and I bought a weekend fixer-upper in Narrowsburg. We would drive up late on Friday nights from Secaucus, NJ and spend our Saturday mornings at the Midtown Café, long before it became the Chatterbox Cafe. Across the street was the infamous Lion’s Den and at the bottom of the street, before the train overpass, was Stranahan’s hardware store, where one could find just about anything. In 1988, when we learned that Günther’s German bakery on Main Street was up for sale, we persuaded my parents to buy the building so we could take over the bakery. We assured them that “it would be a great investment opportunity,” as we’d heard that Narrowsburg was soon to become the next Woodstock. That summer, Brian and I opened the Catskill Cookie Co. One of our first customers was Beverly Sterner, who’d come in for her weekly scone “fix.” The other tenants in the building (now home to the Chi Hive) included our friend Chris Holden, who rented out a small space in the back for his photography studio, and Linda Pienik, who created lovely floral bouquets. A few doors down, Norman Meyer sold guns, and then there was Charlie the barber, who always gave a pretty decent haircut.

Lisa Rubin-Woods
Beach Lake, PA

‘Trump warns trade talks with China may last past 2020 election’

What happens to local spending when a storm warning targets an area? Goods fly off the shelves. Local business booms. When our nation is at war (yes, even a trade war) we circle the wagons and ask the incumbent president to lead us through. (At least until after the election, right?)

Trade wars (especially with China) loom over the entire nation. Businesses dependent on Chinese imports as well as consumers have an incentive to buy now before the tariffs hit. Why should the president seal a deal now, as long as people are spending (economy robust) in anticipation of tariffs if his main concern is getting re-elected? No matter, for Trump personally, that consumer debt is now at an all-time high. With no third term possible, why should Trump try to strike a better deal for the American people after the election? China wins, Trump claims victory, Americans lose.

Cordell Bowman
Shohola, PA

Barbara Yeaman, Upper Delaware Council, community journalism, Eileen Hennessy, River Muse, trade wars, China

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here