Chichester Debacle

In town we were all worried that a fugitive was on the loose in our area.  There were 10 State Troopers, the Town of Woodstock Police, Shandaken Police and a helicopter looking for this guy.  Apparently it had nothing due with drugs as was reported to me by my neighbor.  According to the article at the Times Herald Record:

Two men have been arrested after troopers say a 20-year-old woman was dragged into the woods in Phoenicia on Monday and sexually assaulted.

Well, isn’t that nice.

Authorities responded to a reported domestic dispute at Silver Hollow Cabins on Route 214, where the woman was forcibly dragged off. Canine units and state police helicopter searched the area and after two hours spotted the victim and suspect about a half mile from the scene.

That must have been some domestic dispute to call in a helicopter and canine units.

Desmond McCobb, 27, who is homeless, was charged with kidnapping, assault, aggravated sexual abuse and criminal contempt, felonies. John Oakley, 45, of Phoenicia, was charged with unlawful imprisonment and misdemeanor sexual abuse. Both men were being held pending arraignment.

If he is homeless, how in blazes is one homeless in Chichester?

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What is going on with the state of our town, we have a shooting last summer in Phoenicia during a “Domestic Dispute” and now we have another “Domestic Dispute” that leads to two men committing felonies on a woman that include, sexual abuse, kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment.  What is going on here?

Finally Some Rain, Phoenicia Arrest, and Other General Stories

After a brain boiling week the Shandaken Area finally registered some rain.  There still is a ban on using water for anything other then bathing in Phoenicia, according to Rick Ricciardella of the Phoenicia Water Department.  He has banned all sprinklers, hoses or filling up your pool, “there will be fines…” so if you get caught sprinkling your lawn with anything other then Phoenicia Water, your gonna get slapped with a ticket.

Other news –

This is probably old news but so be it, The Skinflower Tattoo shop, on the boardwalk in metropolitan Phoenicia,  had one of their tattooists books stolen by some cretin over the July fourth weekend.

Shop owner, Sunday, yes that’s her name not the day of the week…. Sunday says, “I was doing a tattoo on a client, when some shirtless man walked into my shop and lingered by the books, he then left and so did my book.” No sign of the man or the book.  “I can’t believe it happened here, this is Phoenicia!”

Incredulous or not, bad things still happen to good people in Phoenicia, all the time.

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Reportedly, the news on the street was that Mark Sylak of Shandaken committed suicide by hanging on July 1st.  This is such a shame.  My condolences for his family – suicide is such a waste.

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There was some police and ambulance commotion last night (7/10/2010) in on Ava Maria Drive in the midst of a wake or funeral at Gormley’s funeral home.  Two ambulances appeared and EMT’s approached a man slumped over his steering wheel around 7:00 pm, shortly thereafter two policeman from Shandaken Police, almost leisurely, showed up.  After some discussion with the man, and what appeared to be field sobriety tests, he was led off in handcuffs.  I did see one of the cops putting cans of beer on the roof of the car after he searching the little silver car, so my guess, is the dude was drunk!

From my vantage point it appeared calm and leisurely, not like the movies or television shows, no red lights were flashing and no sirens were blaring.  I didn’t read anything in any ‘local’ papers on this, so I guess, this here is breaking news.

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After trolling the web for news of any kind,  I happened again on the “Watershed Post” they have a big article on Shandaken’s odd political behavior and this website, seeclickfix – view the article here.   I did a little research on this seeclickfix in Shandaken and saw some interesting posts, I suggest you check them out.  In other seeclickfix news, I was on my way to Woodstock on Friday and I saw a cop car on Wittenberg Rd, near Winne Road, he was sitting in a driveway, luckily I was actually doing the speed limit and thankfully, I had turned on my radar detector when I got into my Prius.  I wondered why he was sitting there, obviously he was looking for speeders, but I wondered if it had anything to do with seeclickfix.  Apparently yes, it did, see – seeclick fix issue number 43254 titled “Speed Limit Reduction is” by someone calling themselves Sandy Shultis.

Shultis says, “Current speed limit is 45mph. It must be reduced to 35mph from the four corners in Mt. Tremper to the Wittenberg Store. Too many speeding cars going way over the limit. I sometimes fear for my safety while out running or walking the dogs.”

