BEST PLACE: Gary Barr writes, “Reading Becky Yunkun’s
recollections of days gone by brings the nostalgia out. There
wasn’t a better place in the late 50s or early 60s to grow up in.
Nothing kids today can relate to.”

“Pa Fraley pickin’ the banjo, cousin Shelby’s ghost stories,
dances at the Y or Kiwanis Club. Hunting and fishing or just
walking the tracks to the river… there will never be an innocence
like that again.”

FOR BIRDS: John McCoy, writing from Arlington, Va., says: “When
I saw the comment about robins in your Monday column, I was
reminded that a few weeks ago Public Radio’s Science Friday show
included a discussion about migratory birds with researchers from
the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and one of the scientists had
commented that many robins in the United States don’t really
migrate.”

He passed along this information from the lab’s website:
“Although robins are considered harbingers of spring, many American
robins spend the whole winter in their breeding range. But because
they spend more time roosting in trees and less time in your yard,
you’re much less likely to see them. The number of robins present
in the northern parts of the range varies each year with the local
conditions.”

In addition, “Robins can be found year round almost anywhere
south of Canada. Birds that breed from Canada to the north slope of
Alaska leave in fall for the U.S. Some robins winter as far south
as the Southwest, Mexico, and the Gulf Coast.”

As if on cue, we got a note from Don Carlson down in Punta
Gorda, Fla.: “I have a birdfeeder but never see any robins. One
year there was some at my feeder. But only one year. Ask them to
stop by.”

We would ask them but we haven’t seen one in a month or so. They
must be roosting in the trees, out of sight.

GAS PAINS: William Ditty of Bradford writes: “Oct. 28, 2009,
3:30 p.m. Johnsonburg, gas price, $2.609 Kwik Fill. Bradford Kwik
Fill, same day, 4 p.m., $2.779. Does United Refinery charge
Bradford Kwik Fill $.17 a gallon more than Johnsonburg on the same
day? Do not insult us with the old statement of ‘supply and
demand.’”