NOT BEARS: Jack Brunner of Bradford can tell us unequivocally
that it is not bears tearing up large amounts of sod in search of
grubs. It’s crows!

Jack worked at Pine Acres golf course for six years and
witnessed crows pulling us the sod “like a spade was taken to it.”
“They don’t use their feet – they do it with their beaks.”

Jack remembers riding the mowers only 10-15 feet away – and it
took only a few to wreak havoc on the manicured surface. “I drove
by watching them do it. We were dumbfounded.”

THE BEACH: Don Carlson’s question about that swimming hole on
High Street some 60 years ago got a couple takers.

Jim Flynn of Erie writes, “Ah, yes. Skinny dipping at ten foot!
A little crude oil to get a fire started and a length of garden
hose for swinging out to the center of the creek. With Jack and
Patsy, their cousin Jimmy, Georgie C., Bobby, Jumbo and his
brothers Vic and Sammy. With Lynn and Shela peeking from the
bushes.”

“Nope, I don’t remember. That all went away with the flood
control project.”

Vic Longo of Bradford phoned us Monday to tell us about this
“Bare A- Beach,” as he called it, where your birthday suit was the
only one you needed.

“It was fun. Our place to go,” he reports. Mostly, it was for
5th ward kids with a few others sprinkled in.

SIGN OF TIMES: Two things we can be sure of in Bradford: Geese
fly south at this time of year, and gas prices are higher than
practically any other place around.

Valerie Meacham of Bradford writes, “Friday, Sept. 18, going to
Erie, a flock of geese spotted in V-formation over Chautauqua Lake.
Ugh. … Where was summer!? FYI … stopped at Junction to get gas, it
was more than Bradford’s and Erie’s prices spotted were 2.59 and
2.55. If you have to go to Erie, fill up there!”

We also had a call Monday morning on our answering machine from
a man identifying himself only as “a Bradford resident.” Gas prices
in Kane, he reports, have been ,2.45 “for weeks.”

We also had a call last week with reports confirming those
prices in Kane. On Tuesday, Kane hit that ,2.45 mark; on Labor Day,
they were ,2.49 at one station.