MAYFLOWERS: Believe it or not, Joe Cucuzza phoned Wednesday to
report he and his family picked the first Mayflowers of the spring
season this past Sunday on the hill up behind the former Valley
Hunt Club in Lewis Run.
As faithful RTS readers know, we await this call every year
since Mayflowers wouldn’t dare to bloom until it’s spring.
Joe carried on the family tradition Sunday with his wife,
Christe, and children Aaron, Clayton and Michelle.
Who said that April is the cruelest month? Perhaps someone who
lived through our so-called “spring.”
US GRANT: Harold Pier provides a bit more information on a visit
to this region by President Grant: “Ulysses Grant visited Gen.
Thomas L. Kane in Kane in 1876. He fished with Thomas Kane’s son,
Elisha K. Kane in Kinzua Creek. Elisha Kane later founded
Kushequa.”
CITY COPS: Dick Murphy writes, “I was just reading RTS and the
policeman that came to mind and a guy that a lot of us East End
kids had fun with was Louis Strait. He was a good guy and we put
him through his paces a lot. It was always the game ‘catch me if
you can,’ and when he did catch us it was just a stern lecture and
there better not be a next time. The good old days.”
’42 FLOOD: Tim Chase of Port Allegany writes, “As a regular
reader I viewed with interest the items on the 1942 flood. Unless I
missed it, I saw no mention of Port Allegany.”
“Some of the older residents have told me that it rained so hard
that the water literally exploded from the hills surrounding town
flooding the residential and business districts of Port. Lives were
lost and most of the town was left with much damage. Only
courageous acts by local residents kept the death toll from being
higher.
“The force of the water was so strong in one instance that it
swept autos through the back wall of the Chevy garage and deposited
them on the Pennsy RR tracks near the depot. You can still see
signs of the damage inflicted so many years ago.
“Someone else can probably give you a more detailed account of
this disaster, but I feel that Eldred and other towns have been
left out of the accounts as related in your newspaper.”
