CRAZY FRANK: Our friend Hollywood Helen apparently has a date for a dance at this August’s Festa Italiana.

Frank Hatch of Limestone, N.Y., tells us to be on the lookout for him “tripping the light fantastic” with Hollywood who is known to enjoy a spin around the dance floor.

Frank has vowed to his friends over breakfast at the Lighthouse restaurant that he’ll give Helen a whirl during the three-day event later this summer. We’ll see if Helen agrees, though!

BLACK ‘CAT’: Skip Riekofsky of Kushequa has a post script about that big black cat people have reportedly been seeing: “I find myself wondering how many, if any, of the black cat sightings are a case of mistaken identity since the fisher population is increasing. In some areas of the great north they are referred to as ‘fisher cats.’”

Skip raises an interesting possibility although the fishers, we believe, are far smaller than the animals described to us. Still, we can’t think of a more plausible explanation for these big black cats — other than a panther and that sounds impossible.

TUCKER TIME: Mark Johnson writes from Kane: “… have been reading about Tucker cars in your paper. Thursday night 8 p.m. on History Channel, Modern Marvels had a short piece on it. Thought you might like to see it. With today’s computers you could probably get a replay.”

Just by happenstance, we did see that program. It was true to everything we’ve been writing about for the past couple months.

OLD BOTTLES: Dave Winner of Bradford stopped by to show us a few old medicine bottles given to him by a friend. Each carried a Bradford location — Davis and Cottrell, druggist and stationers, 95 Main St.; Thompson and Wood druggist, no street address given; and George C. Fagnan druggist, 127 Main St. These old bottles pop up almost as often as old Bradford Era pencils which appear as regularly as the full moon.

WHAT’S THAT: A gentleman stood at the front counter at The Era the other day, and pulled out a wallet to pay for a few copies of that day’s edition. His billfold contained a $20 bill, a couple $10s, and a handful of $1. In our day of credit and cash cards, it honestly looked strange to see “folding money.”