Sorry, to hear that you only SOMETIMES fear for your safety.

There are many other comments ranging from absurd like:

stupidity abounds wrote 3 days ago, “get your neighbors to petition the cops to patrol???? To do their JOBS???? How about demand the town board to order them to do their jobs!!!!!! What a joke!!!!”

Stupidity abounds, it is not necessary to use more then one exclamation point, punctuation and capitalization is though.

There was one comment from someone calling himself George and I guess it is a cop because he wrote:

“This issue was opened 16 days ago? We do not routinely check this website for complaints, please call us if you have an issue you would like addressed. We patrol this area irregardless of complaints, the road is narrow, winding, and hilly. The lack of shoulders restricts where the police can set up RADAR enforcement. In the past, residents said we could use their driveways, we have tried this tactic, unfortunately the driveways in question did not provide us with the proper line of sight to effectively use stationary RADAR. Moving RADAR is possible and has been used in the past by myself, again, due to the winding, hilly, narrow road it is generally unsafe for us to make a u-turn to pull over vehicles.
Peds have the right of way in a crosswalk and all drivers should use due care when operating their vehicles.
Please use the more common ways of communicating to us by phone or email – you may contact the Shandaken Police at 845-688-9902 or email chief(at)shandakenpolice.us or gneh(at)shandakenpolice.us or visit at shandakenpolice.us
Thanks”

I would say that was fairly decent answer and to see a cop out there the very next day, well I guess seeclickfix does work.  I wonder what if anything the police have done about the comment group about Hanover Farms and their “Dangerous Pullout” dun dun duuunnnnnuuunnnnnn!

There is no response in there from this George person on the comment section of the Hanover “issue”.

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Well, that’s that for now, I guess.  Hopefully in the coming days I will happen upon another interesting story or two.  No gnus is good gnus.

It’s the Fourth of July, Again

It’s the fourth of July. Again.  We Americans celebrate our independence from the British and a bit of rabble-rousing is to be expected.  Route 28 was clogged generally westbound traffic heading from points south to points west, in the olden days I suspect, the roads were clogged with bicycles and horses.  Most pedestrian traffic was in the hamlets where the boarding houses were.  The U&D railroad was ferrying passengers from the Kingston Point Beach up through the Catskills, and west to Fleischmann’s and the Grand Hotel.

These days, you have your SUV’s and family sedan’s blazing a trail to their camps, their cabins and their summer homes.  Many display’s of fireworks are gonna happen, some private and some public.  The Belleayre Music Fest Kicks off tonight and a huge firework display is to take place up there on the mountain.  Two shows at the Village park in Maragertville, the first on Saturday 7/2 at 10:15 pm and the latter on Sunday 7/3 at 9:30 pm.  That’s pretty much it, Shandaken is still working on their Shandaken Day, for sometime in August most likely the second or third weekend of August, the town website does not give us a date to plan by and we have yet to see any posters in shop windows.  Hopefully someone will post some informational fliers shortly so we can plan on being in town for what has usually been a wonderful day.

Enjoy the fourth of July, the United States’ day of Independence from tyranny.

Emerson Resort is Hitting it Big With Locals and Not-So-Locals

The Emerson Resort has gone from the pompous:

There’s a silk road running through…blah, blah, blah

to: Come one, Come All to Pug Day!

Wow and amen!  Thank you Je-hesus for fixing The Emerson, now I can have dinner while dressed in chinos and a plain black tee shirt.  I can dress my little doggie up in his pink dress and parade him around for all the world to know, that yes, my dog is a transexual and proud of it.

I am just joshing you guys.

My dog Bella is a proud female, who enjoy’s manly romps through the woods, mud, water, hay, more mud and she knows where to find fun.  The fun recently found by Bella, was in my underwear drawer.  Bella snatched all of my once expensive, now worthless, skivvies and chewed holes where there shouldn’t be holes, leaving behind, slobbered remains of cotton, silk, bamboo, and plenty of fur.

The real fun, other than the underwear drawer,  was to be had by young and old, short and tall, fat and skinny, four legged, two legged, standing on one leg, having no legs, red haired, black haired- okay I think you get the picture- it was really really fun on Saturday June 19th at The Emerson Resort’s PUG DAY.

