Date: Fri 01-May-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

Mountain-referendum

Full Text:

TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN

If you're like me, sometimes you feel like getting away from it all to some

quiet place with no interruptions or intrusions. For a while on Tuesday, it

looked like the polling place at Newtown Middle School was just such a place.

Fewer than nine percent of the town's registered voters showed up to vote one

way or the other on the town's proposed $59.3 budget.

All the down time during the day gave the election officials plenty of time

for cogitation, and evidently, calculation. One of them, Bob Poulin, noted

that the cost of the election is almost 50 cents each for the town's 12,000

registered voters in town. He mused that to encourage voting, they could

charge each registered voter $1, and give back 50 cents to each one who

actually showed up at the polls. "In fact it looks like we could give back 75

cents and still come out ahead," he pointed out.

Mary Ellen McQuail sure had a good time reading The Bee last week. To her

delight she spotted her daughter, Mary Atkinson, and two granddaughters,

Maggie and Ellen Atkinson, pictured on the front page as they visited the

Newtown Visiting Nurse Association's well-child clinic. After turning a few

more pages, there was a picture of another granddaughter, Emma Atkinson, in

The Bee 's weekly "Birthday Cake" feature. Then daughter Mary and

granddaughter Ellen were pictured once again in the "Beelines"

person-on-the-street interviews. A little farther back in the paper, her

daughter-in-law, Patty Gillen McQuail, was pictured for earning her GRI

designation as a realtor, and on the very next page, her two brothers, Mickey

and Bob Keogh, appeared in the "Way We Were" photograph of the St Rose

basketball team back in the late '40s. That was six members of her immediate

family pictured in The Bee all in the same week.

When "Take Your Daughter To Work Day" was celebrated last week, Jan Balmforth

had a problem. She wanted her daughter, Heather, 12, to get a chance to visit

Newtown Florist and see what she does on her part-time job there, but she

wasn't scheduled to work that day. The schedules couldn't be changed but shop

owner Christina Maturi came up with a solution. She "adopted" Heather as her

daughter for the day.

ClearWaters Restaurant is hosting a "Farewell Seinfeld " dinner on Thursday,

May 14, with a six-course menu that will feature foods from several classic

Seinfeld episodes. Diners will eat while the series finale plays on a big

screen TV. What could possibly be on the menu? There's a miniature version of

George Steinbrenner's favorite food, followed by the soup that made the Soup

Nazi famous. Then, the pasta that George's father will never forget. Give the

credit for the next course to George. For dinner, don't sweat it! There are

two choices, so don't stand them up! Finally there is the dessert that brought

Jerry's 14-year streak to an end, accompanied by the beverage that almost made

Kramer rich. And don't forget the bread -- marble rye, of course. The cost is

$26 per person and reservations are required. For more information (or if you

absolutely must know the menu) call ClearWaters at 268-7734.

Speaking of dinner, it was the men's night to cook when Sally and Bill O'Neil

hosted eight couples at their Sandy Hook home Saturday night. Since it was too

early in the season to grill outdoors, the men opted this year to use electric

woks, preparing each diner's plate individually. Steve Landin did such a

bang-up job that everyone agreed he should be promoted from salads to entrees

from now on.

Danbury resident Mary Musnicki called after she learned from a cousin that a

story about her class at the old one-room Flat Swamp Schoolhouse in 1943

appeared in The Bee recently. Then known as Miss Brennan, Mrs Musnicki taught

at the school from September 1941 to June 1946 and her memory of the fire,

sparked by burning papers in an open wire incinerator, is still fresh.

"What an experience," she said. "One boy and myself tried to put it out while

I ordered all the other students to stay in the school. At a time like this

five minutes can seem like hours. I ran across the street (Route 302) to the

luncheonette to make a call to my mother in Danbury to ask if her friend, fire

chief Johnny Mack, would send the Danbury Fire Department."

Eventually volunteers from the Newtown companies arrived and pumped water from

the pond to put out the fire, she said.

Miss Brennan married and stopped teaching when her fiance came home from World

War II. She returned to teaching after her daughter started school and had a

long career in the Danbury schools, retiring 17 years ago.

The new season of Road Rules debuted over the weekend on MTV. In the series, a

group of early 20-somethings travel around the country in a Winnebago, going

on a different adventure every few days. The new season started on a

frightening note, when the five cast members spent a night in one of the

buildings at the former Fairfield Hills Hospital.

By the end of the night, the kids were acting a little strange -- they weren't

possessed or anything, they were just being goofy. Some of the cast members

said staying in a locked room for a few hours was enough to put a good scare

into them, but they couldn't imagine spending months in a place like that.

They were greeted at 6 am the next morning by local ghost hunter Ed Warren,

and then spent some time with Ed and his wife, Lorraine.

Finally, don't forget to pick up your tickets for the May 9 guided tour of

some of Newtown's architectural treasures, sponsored by the Booth Library. The

bus tour, emceed by Town Historian Dan Cruson, will cruise the Hattertown

District and then return to the library for a reception. It sounds like a

great time. You can get your tickets at the adult circulation desk at the

Booth Library.

You don't need a tour guide to find me every week, so wherever you're going

this week, get a round trip ticket so you can...

Read me again.