CALL HOME: Here’s one call that was answered — and for a great
cause.

Debi Bigley and Valerie Meacham of the Frances Sherman Auxiliary
informed us that nearly 100 cell phones donated by area residents
are on their way to our troops as part of the “Cell Phones for
Soldiers” program.

“We thank the community for the donations,” Valerie said. “There
are still bags available at VFW Post #212 at 94 Barbour St. The
prepaid collection bags will hold up to three cell phones.”

The donated cell phones are then refurbished at the program’s
collection center before being distributed to the troops.

The program was started in 2004 with the goal of enabling our
soldiers overseas to call home. If we might borrow from an old
telephone company advertisement, it’s a great way to “reach out and
touch” the lives of our dedicated men and women in the
military.

SLEIGH RIDES:  One of our readers reminisced about the memorable
sleigh rides that once were part of wintertime fun in Bradford.

“In the early 1940’s, when I was a Girl Scout,” she said, “a
team of horses and a sleigh or wagon would pull up to the old Girl
Scout house on Corydon Street.”

From there, she said, the girls rode out Interstate Parkway to a
road off Hedgehog Lane to the home of fellow Scout Mimi Haskell,
where cocoa was waiting for the no-doubt invigorated
passengers.

She said either Ed O’Meara or Ed Spittler was the man behind the
reins. Spittler, she recalled, was originally from Limestone, N.Y.,
but later moved to Smethport.

Spittler often hired out his team and wagon for rides and was a
visible presence in parades at the time, she said.

BACK WHEN: Our item in today’s “Another Era,” 50 years ago, jogs
the memory of those of us who remember the fire that gutted
Zirkle’s Restaurant, but had forgotten the history behind the
building. At the time of the fire, the building at Main and River
streets in Limestone, N.Y., was a 125-year-old landmark, one of the
first erected in the village.

“In its pioneer days,” the Era account of the fire said, “it
housed the Tuna Valley General Store operated by a tannery, the
Steerhead Leather Co.”

Before Arthur Zirkle took over, the building had been owned by
Louis Gentile who had been proprietor of Gentile’s Restaurant
there.