MORE PEEPS: Rudy Luce and Hunter Cole of Marshburg heard the
first peepers of the year at about 6 p.m. Sunday at Sugar Run.
“They were loud. Really loud,” said Rudy, who could hear the spring
singers even with the windows rolled up.
EARLY BIRDS: A woman who lives on Bloomster Hollow near
Smethport tells us she has about a dozen grosbeaks in her yard.
Her report is in response to a note we carried the other day
from a Smethport resident who is still awaiting the migrants’
return from the South.
And Barb Howard of Bradford tells us that the rose-breasted
grosbeaks don’t usually come around until the beginning of May –
same as hummingbirds.
MINI-BUCKTAIL: Bill Robertson of Duke Center, who has written a
book about Pennsylvania’s legendary Bucktails, tells us his
interest in the Civil War subject was first piqued by a trip with
the school patrols.
We had written recently about the patrols’ annual trip to
Washington, D.C., and Bill, who had been a safety patrol at Lincoln
School, made the journey in 1962.
On the way back from D.C., the patrols stopped at Gettysburg
where they saw a Bucktail statue. In imitation, the kids wore
coonskin caps – “kepi caps,” Bill calls them. Buck tails may not
have been widely available but raccoon tails were.
And this, so many years later, was his inspiration for the book,
“Hayfoot, Strawfoot, the Bucktail Recruits.” He even used this
school patrol picture in the book.
MUSICAL NOTES: John J. Cummiskey of Bradford writes about our
recent item on local musicians.: “Music note from Joe Bennett. I
knew his father, Fran Bennett, well. I also knew a number of the
other musicians, too. Jimmy Poyer was a cousin of mine. I notice
that the two big bands – Dick O’Day and Johnny Grady – are not
mentioned.”
“A trio who played full time at the Lewis Run Lafayette Club
consisted of Harry Kraft, a fine pianist from the Buffalo area, who
married into the Bradford Austin family. Next, a good drummer from
San Antonio, Texas.
“Sam Thomas ‘Saxie’ played saxophone for the group. Sam was a
cousin of mine on my mother’s side and a Bradford man. After
military service, Sam played in Chicago and Benton Harbor, Mich.
Period of time for this trio was 1935-40.”