A select few, may feel that the Emerson has lost its haughty ways and are upset that they will not cater anymore to their self-important ways. Well we say pshaw, the very idea!  The Emerson Resort is truly a place where I will spend my money, especially if they keep putting on these great Pug Days, Antique Shows, Art Exhibits, Campfire Nights, and Festival of the Voice Shows.  And, if I get some special treatment, that the Emerson is known to give freely of, I won’t complain.

5 stars to the Emerson Resort and it’s down to earth, friendly, hospitable, and caring staff!

(did I mention that I really like The Emerson Resort and their new changes?)

Mama’s Boy Market – Oh What a Dream!

Mam’s Boy Market has been open now for about three weeks.  The owner Michael Koegel and his staff of teenagers and college students are wonderfully smart and great service providers.  The fact that dogs and smokers are not shunned is wonderful and makes for a home like experience.  Mama’s Boy Market is located on Church St at Main St.  Yes right on the corner in a little blue house with a large expansive deck and covered deck.  Mama’s Boy carries, food from Amy’s Take-away, which is located in Lanesville, NY (local for all of us who know it’s down on route 214 towards Hunter), fresh pulled taffy from a shop in Hunter, Jane’s Ice Cream from Kingston, NY, the coffee is the best around-good old Monkey Joe’s from Kingston as well.

The winning combination is Koegel, his staff and that wonderful small town ambiance.  No one is rushing around except for the kids in their pickup trucks and two seaters.  This cafe/market/more of a cafe then a market, is brandy new in an old little cottage in the center of Phoenicia.  The front yard with Chip Gallagher’s sculptures is wonderful to look at, the Art’s Upstairs is across the street.  The Boardwalk and it’s wonderful treasure trove of shops.

They say, I don’t know who they are, but they say, “Phoenicia is possibly the new Woodstock.”  I hope, that this”New Woodstock” doesn’t become like Woodstock now, a visit last weekend to Woodstock yielded stuffy shops crammed with tourists, cars whizzing by on Tinker Street and sidewalks packed shoulder to shoulder,  it was like walking the sidewalks of SoHo in the 80’s.

So if you want a pleasurable dreamlike walk, a calm cup of coffee, a delectable pastry and a double cone of Killer chocolate, visit Mama’s Boy Market.  While you are in town stop by the Art’s Upstairs, visit Cabane Studio for some more local art, and maybe just maybe, you will work up the courage to get a tattoo at the new Skinflower Tattoo Shop on the Boardwalk.  Welcome to Phoenicia and we will welcome you back.

The Shandaken Bugle, Welcome!

The staff of two here at The Shandaken Bugle decided that enough was enough.  We wanted to hear of the daily goings on in Shandaken and not the bi-weekly going on’s, no offense to “The Phoenicia Times” and their staff of editors, writers and publishers is intended.  As previous newspaper men and women we all understand deadlines and publication costs as well as overhead and the like.

We moved to this lovely burg some 3 years ago from the big city, we do not think we know it all, nor do we think that the natives of this beautiful town are idiots, and we hope that you don’t think the same of us.  We came across some political blogs and we were a mite bit disgusted.  We are not here to dwell on these blogs of poor taste or any other blogs for that matter.  My wife and I hope to spread the news throughout the world wide web and of course to the good people of the Town of Shandaken and all of her hamlets.

We relish in our privacy, we are social people but when I say relish, I profusely insist that our expectation of privacy  is our motive for moving from the city that never sleeps to the town that moves at a much slower pace.  What I am trying to say, and not well at that, is that we are writing this blog under ghost names.  Terribly sorry to offend if I have, but we do not require more publicity, we have had enough, we don’t need any more dirty looks and scornful remarks in front of  AND behind our backs.  We wish to be benefactors to our new found community and hope that we will receive back, in kind.

We hope to provide you, our readers, with some links of interest, links to additional blogs highlighting our wonderful area, to provide links to service providers, but alas, we may not be able to, due to wordpress.com’s terms of service.  We wish to deliver daily updates but please provide us with some latitude,  we have things we like to do other then blog.

Welcome to all of you who are visiting, please become a fan, link to us, send us some photos, write some comments, send an email and visit often.